The wilderness road

Haiku of inclusion and welcome

An angel told him:

take the wilderness road, south,

heading to Gaza.

Philip did as told,

not knowing who he would find.

He found a eunuch.

An important man,

the eunuch was heading home,

from Jerusalem.

In his chariot

reading Isaiah, puzzled

at what it might mean.

Do you understand?

Philip asked. I need someone

to guide me, he said.

Like a lamb, silent

before its shearer; this speaks

to us of Jesus.

They came to a pool.

What prevents my baptism?

the eunuch asked him.

He was baptised. The

Ethiopian entered

into God’s kingdom.

Outsider by race,

cut off in more ways than one;

he is made welcome.

© Ken Rookes 2024

Not me, him!

 Haiku for an immersion

Could he be the one?

The question upon all lips

when it came to John.

Not me, he protests.

Water is what I deal with;

fire is his gift.

He brings God’s Spirit,

blessings and judgement. Prepare

to make him welcome.

Among baptism’s

candidates stands one Jesus,

ready to begin.

As he prays, God’s dove-

shaped Spirit descends on him,

He must be the one!

A voice from heaven

expressed divine approval:

My beloved Son!

Great significance!

Luke gives us this dripping man,

sharing his wetness.

© Ken Rookes 2022

Baptism

 

Haiku for a calling

In the wilderness,

beyond the civil, polite,

and respectable.

Camel-hair jacket,

belt of leather, dining on

locusts, wild honey.

John the enigma,

known as baptiser, calling

people to repent.

I am nobody,

John declared. One is coming

far greater than I.

Jesus came to John

from Nazareth in the North;

Baptise me, he said.

Jesus emerges

from the Jordan to the dove

and to heaven’s voice.

Jesus is baptised

in God’s Spirit, and confirmed

in his ministry.

Baptised in water,

he will baptise his friends with

the Holy Spirit

This is the moment

and this is the man, says John.

He of whom I spoke.

© Ken Rookes 2020

It's a beginning

Haiku for getting wet

In Jordan’s waters

John calls folk to turn to God

and baptises them.

Leave your sin behind,

God’s kingdom is near at hand,

embrace God’s new way.

Leaving Galilee

and his quiet village life,

Jesus comes to John.

Jordan’s waters call;

Jesus comes to be baptised.

John is hesitant.

It’s a beginning,

says Jesus. Let’s do it right:

for now, baptise me.

Signs come from above,

as water pours from his brow.

A dove and a voice.

A retrospective

voice of divine approval,

from gospel writers.

In his baptism,

as in ours, the call to serve

and to live full true.

© Ken Rookes 2020

High expectations

Haiku of anticipation

High expectations

reverberate through Judah:

has the time arrived?

The baptising man;

we’ve been waiting for so long,

could he be the one?

They put it to him:

Are you the Christ-Messiah?

He answered them: No!

I wash with water

baptising to cleanse your sin;

he is so much more.

He comes bringing fire

to fill you with the Spirit;

set your hearts ablaze.

When the candidates

had all been baptised by John,

Jesus himself comes.

As he is praying

the doors of heaven open

Spirit-dove descends.

Heaven’s voice is heard,

(whisper, thunder, who can say?)

My beloved Son!

© Ken Rookes 2019

Beginnings

Haiku of commencement

Mark takes up his pen

to write upon the parchment:

Jesus makes a start.

Departs Nazareth,

leaves the family behind.

South to the Jordan.

Finds the Baptiser,

raises his hand, comes on down;

Baptise me too, John.

As he emerges

dripping wet from the water

the Spirit descends.

Does the voice boom loud,

or is it a mere whisper:

My beloved son.

The Spirit takes charge,

drives him into wilderness;

a place for testing.

A time for praying.

Forty days of questioning;

forty days of doubts.

The days pass. He comes,

back to his people, convinced,

now, of his calling.

The time is fulfilled,

God’s kingdom is drawing near.

Good news: trust in it.

© Ken Rookes 2018

Alternative baptism styles

Needing to be baptised

Haiku for beginners

When he was ready

he travelled from Galilee,

south, to the Jordan.

There he came to John

with a baptism request.

John was reluctant.

