JOSEPH

 

In joining John the Baptist, whom the religious apparatchiks considered a heretic and a rebel, Jesus had a spiritual experience that gave him boundless confidence. Such was this confidence that from that moment on he did not shy away from any risk in order to announce the good news he carried within him. He showed this well when he left the Jordan region: instead of taking the road back to Galilee, he went alone into the desert to spend more than a month there without eating or drinking.

 

 

JESUS HAD ANOTHER VERY RISKY ENCOUNTER

 

 

Your baptism, dear Jesus,

didn't take away your propensity for risk.

on the contrary.

At the time of leaving for your native Galilee,

you had the desire

to make a detour through the desert.

You knew that for a person alone

the desert was not a very safe place,

but you could not help it;

the desert was attracting you like a magnet.

In the distant past,

it was in the desert that your ancestors,

as soon as they had  been freed

from the slavery in Egypt,

struggled like the devil in holy water

to decide their future.

For forty years they wandered in the desert,

torn between the temptation to turn back to Egypt

or to start anew in a world full of unknowns.

In the end, with more fear than enthusiasm,

they chose to start over from scratch

in the hope of laying the foundations for a new world.

 

The centuries passed

and the new world

kept on waiting.

And so, one fine day

you appeared in the desert

to take up in your turn

the unfinished project of your ancestors.

 

For forty days,

in total solitude,

without drinking a drop,

without eating a morsel,

you went from euphoria to nightmares.

Euphoria, because in the desert you were finding

the calm and the freedom of the vast spaces,

the mystery of the broken mountains,

the vertigo of heights,

the purity of the air,

the beauty of endless horizons.

The desert brought you silence and emptiness

where nothing could distract you

from the powerful experience

that you had just lived

in the waters of the Jordan

with John the Baptist.

You could finally enjoy with comfort

that still totally fresh encounter

in the peace of your Abba.

You could give yourself up in all freedom

to the sweetest and most daring dreams.

 

At first it was ecstasy,

which lasted several days,

then, probably because of hunger,

things turned into a nightmare.

Ideas, images, visions

began to fly around in your head

like a video game tournament.

Unknown worlds flashed before you,

and captivated you so strongly

that you seemed not to touch the ground anymore.

 

Inside yourself,

A FIRST VOICE was heard,

a totally unknown voice

that, among a thousand things, was telling you:

"If you want to change the world

for the glory of your God,

if you want fountains

to spring up in the deserts

and flowers to grow in the dried hearts,

there is only one way:

draw the crowds to you!

At the trade fairs, people come from afar

and even go without food

to be able to see the most unusual things

like a rabbit coming out of a hat

or a woman being sawed in two.

You, give food to your starving people!

Sell them dreams, flatter their bellies,

perform miracles, magic, fireworks,

turn stones into bread,

because after all, God is with you,

and he gives you all  powers.

Look at the the gray stones of this desert,

In the name of your God,

change them all into golden loaves of bread!

And then people from all over the world

will come to listen to you.

They will say of you that you are the reincarnation of Moses,

the greatest of all the prophets

who, in the desert, saved his people from hunger

by having the bread of manna

and hoards of quail meat

rain upon them.

You will also be acclaimed as the new Elisha,

that other great prophet

who multiplied the loaves

and fed a starving crowd.

(2 Kings 4:42-44) ....

Turn the stones into bread

and everybody will believe in you.

You will be proclaimed Messiah,

the Anointed One sent by God,

the Son of God

and the Saviour of the world.

Through you God will do wonders

and all nations will call you blessed.

In the name of your God,

turn stones into bread

and your mission will be a worldwide success!"

 

That voice was soft, ingratiating and very friendly.

It pleased you and aroused in you pleasure,

encouragement, enthusiasm,

but also very serious thoughts.

You yourself, who at that moment was gripped by hunger

knew better than anyone that without bread

there was no hope,

that without bread, no life was possible,

and that the salvation of the world depended on bread.

Without the daily bread for all the men

and for all the women of the Earth,

it was clear that the world had no future.

 

Then, inside you, ANOTHER VOICE was heard;

from the depths of your being

it was telling you:

 

"Give all the bread you like

to those who are hungry

you will never satisfy them.

They will always feel

They will always feel within themselves

that something else is missing...

Ancient wise men have written:

"The human being does not live by bread alone,

but by everything that comes from the mouth of God".

(Deuteronomy 8, 4)

 

The lamp only gives light if it is inhabited

by a fire that clothes it with light.

So it is with the human being;

Nourished only with the bread of the Earth,

he does not enlighten according to his deepest truth

unless within him awaken

the breath and the words of love

that flow from the mouth of God.

