The wind wove strands of clouds like a giant cobweb around the mountaintop. Through ragged holes in the soft whiteness, the ocher wilderness below stretched out to embrace the sparkling Jordan River and the bits of green that lined its banks.
A great crowd of pilgrims were clustered about one spot near the river, looking for the world like tiny ants.
All this the tall, spare young man, standing at what seemed to him at this moment the summit of the world, saw as his troubled eyes swept the widening vista before him. He leaned heavily against the rock, hot beneath the summer sun’s unrelenting stare. He longed for the cool of late night when he could press his parched lips against the rock and suck a few precious drops of moisture.
His knees trembled and he felt weak. The walk through the burning sands had been long, and longer still the climb up the mountain. He had had little food or drink to sustain and refresh him. Fingers and toes were rubbed raw as he struggled up the face of the cliff. His damp robe clung tightly to his hot body. The breeze that inhabits the high places found him at last and whipped his shoulder-length auburn hair over his forehead in the direction of the river, now hardly more than a bright ribbon from where he stood.
The air cooled and dried the moisture that dripped from his short beard as he wiped a bronzed arm across his brow, pushing back damp strands of hair. That arm was strong and muscular as needed by a carpenter to ply his trade. The blood ran high in his cheeks as, chest heaving, he gulped deep breaths of thin, dry air.
He felt very faint; for his fast had been long since his visit to the river and his cousin, John.
* * *
“Repent! The day of the Lord cometh!”
The rough, bull-like bellow assaulted the ears of the pilgrims standing on the shore. The owner of the voice stood waist deep in the swift-running shallow water and beckoned the people to enter the water with him.
“I am but a voice crying in the wilderness, a herald for one mightier than I who comes after me,” The voice echoed from the surrounding flat hills above the river.
“I baptize you with water,” he shouted, “but the one who comes after me will baptize you in the fire and blood of the Holy Spirit.” A few of the pilgrims stepped hesitantly into the water and began to make their way to the man, naked save for the rough garment of camel hair across his shoulder and loins.
“Make straight the way of the Lord! Repent of your sins! When the Messiah comes, he will beat the wheat on the threshing room floor and the chaff will be separated and burned in the eternal fires of Hell. Repent, ye!”
Several more pilgrims splashed into the water and stumbled toward John’s outstretched arms. The crowd on the shore was growing now as they watched the Baptist lower the first penitents into the water.
“Come you sinners and be cleansed! Come, come!”
John was attracting attention of more than the poor and hard-working Judean people. The authorities knew about John. Many in the Sanhedrin had heard the rumors about him. Some of the Sadducees and Pharisees had actually been to hear him preach. They left shaking their heads.