The Wild Man at the River

Out in the wilderness, where the wind is dry and the rocks are hot, there lived a man named John.

He did not look like other men. He wore camel hair, all rough and scratchy. He ate locusts and wild honey. And his voice was loud, carrying far out over the brown hills.

People came from everywhere to hear him: from the cities, from the farms, from little homes tucked into the hills. They walked for miles and miles just to stand at the edge of the Jordan River and listen.

"Get ready," John kept telling them. "Someone is coming. Someone wonderful. He is so great that I am not even good enough to bend down and untie his sandal."

John had a job, and it was a big one. For hundreds and hundreds of years, God had been promising to send a Rescuer. John was the one sent ahead to run down the road and call out: He's almost here. Look. He's coming.

The people waded into the water, and John washed them in the river, and everyone waited.

Then one day, a man came walking down to the water.

His name was Jesus. Long years had passed since Mary and Joseph found their boy in the temple, at home in his Father's house. The boy had grown into a man, and the man had come to the river.

And John knew. Somewhere deep inside, John knew. This was the One. The promise God had whispered all those years ago was walking toward the river on two ordinary feet.

Jesus stepped into the water. He didn't have to. He had never done a single wrong thing. But he wanted to stand right there with all the people, shoulder to shoulder, close as a brother.

So John washed him too.

And the very moment Jesus came up out of the river, water running down, the sun bright above, something happened that no one had ever seen.

The sky tore open.

The Spirit of God came down, soft and gentle as a dove, and rested on him.

And then a Voice came from heaven. The biggest, kindest Voice there ever was. The Father himself, speaking over the water where everyone could hear:

"This is my Son. My beloved Son. I love him, and he makes me so glad."

Have you ever wished someone would look at you and say words like that? That you are loved. That you are wanted. That just by being you, you make someone glad?

That is the ache inside all of us.

And here, at the river, heaven said it where everyone could hear.

God had kept his promise. The Rescuer had come, right on time, exactly as he said, with not one word forgotten.

The Father called Jesus "beloved," and Jesus came to gather you in under that same Voice, to carry you home to a Father who would say it over you too.

The promise had come walking down to the water. And this was only his first step on the long rescue road.