At these words, the sweet voice

that urged you to turn stones into bread

remained mute as a carp.

The fires of the trade fair fell silent,

peace returned in your mind.

 

But after several days of silence,

the merry-go-round began to spin again.

The carp came out of its silence

and addressed you a new discourse:

"When you assert that humans

do not live by bread alone,

you are perfectly right,

but don't be stupid!

Life is hard, often cruel.

Bread, love and fresh water

are needed to live, of course,

illusion, dreams and pleasure are also needed.

If you want to win the world to your cause,

build arenas, build theatres,

create festivals, launch competitions,

put on shows!"

 

Here we go again...

 

You were seeing yourself climbing

on the roof of a skyscraper

or on the top of a bell tower,

even the highest peak in the world,

and then you would throw yourself down

without a parachute

and land without a scratch.

With a burst of triumphant laughter

you would call out to the whole world by shouting:

"God is with me, as you can see!

Just as it is written in Psalm 91,

I am carried on the wings of angels!

Therefore, listen to me!..."

Then you would see all the inhabitants of the Earth

jostle to hear you,

It was divine...

 

The voice was insisting: "You still hesitate.

Are you afraid, by any chance?

Is not God your great friend?

Does he not watch over your every step?

At the Jordan you met God

and you bound yourself together for eternity.

Go for it! Use him.

Your ratings will reach the skies!

 

Then the other voice,

that of the Word and the Breath,

intervened again:

"God does not spur the crowds into action,

he doesn't hypnotize people,

he does not dazzle the eyes

and even less the spirits.

He hates blindness

and loves only that which makes one free.

It is written:

"You shall not tempt the Lord your God.

You shall not make him a Deus ex machina

that can be manipulated like a remote control.

God does not make movies.”

 

The voice fell silent again…

 

But the first voice,

the one of stones and loaves,

had not said its last word.

It went back into the offensive, declaring:

"I admit that my first two methods

were a bit excessive,

but there is still a third one.

It's foolproof and 1000% safe.

Let's leave out the magic and the shows.

Let's be reasonable and practical,

let's stick to the doable,

let's get down to business.

What you need to do,

is to associate yourself with the rich and the powerful.

That's it.

They're not all bad.

There are good people among them.

They have everything they need to convince.

They have the money, the weapons, the science, the prestige.

Above all, they have the connections;

the means of communication are in their hands.

If you don't use them, they will use you.

Trust them, entrust your career to them.

Your life, your mission, your future

will never be placed in safer hands..."

 

The voice fell silent.

Its words brought you back to earth,

they seemed to you of an undeniable logic,

full of common sense.

They led you to imagine

what you could do for the glory of God

if you put that recipe into practice.

And so you put yourself in the shoes of the characters

whom history honours as heroes

and as models for humanity,

you saw yourself in the spotlight of the world

as the most applauded man,

and the most famous man on earth.

Ally of the rich and the powerful,

you were intoxicated by your beauty and your greatness.

In this world that was lying at your feet,

you were going to do wonders.

You were going to become the hero, the star,

you were going to become the god of the universe.

 

And now, the voice of the Word and of the Breath

intervened again by saying to you:

"It is written: You shall worship only the Lord your God".

 

This word was not the drop of water

that makes the vase spill,

but an icy waterspout

which suddenly extinguished your ardour.

It was the word that knocked you out.

 

You needed the bite of the desert

that burns during the day and freezes at night,

and the cramps of hunger and thirst

for you to discover until it hurts

that these three paths:

the stones turned into bread,

the jump from the air without parachute,

and the pact with wealth and power

were not those of Life,

but those of the Adversary

also called the "devil".

You will have understood that these three ways

which camouflage themselves under the false sparkles

of magic and popularity,

and which rise thanks to money and weapons,

these ways which often hide

under the veils of false piety,

lead almost fatally

to sterility and war,

as well as to the desert

and to nothingness...

 

The devil?...

 

What is most certain is that the devil

is more something than someone

It is something

that comes out of ourselves

and that lives in us.

It is a "mentality", a psychology, a philosophy, an ideology,

a vision of things, a way of thinking and acting

that is part of who we are.

It is our dark side,

which probably comes from an ancient fear,

from a primordial fear

undoubtedly from the insurmountable anguish

of feeling like strangers

in an immensely unknown world

which we viscerally need to live

but in which we are

hardly a particle of dust

tossed about by the winds.

 

A fear that drives us crazy,

unable to measure,

desperate and tough.

A world that forces us

to play endless tricks

and extreme violence

in order not to be devoured

and to be able to survive

It is this part of ourselves

which hides behind the appearances,

the false light that hides

in the darkness and in the forbidden.

