The young man joins the crowd at the edge of the water. He hears the preacher’s words, abrasive words made harsher by the shouting that makes the baptist audible above the rumble of a thousand murmurs. He decides for reasons that we cannot know to join his life to this movement. He knows, for the same inaccessible reasons, that his choice will root him in God’s mission, God’s desire for him and for the world. He wriggles a way forward through a tangle of shoulders, arms, backs and bums. The sure hands of the preacher lift him, drench him, lift him. Other sure Hands lift him, singing as They work: You are my child, my beloved. And the Spirit who joins that Song to his song, those Hands to his hands, that Hunger to his hunger, drives the young man into the wilderness.
Surely this is a hard blessing. He is still carried in those Hands, but they no longer gently cradle him. They bend and push and squeeze him. The Song, though, doesn’t falter. You are my child, my beloved.
Forty days and nights with nothing but those Hands and that Song, and the young man is hungry. He wonders – through the hot days and cold nights – about the shape of this blessing, then if it ever happened. After 40 days, the stones, polished round by the wilderness wind and sand, begin to look uncomfortably like bread. The new voice is convincing, pragmatic. But he’s grown up in a world where people are forever turning something holy into something convenient. Is bending the holy uniqueness of stones to meet my desire so different from hammering at the holy shape of another life till it conforms to the shape of my own hunger? Sand in his eye – he blinks. And the stones look like stones again. Holy.
The Hands that held him seem to pause from their bending, pushing, squeezing. The Song continues. You are my child, my beloved.
He pitches himself to his feet and sees a stadium full of applauding hands, garlands. He sees himself accomplished, recognized, celebrated. A sense of destiny engulfs him, and then a sense of providence, and then the adrenalin rush in his gaunt body, the leaping climax, and those Hands, sweeping down from the sky to cradle him before he reaches the ground. Though he can feel those Hands catching him in his vast and powerful vision, he can no longer hear the Song, drowned out in the roar of the crowd. A lizard brushes against him. His feet feel the earth, same dirt shared by lizard and messiah, then something like wind, something like a Hand, pushes his hair back from his face, and the Song fades back in, … my beloved.
The lizard scurries away. Then his legs give way to hunger and exhaustion and he sprawls backwards as the dust rises around him. He can’t find power to stand on his own feet. Where will he find power to follow the godly haunting in his soul? He has seen Herod once, living on borrowed power. He has seen the Roman governor from a distance – Herod’s landlord, Rome’s tenant. He knows Rome’s power, the single-minded, soul-draining power of will imposed by chariot, sword and cross. If he had power like that he could use it … he wouldn’t use it to … it could … then something like lightning pitches him backward into the scrub. He would, it couldn’t … And Hands soft as pillows lift him close to something like the warmth of a beating sun. The Song is so close and so deep it rises up through his body, through skin and bone and muscle, to his own beating heart. You are my child, my beloved.
His mother’s courage has chosen his life as her work. By courage now he chooses his Father’s work as his life. The work of beginning done, he limps out of the desert and into a life whose power will be suffering, his status – a servant; his mission – to become bread.
Becoming bread. “What do you want me to do for you?” he asks. On the road to Jericho, Bartimaeus sees, and takes up himself the work of becoming bread. Matthew loses count of what doesn’t matter, then counts to one, and takes up himself the work of being bread. Flacid-willed overeager Simon becomes Rock, and takes up himself the work of becoming bread. Saul muttering threats becomes Paul breathing grace; John Newton slaver is amazed by the same grace; nine lepers (the other nine) – do we dare to dream that they did not return because they could not wait to take up themselves the work of becoming bread to the households and neighbors and lovers who welcomed them (or not) home?
Jesus leaves the stones be. They are stones for God’s holy reason. Hungry Jesus takes up himself the work of becoming bread. Hands kneading, yeast rising, baker singing. Hungry fed. The bread has no need to impress the hungry. People stuffed with cake may not notice the bread, people selling caramel corn may not admire the bread, but hungry people will find it. Pierced Hands will break the bread. It is not that bread becomes the Body of Christ, but that the Body of Christ becomes bread. This mystery set in motion when Hands first lifted. This mystery of the One who takes up himself the work of becoming bread. This mystery, kneaded by choosing and compassion, by suffering love, by naked bruised abandonment. This mystery, cradled by hands that placed him in the tomb, then by Hands lifted again from death. This mystery, becoming our bread. This mystery, who calls to us, drenches us, lifts us, drives us, tests us, this baker who sings to us:
You are my child, my beloved.
