Today is the Baptism of Christ by John.
"The people were filled with expectation" as they wondered if John was the messiah. This is interesting as there had been no prophet in Israel in 400 years. What was going on? And why was Christ being baptized anyway? In Matthew, when John objects, saying he is not worthy to baptize Christ, Christ says,
"Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness."
This mixed human-divine element is really tough. Mohammad did not understand it and saw it as the hated polytheism. The Gnostics saw this event as the true moment where Christ became divine, infused in the moment. (There is indeed a strong argument that the celebration of the event was specifically emphasized to counter the Gnostic movement.)
SEEING THINGS
Claritas
Claritas. The dry-eyed Latin word
Is perfect for the carved stone of the water
Where Jesus stands up to his unwet knees
And John the Baptist pours out more water
Over his head: all this in bright sunlight
On the facade of a cathedral. Lines
Hard and thin and sinuous represent
The flowing river. Down between the lines
Little antic fish are all go. Nothing else.
And yet in that utter visibility
The stone's alive with what's invisible:
Waterweed, stirred sand-grains hurrying off,
The shadowy, unshadowed stream itself.
All afternoon, heat wavered on the steps
And the air we stood up to our eyes in wavered
Like the zigzag hieroglyph for life itself.
-- Seamus Heaney, born Mossbawn, Co. Derry
"The people were filled with expectation" as they wondered if John was the messiah. This is interesting as there had been no prophet in Israel in 400 years. What was going on? And why was Christ being baptized anyway? In Matthew, when John objects, saying he is not worthy to baptize Christ, Christ says,
"Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness."
This mixed human-divine element is really tough. Mohammad did not understand it and saw it as the hated polytheism. The Gnostics saw this event as the true moment where Christ became divine, infused in the moment. (There is indeed a strong argument that the celebration of the event was specifically emphasized to counter the Gnostic movement.)
SEEING THINGS
Claritas
Claritas. The dry-eyed Latin word
Is perfect for the carved stone of the water
Where Jesus stands up to his unwet knees
And John the Baptist pours out more water
Over his head: all this in bright sunlight
On the facade of a cathedral. Lines
Hard and thin and sinuous represent
The flowing river. Down between the lines
Little antic fish are all go. Nothing else.
And yet in that utter visibility
The stone's alive with what's invisible:
Waterweed, stirred sand-grains hurrying off,
The shadowy, unshadowed stream itself.
All afternoon, heat wavered on the steps
And the air we stood up to our eyes in wavered
Like the zigzag hieroglyph for life itself.
-- Seamus Heaney, born Mossbawn, Co. Derry
No comments:
Post a Comment