It is our old hunting instinct.

It is this part of ourselves

that fascinates the most strangest theories,

the magic, the games of chance,

the miracle make-up,

the improved, renewed product, increased in value

that would be the infallible carrier of happiness.

It is the car of the century,

it is the spirit of religion

which claims to pierce all mysteries.

It is the spirit of science that has all the powers.

It is the spirit of "bread and games"

of the decadent Rome,

the spirit of the great corporations

which govern the world,

the spirit of the last nuclear toys

that make us tremble with admiration and terror.

It is the spirit of resources

concentrated in the hands

of a handful of individuals

who dance on mountains of gold

and are honoured as geniuses and heroes

while they (and the politicians who serve them)

are the very ones who starve humankind,

not only for what they do,

but for what they should do

and they don't do.

Spirit of tribe, spirit of lie

spirit of revenge, spirit of domination,

spirit of alpha males, spirit of dominant females;

spirit of unbridled lust

stimulated by a whole industry of tricks

promising performance over performance

and endless ecstasies.

The false eyelashes, the false breasts, the false teeth,

the fake lips, the fake nails...

the fake notes, the fake coins,

the false diamonds, the false gods...

Spirit of pharaonic projects,

spirit of the new Babel.

and of the new Babylon

competing between them

for the highest monument

raised for eternity

to the glory of the conquering phallus.

Spirit which dreams of colonizing the stars

while it murders the only Earth we have.

Spirit of all the drugs and opium.

Spirit of lotteries, casinos, suicide...

Spirit of domination that makes you crazy:

Spirit of the Hitlers, the Stalins and the Napoleons,

of Tojo, Franco, Mao, Castro and Idi Amin Dada,

Pinochet, Videla, Pol Pot and others,

the spirit of all tyrants, big and small,

and of all the narcissists

of yesterday, today and tomorrow,

spirit of all the saviors of the world

who torture in the name of democracy,

who rape in the name of freedom,

who steal in the name of justice

who lie in the name of truth

and threaten to annihilate humankind

in the name of peace.

Spirit of religious fanaticism

that paralyzes thought with dogmas

claiming to contain the quintessence of pure truth,

in the name of which they are ready

to put the planet to fire and blood.

Spirit of pride, spirit of hatred, spirit of war,

spirit that makes the human being a monster

a machine or a simple object

to be sold, bought and thrown away.

 

It is the spirit of ME, MYSELF AND I.

The very spirit of the EGO, when the ego,

which is the substance of the personality,

invades the consciousness

to the point of making impossible

the access to the deeper being

or the true self...

 

This spirit, Jesus, you have seen it in the face.

You saw it as a huge balloon

that could inflate itself with all your dreams

and carry you so far

that it finally burst into a thousand pieces

letting you fall

into a bottomless abyss

with your unfulfilled hungers

and your unquenched thirsts.

 

You cried, you shouted, you screamed.

Like a wounded animal

you rolled around in the desert sand.

With loud cries, you begged your Abba

to have mercy.

 

You fainted for a long time....

 

When you woke up,

the storm was gone.

You saw a spring not far from you

and you saw a caravan

that was approaching to drink from it.

They were Bedouins, dark faces,

turbans, white robes,

strangers, infidels...

who were busy around you.

They were bending over you,

they gave you a drink

and with you they shared

their meagre food.

Your heart was full of gratitude

and your face full of smiles.

In your eyes, these Bedouins were angels:

through them, Abba himself

was coming to comfort and rescue you.

 

It was then that in your heart

began to germinate

the hymn that sums up your whole gospel:

 

"I was a stranger,

hungry, thirsty,

naked, sick and in prison.

From afar you saw my distress

and you came running to  me.

You washed me, nursed me and fed me.

My eyes were dim,

but you lent me yours.

I was dead,

and you raised me up.

Rejoice! for your heart

now knows the heart of ABBA,

and the joy that rises in you

is the joy of his Kingdom".

 

And so, when you got back on your feet

you left the desert as happy as a king.

Stimulated by the dialectic and the dynamics

of the Kingdom that grows in the midst of chaos

you set out singing the way back

to your native Galilee.

 

You were emanating great peace

that touched the people you met on your way.

Health flowed from your hands.

On your path, the smallest and the poorest,

and all those who thought they did not exist

raised their heads;

even the flowers of the fields

and the birds of the sky,

all the trees and animals

had a smile on their face....

 

But at every turn of the road,

new risks were awaiting you...

 

to be continued...

 

 

Eloy Roy

 

 

Translation from the French in collaboration with J. Bourdages