John’s baptism separated people
from their stealthyÂ
inborn sinning,
contesting them
for service without slippage,
recruiters’ school
for the Master’s corps.
They took the purity
of Jordan’s murky waters,
the stream that terminated
by evaporation,
as though the waves
distilled themselves
in higher yearnings,
abandoning
the sludge and foul debris.
The Master’s baptism
retained the Jordan River’s
symbolic cleansing,
intensifying the Dead Sea’s
distillationÂ
to furnace blaze evaporation
in the fury and the purityÂ
of the fire
of the Holy Spirit,
personification
of God in his mercy.
The Spirit’s breath of fire
forged grafted cuttings
of the Father’s image,
the slips appending roots
like arteries attached
in by-pass surgery,
the stems grounded
in creation’s original dirt,
with inbedded flora
that made the growing bed
a birthing crib,
where mercy
was infused into humans,
their way to live the Spirit life.
January 10, 2016
Bonaventure Stefun, OFM Cap.
See more reflections here.