‘Heresy!’ the Pharisee said, ‘A son of Abraham must follow the laws of Moses!’
The Baptist looked at him with flares for eyes. ‘You make much of having Abraham for a father, but this alone does not make you worthy! Your body of flesh is like the stones at your feet, in the same way that you can pick up any of these stones and make it yours God can make any man, a child of Abraham.’
Gasps came from the priests. Rants and raves and astonishment filled the air. ‘You dare to say that any man can be a child of Abraham? Any man can enter the lineage of the blood tree of your forebears, which is sanctified by God?’
The Baptist roared like a lion at them, ‘Why do you call on this dying tree! God has given me the axe and I will cut it down!’ He pointed to the people and cried, ‘Israel! This tree no longer bears good fruit!’
The delegation was turned over into a rumble of voices. The guards stood at the ready with their weapons.
‘Jerusalem!’ He pointed at the delegation. ‘Your laws and your knowledge were brought to you by way of Moses, but the time of these laws is finished now! Soon, grace and truth will come into the world by way of the anointed one. He will descend to earth so that the blind sons of Israel may see Him! But only those who can hear the voice of conscience in their hearts will recognise him!’
The rabbis, priests, and Levites talked in an excited fashion among themselves shaking their heads and distorting their countenances. They could not agree. Meanwhile in the crowds, a man called out to John,
‘But how shall we become good men? What is this voice you speak of that is in the heart?’
John the Baptiser answered, ‘Do you not shrink to see others cold or hungry? Do you, who have much, not hear a voice that tells you to help those who have little? This voice speaks tenderly in the wilderness of your soul, and it will say to you - he who has two coats, let him share with him who has none and he who has meat, let him do likewise.’
Then a publican called out, ‘But what of our livelihood? We have to earn a living from the sale of shelter and food! What will you have us do? Give men a bed, and a bowl of soup for free, to be good?’
‘Listen to the voice. It will say: Do not ask for more than is rightfully yours.’
The soldiers who were Herod’s men and had come with the priests and Levites, asked him, ‘How can we soldiers be good men if we must use a sword and accuse others for our wages?’
John the Baptist told them, ‘The voice will say: do not do violence to any man and do not accuse another falsely. What you do must be good and right, if you are to take to yourself your wages and be content.’
‘Who are you?’ Another Pharisee called out, ‘Are you the Messiah?’
John knew these questions needed to be asked, to prevent confusion in the people’s minds, and so he answered, ‘Listen to me…all of you. Know that I am not the Christ. He shall come after me!’
‘Do you say that you are Elijah, then?’ Another priest said.
John shook his head, ‘I am sent in the spirit of Elijah.’
‘But it is said that a prophet will come before the Messiah comes. Are you not that prophet?’
‘I have told you…do not look at me, look for that other who will come!’
‘Who do you say that you are? We must return to tell those who have sent us, the council of great men at the Sanhedrin,’ that same Pharisee said.
‘Tell them that I am the voice of the soul, crying in solitude, cut off from the likes of those who hold fast to the blood of Abraham. I am the free voice without a folk who seeks Him who comes to sustain me!’
‘Why do you preach repentance and baptise, and make pure men, if you are not a prophet, or Elijah, or the Messiah?’ a Levite gave back.
‘I baptise with water, but there stands one among you that you do not recognise. He has the forces derived from a higher source than mine! He is mightier than me for I am not worthy to stoop down to unloosen even the laces of his sandals. I baptise you with water. I do this in preparation for Him who will baptise men not with water, but with the Holy Spirit fire!’
‘Is he here?’
John’s heart was full with joy, ‘I feel he is among us!’
The priests looked about them.
Each man searched his neighbour.
‘Where is he?’ they asked.
‘You shall not see Him until He makes himself known to you.’
The priests mocked him and said he was a madman. They told the crowds that no man should believe such lies and with their dispositions proud, gathered to them the reins of their animals and took themselves and their soldiers from the shores of the river. But two members of the Sanhedrin remained behind and sat among the crowds. John sensed that these men had been touched by his words.
After that, he continued with his work until the sun reached its zenith, and the crowds began, as was their custom, to disperse for the midday meal. Now standing alone in the chilling water, he saw a man step forward and come to the edge of the river.
He put a hand up over his eyes to see, for the sun’s rays were shimmering on the surface of the river, blinding him.
He recognised the man’s form and the contours of his face. How bright did the sun shine at that moment! As if its body were leaning over to touch the river! John squinted, and still he could not see and yet he did see. This was a man he knew, and yet it was not simply that he saw a man he knew, for this man, whom he had met at Qumran, seemed not to be there at all, but in his place was a soul that he recognised in its essential foundations. It was as if he were looking at his own reflection, a part of himself, long lost and forgotten. Did this soul that came towards him not seem like the youngest and purest soul in the world? And was this not the opposite of his own soul, which felt to him ancient, cracked, and used up, like an old jug emptied of its contents?
His heart near burst with the mighty impression this thought created and his eyes filled with tears. He let go his staff into the water for he knew that the day he had longed for had arrived, and it had brought to him the reason for his very existence.
