My name is John

Haiku for beginning

Give me camel’s hair,

leather belt around my waist;

feed me with locusts.

Give me a loud voice

enough to shake foundations.

Feed me wild honey

Find me at the creek

with the rocks and croaking frogs.

Water is my home.

Put away your sins;

the darkness in your living.

Let’s wash it away.

Come and be baptised.

Show that you are eager, keen

to begin anew.

One comes after me.

He will do much more than I.

He brings the Spirit.

. . . .

He came from up north

to meet John at the Jordan.

Baptise me, comrade.

The heavens opened

with the voice of approval.

The Spirit came down.

© Ken Rookes 2018.

Alternative baptism styles

Are the heavens open for you?

"About ad 500 a book was written by a mystic or group of mystics called the ‘cloud of unknowing’, which talks of the mystical nature of belief, a sort of working in the dark.  

Do you feel that the heavens are opened for you, or are they closed and dark?

They were for Jesus, that was the whole point of this story. In everything this incomparable Person was and did. Jesus’ life and death embody the opening of the heavens. After this his life is transformed, he goes out into the world healing preaching and loving all those with whom he came into contact. His life was motivated by heavenly love and despite all the hatred and temptations to power that came his way, heaven remained open to him.

Interesting isn’t it, that when we think of the heavens being opened for us, we think of the effect of that being a new batch of miracles that take away the pain of the world around us, but for Jesus, the heavens being opened was about how his life became moved by the power of love and the goodness of God.

For us the heavens are never now closed. Never! In Christ and through Christ they are open! Our feelings do not determine the status of the windows of heaven. It has been determined in Christ Jesus. The Word and the Spirit flow free and are among us.

When the heavens are open, anything is possible."

http://www.bruceprewer.com/DocB/BBAPTISMOFJESUS.htm

The well of life

the well of life   He pitched backward into a pool of water to whose edge the furious combat had brought them. And there he lay, unmoving, while the monster roared its victory cry and Una, watching from afar, wept strickenly at the fall of her hero.   But it was no ordinary pool into which the knight had fallen. Its waters had rested in that land from earliest times, and its virtues had resisted even the dragon's foul presence. It was called the Well of Life, and had the power to cure the sick, to cleanse the sinful, to rejuvenate the aged, even to revive the dead.
   So, after a night of mourning and prayer, Una was stunned with joy to see her champion arise from the pool just as the sun rose to brighten the land. The knight seemed as if he had been reborn and baptized anew- his armour and weapons shining, his strength restored and enhanced.
-Edmund Spenser 1552-1599
The Faerie Queene, Modern Prose Adaptation by Douglas Hill
http://www.edgeofenclosure.org/epiphany1a.html

Baptism of Jesus

Rosalind Hore, Baptism of Jesus