You ask this of me,

I should be baptised by you;

the Baptist demurred.

Let it be so now,

Jesus answered. It's proper

and right to do this.

The river beckoned.

He sank beneath its surface,

finding his calling.

Emerging once more

from the darkness into light;

fills his lungs with life.

The white dove flies low,

with heaven's voice whispering:

this, then, is my son.

© Ken Rookes 2017

The heaven was opened

The opening of heaven,

by all accounts,

was not an every-day occurrence.

At Jesus' baptism, by John,

in the flowing waters of the Jordan,

this rare event,

(according to some ancient stories),

took place. On that occasion,

we are told, heaven's stately doors

swung wide on their ethereal hinges,

allowing the divine spirit to descend

and to mingle outrageously

with that which is human.

While the record may well be incomplete,

no mention is made

of their subsequent closure.

© Ken Rookes 2016

Come to the water

The water, it dances, it gurgles and flows,

it sings alleluia, new life it bestows.

It sweeps over rapids, around unseen bends,

to vistas surprising and landscapes of friends.

This river, it eddies, it catches us all

in long graceful turnings; love’s generous swirl.

This water lives deeply, our thirst, it is quenched;

our bodies are freshened, our souls they are cleansed.

The Spirit is given, she hovers and cries

delights in the dreamings and aches with the sighs.

Surrender to the water, and hear Jesus' call

to be a disciple, and a servant to all.

Some are wrinkled from birth, some are wrinkled with age;

Hey, come to the water; whatever your page!

Drink freely, my sister, my brother, my friend;

drink deep from the fountain, of grace without end.

The water is justice, the water is peace;

it saturates living, its strivings won’t cease

Let none withhold water, the Spirit commands;

unite in one body and fulfil love's demands.

© 2016 Ken Rookes

Can be sung to the tune St Denio,

Together in Song 143, AHB 80

I have reworked this from an older poem/song. The original was suited to an actual baptism, this has a more general use, such as for the Baptism of Jesus, this coming Sunday. I think it has been markedly improved.

Tearing

On the day when Jesus

strolled down to the Jordan

to meet with John and to be baptised,

the heavens, it is said, were torn apart.

They’ve been tearing apart ever since,

not just with Jesus,

who was outrageous enough;

some of those who came after him

have ripped things up a bit, too.

They broke laws, defied the powers

and governments, and challenged

the fearful and loveless status quo.

Here are some of the outcomes;

divine fragments,

torn from the heavenly interface

like squares from yesterday’s newspaper

and layered with earth’s paste

as they are fashioned into something new

and surprising.

A papier-mâche new creation, disturbing,

defiant, and more than a little foolish;

it is flimsy and fragile,

a vulnerable reliquary

of sacred hope.

© Ken Rookes 2015

Baptism cartoon

Let it be so for now

None of us knows

how the future will unfold.

Nor should we seek to.

The future is what happens;

it can be shaped and influenced

for good or for ill. We make our choices.

To be wise is to accept one’s place of beginning

but not to be bound by it.

To be faithful

is to see the possibilities for living,

and, from that eclectic array,

select and implement those that create hope

and lead to life. Regardless

of the consequences.

To fulfil all righteousness

is to do the work of love.

Nothing more;

nothing less.

These are the things that produce divine pleasure

and joy among the angels.

Here, among these waters,

is a beginning,

and the first of many.

© Ken Rookes 2015

My apologies; this poem was written in response to Matthew’s account of the Baptism of Jesus, not that of Mark, as it should have been for Year B. I got lost in the lectionary.

Ready for the revolution

"Thus Jesus’ submission to John’s baptism is no simple act of personal piety. On the contrary, Jesus discerns that John’s baptism and fiery preaching constitute a revolutionary declaration about a new world order where God will set right all that the establishment (in Jerusalem and Rome) has put awry. Jesus says, "Through this baptism, I ‘take up arms with you, John, an (l join this revolution whereby God’s justice will be manifest in the world." By submitting to John’s baptism. Jesus declares, "I am ready for the revolution!"