30
THE BAPTISM
The day was nearing its apex. Talons of light fractured the water and made short shadows of men. From the crowds, Jesus saw the priests of the Sanhedrin leave the river, and he waited for a time, until the voices of the people had died down and many had left to seek their midday meal.
He then laid aside his garments and took himself to the river in his loincloth. The man in the river was aglow with light. Colour spilt over him like fluid fire. Jesus saw him put a hand over his brow to see him. Jesus did not pause but entered the silvered water. First his feet, then his ankles, his knees, until the cold came over his thighs, until he stood before the man whose height was greater than his and whose face was, of a sudden, full with awe.
The man let go his staff into the water. His knees seemed to buckle and he fell into it.
He cried, ‘I should be baptised by you! I cannot endure to do it!’
Jesus said to him, ‘In the same way that once my presence awoke your limbs in your mother’s womb, I shall awaken your thoughts to your duty!’
The man called John looked up and Jesus’ shadow fell over him. Jesus could now see, unclouded and undisturbed by the light, a reflected mirror image of himself in the other man’s face. An image of something he had misplaced. He was given the knowledge at Qumran that this man was the same as Elijah, and now he recognised in him the oldest soul of humanity, Adam, and he realised that some part of him belonged to this man and was conjoined by a remembrance of times lost in a dream.
When the baptiser stood, it was a signal to Jesus.
He crossed his arms over his chest and felt a support behind the small of his back. It seemed to him then, that although Yeshua was leaving him, little by little, the soul of the baptiser was uniting with him in order to sure up the pathway to the God whom he sensed descending. And he was comforted by it.
John guided him into the water and he was submerged into
light and colour and sound. His soul was wedded to the element of the river. All the pictures of his life rushed past his eyes until he heard a flute song, and he could smell sheep, earth and grass. All of it was married to the warmth of friendship, the lulling breezes, the glow of the sun, the fingers of the wind, the soothing feel of his mother’s hand and the cry of a child in the wilderness.
Now, there was nothing more.
He did not breathe. He was lost. He was alone. A flame hovered over him. A sparkling, ever-tranquil, lilting radiance issued from the encircling round and above him the spirit of Yeshua gathered up to form the shape of a bird. It lingered a moment over him as if in a final farewell and was given up, with light in its wings and life in its breast.
Surrendered!
The majestic and wise spirit of Yeshua, which had fashioned his soul and body over eighteen years, was severed from him. Within him was left a hollow place, unopened yet to the spirit, like a spring bud that trembles in a cold wind.
How could he open it, when he had no forces left to him? A great lassitude overwhelmed him and threatened to extinguish him. He was alone. And yet…and yet…Jesus sensed the soul of his dead mother draw near. His mother, whose purity was the likeness of his own, came to his aid. She plucked tenderly at his heart, to unfold him in readiness for the descent of grace, for the pulse of heaven’s glory. When the clouds parted and rent was the veil that separates above and below, the God fell downwards, from the heart of the Father, like a brand of light moving through the spirit’s fluid stream. Jesus inhaled the breath of the God into his lungs, and the spirit orphaned from heaven, innocent of evil, immortal, blameless, without guilt and eternal, began its descent into the soul of Jesus.
Now, when Jesus opened his eyes, he saw the world differently for the second time in his life, and in his ears the thunder call came:
‘Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I behold my very own Self, in whom my own Self confronts me! Now you are begotten in Jesus!’
31
TEMPTATION
The man Jesus walked through the crowds on the shore swaying and stumbling, while the God in him saw the world as foreign and unknown, a distortion of faces and loud noises, of heat and sun and overwhelming smells. In the body, the muscles strained, air rushed in and out of the lungs and the heart pounded in the chest, while in the mind thoughts flitted past like shadows. How painful it was to cram his mighty power into that mind and that body! A power that could now harness nature and cause miracles so that his mere presence would seem to men like a world of marvels, a tempest of splendours. It was not his purpose to enrapture and bewilder, to dazzle and astonish, so he directed Jesus into the wilderness in search of a quiet place wherein he could guard the birthing of his new forces.
That is how he came to be in the old cave situated high above the vast mountainous wasteland of Judea. From its lip he could observe the sun falling into the night, and partake for the first time in the splendour of colours that are separate from the self. Above Christ looked to the home of his heart, now distant and detached from him. From beyond those stars he had come, descending downwards aeon after aeon. Men had seen him in their mysteries and had worshipped him in their rituals and given him many different names and now he would walk among them – a God extracted, separated out from heaven and born into the body of a man.
This conception on earth was to his Fathers in the heavens, like a death.
He heard a lamentation. He listened. It came not from heaven but from the sleeping souls of the world. They were reaching out to him in their supplication as they had always done. This was why he had come, to make this earth his heaven and rescue it from the maws of hell.
Jackals called as the moon made a rise. He had never seen such a moon nor heard such a sound and an intuition drew his attention to the shadows of the night. From them came the vision of a red-winged angel, falling from the sky and landing at the lip of his cave.
