I’m not sure what drew me to the river that day, except that
the urging was stronger than usual. I
had heard about the man, John, who was
there, baptizing people. For some
unknown reason I was curious.
There was quite a crowd at the river that day, all pushing
and hurrying to get to the scene. I,
too, was getting anxious, as it would be getting dark soon.
As I pushed forward with the crowd, I suddenly felt a wave
of calm come over me. After a few
moments, I realized that I was behind a man who was making his way steadily
forward, untouched and unperturbed by the milling crowd.
In what seemed like no time, we came to a small, clear area
in the river. There was a man standing
there, facing us, who I surmised to be the Baptizer, although the descriptions
of his wildness that I had heard paled in comparison to the real thing. This person seemed to be having a heated
discussion with the man in front of me, although I couldn’t really make out the
conversation.
Finally, they must have reached an agreement, for the
Baptizer prepared to dunk this man into the water. The next thing I remember, I’m sitting in the
water. There seemed to be this blinding
light in front of me. Somehow, I forced
my eyes open, and I saw the man who had been in front of me, clothed in
garments whiter and brighter than I had ever seen, even at the Temple. As I struggled to stand, the man turned to
face me. I couldn’t make out his face,
but that same feeling of calm washed over me again.
Suddenly, from above, there came a loud voice, like thunder. ‘You are my son, in you I am well
pleased.’ Now, in addition to being
soaking wet, my ears were ringing. As I
looked at the man again, I realized that he was totally dry, yet I was sure
that he was the one that the baptizer had dunked. And now it seemed like it was only the two of
us present.
Suddenly, I began to shake, from being soaking wet I
presumed. The man in white looked at me,
and I felt a love deeper than I had ever felt before. The man took his cloak off his shoulders and
put it around mine, and the shaking stopped.
I looked up at him and heard him say ‘Blessed are you, for you have seen
the light.’
The next thing I remember, I was stumbling towards the
shore, through a mass of people milling about aimlessly and shouting at each
other. As I walked slowly back to town,
all I heard people talking about what had happened. ‘The baptizer was struck by lightning!’ ‘Surely he must have offended G-d!’ No one mentioned a man in white, or a loud
voice. Nothing.
As I sat at a table alone in the inn, eating my dinner, all
around me the people were still buzzing about what had happened at the river. But no one seemed to have seen what I
saw. Did I just dream that something
different had happened? I began to
shiver again, and instinctively I pulled the cloak, the same one the man had
placed over my shoulders at the river, around me.
Suddenly, I was back at the river. But this time I was observing it from above,
like a spectator. Almost instantly, I
realized that it was earlier that day, and then I spotted myself and the man,
standing in front of the baptizer. I
watched as the baptizer dunked the man, and as the latter came up out of the
water, there was a flash of light and a loud booming noise. Everyone except the man was knocked backwards
off their feet and into the water. Then,
amazingly no one moved except for me and the man. The silence was total. It wasn’t until I started walking towards the
shore that everyone else started moving and talking loudly.
Then, just as suddenly, I was back in the inn where I had
been sitting what felt like minutes ago.
Yet no one acted as if anything had happened – like I had been there all
along. I can only guess that somehow
time had been slowed, or even stopped, twice.
But something must have happened, because I had this cloak that I hadn’t
started the day with.
And sometimes, when I start to shiver and draw this cloak
around me, my thoughts go back to my experiences at the river that strange day.
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