thrown in

You cannot cross a sea
merely by staring into the waters.
RABINDRANATH TAGORE

Once again, I find it unsettling to meet up with John the Baptist during the season of Advent. As a prophet he may "speak the truth in love," but he dispels any assumption we might have that this means speaking nice and soft. There is no coddling in John's message and he is a master at interventions, calling people on their stuff in a blunt and forceful way.

If the religious professionals of his day were content inviting people to stand on the shoreline and stare into the deep waters of the Divine (as religious professionals and institutions so often are), John took a different tack -- he threw people in. There is little theological discussion on the banks of the Jordan, no scripture study or midrashic imagining, John does not ask people how many times they've been to synagogue in the last month, and he asks them few if any questions, save one:

Are you prepared to let go,
and be forgiven?

Are you prepared to let go enough to allow the God in your neighbor to forgive you, the God in yourself to forgive you, and the God whose mercy is beyond your wildest imagining to forgive you in love?

Then, having let go, perhaps we will be ready for the crossing, and receiving the Great Giveaway of God.