Other textual clues indicate the political and religious radicalism of John and Jesus. John’s baptismal activity occurs in the wilderness. In the first century CE., the word "wilderness" held a subversive significance. In social protest movements around Judea, agitators led their followers into the wilderness. Thus, John’s choice of the wilderness and Jesus’ willingness to join him there carried a subversive symbolism, especially given the popularity of John’s movement. People joined through repentance and baptism, and declared that God’s true power would emerge on the margins of the society.

Still another indicator of the revolutionary commitment of John and Jesus is the centrality of repentance in their proclamation. Excessive, sentimental use has blunted the sharp edge of the word "repentance," which involves more than an admission of wrong. The Creek word metanoia connotes a change of mind-set. To repent is to adopt a new mind-set that causes one to turn around. It is an apocalyptic act, creating a new way of envisioning and thinking about the world. Only those with new mind-sets will be fit for the new kingdom.

Furthermore, the means by which John and Jesus meet their deaths should convince even the most hardened skeptics of the revolutionary nature of their ministries."

http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=2252

baptism of Christ el greco

Baptise me, John.

Baptise me, John.

Baptise me, John.
I’m tired, need a change,
something to happen,
don’t know what.
Immerse me;
let the Jordan splash over me
and let it wash me deep.
Let the icy plunge surprise me wakingly
and cause me to gasp
as it removes the weary dust of failure,
fear and disappointment.
The water that splashes over my head;
let it clear my mind of narrowness
and open my eyes to the broadest spectrum
of things new and holy.
Drench me, John,
that I may be ready for the soaking of the Divine One
who is surely present in the water and all around.
Let me be covered
and let me be naked.
Baptise me, John;
mingle my tears with your disturbing water
and turn me around
that I might find the new path,
and the way, beginning here,
among Jordan’s rocks and wetness.

© Ken Rookes

The plunge

The Plunge

Jesus, source of living water,
when you went to the Jordan that day
to hear the Baptiser’s cry,
what did you come to see?
Did you go seeking advice
about the lonely life of the prophet?
Were you expecting
to be moved by his message?
When you answered his call to repent
and joined him in the waters,
what were you thinking?
How did you decide that his strident call to sinners
needed the tempering of love’s gracious invitation?
Tell me, Jesus,
was there already an inner growing gnawing realisation
that your carpenter’s skill with timber, joints and nails
was about to give way to a new vocation
of stories, speakings, sharings and sacrifice?
Or was it only when the Baptiser
took you into the cool water,
and you emerged, saturated,
and kissed by the Spirit-dove,
that you had any idea
of what the voice might be trying to say,
or of what a beloved son
might be expected to do?

© Ken Rookes

Baptism colouring

http://www.biblekids.eu/new_testament/Baptism_%20of_%20Jesus/Baptism_%20of_%20Jesus_html/baptism_of_jesus_26.html

We think of it as 'heaven insurance'.

"Our baptisms have become so common place that we no longer even realize what we are doing, what we are committing ourselves and our children to when we bring them to God’s waters of life. We think we are naming them, or placing a mark or sign on them to protect them in case of accidental death. We think of it as “heaven insurance” as though we had a God who would bar admission to the life to come if a child did not come with the correct stamp of approval. ....
Our baptism is likely less about our own personal journey’s, our own personal forgiveness (though we certainly are forgiven) and more about God’s healing of the world’s brokenness. When we touch the waters, we join Jesus in the healing, as we join the thousands who have died hoping in that healing before us and the thousands who will come after us. We join in Israel’s old vocation, to be a light to all nations, drawing them to the God of healing, the God of life giving love. We must beware, lest we take this too lightly. Following God’s call this way is dangerous. It is sometimes deadly. In a world where the thirst for power and money creates people who will throw a life away for their own ends, our lives will get caught in the crossfire. But God does not abandon his people to the four winds. We are known and loved and cherished, just as the people of Israel were cherished, though scattered, when Isaiah wrote the beautiful words in Chapter 43:1-7. And though God has chosen to heal this broken world from within, a slow process that will take many generations, this healing vision is already our reality when we are caught up in his love in our baptismal covenant."

http://www.predigten.uni-goettingen.de/archiv-9/070107-5-e.html

change

How many evangelists does it take to change a light bulb? Only one, but the bulb must repent of its darkness and be willing to be changed