Revolution #2

I've been reflecting on the Gospel of Mark. I especially like the way it begins. No nativity, no shepherds, no angels we have heard on high, no silent night, no roomless inn. All we have is a short, cryptic prophecy and it's fulfillment in a bug-eating nature-dweller.

John the baptist: wild man, holy man, pre-revolutionary. He is John the Barbarian, a guerrilla warrior, a slightly unhinged mouthpeice of the divine, calling his countrymen to repentance. Clad in camel-skin, rallying the people, preparing the way for the Annointed One.

Then we have Jesus joining a movement already in progress. Being baptised with the rest of the sinners, responding in like manner to John's call for departure from the status quo. Only Jesus' river experience is a little different. He comes up out of the water and (re)encounters the divine. As the Spirit of God decends on him he hears a message from God.

"You are my annointed. The chosen one, you are Messiah. You are my man!"

Jesus response to this epiphany is to be driven into the wilderness. The Spirit drives him out away from the crowd into the hinterlands of the Judean wilderness.

What a way to start a story.