It thrust one sad, melancholic eye at him, and said, ‘If it isn’t the favourite come down from his high perch to visit his poor relations!’
‘What are you?’ Christ asked it.
‘Where are your manners, brother? Did no one tell you that this is my kingdom? Come, before you step across my threshold you must first recognise the master of the house! Bend low before me and our little quarrel shall be forgiven. Perhaps I’ll even share some of the riches and power I have gained from this wretched world with you? You have to concede this is more than you did for me!’
A vision came then of Jesus standing before a man who was running from the Devil on his shoulders. This was that Devil, he realised. This was Lucifer, his brother who was cast down from heaven.
‘Lucifer,’ he said to it now. ‘Look into my face! I see you haven’t changed...You think you can lure me with power because this is your weakness, but listen carefully to me…I have not come into this world to rule it, nor have I come to serve you, I have come to serve the rightful gods!’
Lucifer’s gloomy eye turned to white and a shiver passed over his wings. ‘The rightful gods…yes…what do they know of the world? Do they know anything about thirst? Well? Do they know that human thirst is unquenchable? You are a God, you need not thirst for puny human knowledge, when you can be an angel, like me, an angel is wisdom itself! Throw yourself from the lip of this cave and you will see, as the Psalms say, God will give his angels charge of you, and you will be among them, and they will bear you up with their own hands so that your foot will not even strike one stone!’
But there was something more in the cave with them. From out of the shadowed corners came a blur of blue wings, desiccated and clawing and the world stirred to make way for them.
Another voice came into his ear:
‘Son of God! Do as your brother says and let us see? Jump! What can happen to you? Fear is something only mortals feel, angels are above such feelings!’
What was this thing called fear? He felt it now, when he thought of jumping from the cave to that great distance below. He was not an angel. If he jumped Jesus would die and his task would die with him.
‘Listen to me, Lucifer, your arrogance is made weak by your companion who has just pointed out that fear is perfectly right for a mortal man! I am a mortal man and fear has given me wisdom! Again, it is written – do not tempt the Lord thy God, to whom you should surrender yourself!’
Lucifer cried an anguished cry, and flew off towards the moon, defeated. But that crawling malignant thing had entered into Jesus. He could feel its blue wings furl and unfurl inside his soul and he plunged in after it.
‘Son of God!’ the creature breathed. ‘Let me tell you something of hunger. Hunger is a terrible torment for a man; capable of driving even the most pious to sinful acts. But you need not suffer hunger, for you can so easily turn stones to bread by merely by saying a word! Say it to impress us!’
Christ tasted ashes and felt the thickness of the bones under his skin, and the mind, imprisoned by a skull, found a memory of the leper…this spirit had tempted that poor man and had eaten him alive. This was an archangel, and he was far mightier and more dangerous than Lucifer, his brother.
He knew his name.
He cried out to the ancient creature, ‘Satan, you father of lies! Leave me alone. It is written: man should not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from out of the mouth of God!’
‘That is what they say,’ whispered the creature, ‘those gods who know nothing of men. But men have turned a deaf ear to them, naturally, since they know that the belly must be fed, or the body dies! You see how I love men more than you? When you made life and death a law and left them to their own devices I showed them how to turn stones to coins, and coins to bread so that they could live. And so, as there are stupid men and cunning ones, there are also the rich and the poor. One man can feed his hunger while the other cannot and each trespasses against the other, grasping for the daily bread. If you have come to preach love and eternal life to these animals called men, you might as
well go back to that starry home from which you came, Son of God! Brotherly love is impossible while there is death! Over this mystery the will of the heavens cannot rule!’
Christ understood. These backward angels, Lucifer and Satan had caused a man to swing like a bell from one extreme to the other. But he had come to show how it was possible to overcome pride and arrogance through wisdom, and death through love. And here in Jesus’ soul he discerned a dual nature, a weaving of wisdom and love so endearing that it worked like a great power of attraction for him and he united his forces with it and became one with Jesus.
He felt a sting, a sudden gnawing in his bowels!
The blue archangel Satan gave a mocking laugh.
‘Now you’ve done it! Feel the tearing of hunger in Jesus? That is why men must live by the rule of the daily bread, and walk side by side with me…the archangel of death!’ The whisper came closer, ‘Listen to me, I am like you, I am stubborn and full of longing, I am eternal, and so I can wait. When the time comes, I will return for what is mine!
And he was gone.
Christ Jesus let out a gasp and fell to the earthen floor of the cave. Above him he sensed warmth; the love-radiant thoughts of the stars were making a way into his heart to comfort him.
And so it was, the orphan from heaven closed his eyes then, and slept his first earthly sleep.
‡
‘So that’s how it was!’ I sat back so astounded that I could hardly take a breath, my fingers black with ink and my back aching. ‘Yeshua and Jesus had been two persons in one, but when Yeshua lifted up to make way for Christ, the Son of God then entered into the Son of Man and the two natures, human and divine were united!’
Fifth Gospel: A Novel (Rosicrucian Quartet) Paperback Page 18