The Gospel According to the Son Read Online Free

Passing so quickly from air to water, I gasped first at my loss of breath and then from all the water I swallowed. Still, in this moment I saw many things, and my life was changed forever.
    Was the Holiest descending toward us in the shape of a dove? And when I came up from the water, the dove was on my shoulder. I felt as if much had come back to me from all that had been lost. I was one again with myselfù a poor man, but good. And then I felt more. I had a vision of glory. The heavens opened for an instant and it was as if I saw a million, nay, a million million of souls.
    I heard a voice, and it came from the heavens. It came into my ear and said: "Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee." Fear and exaltation were in me then, and in greater measure than I had ever known. I raised my face to the heavens and said, "Lord God, I am like a child."
    And the Lord spoke as He had to the prophet Jeremiah. I heard: "Say not 'I am a child,' for you shall go to all the places that I shall send thee." And I felt as if His finger blessed my mouth even as the beak of the dove touched my lips. His Word came into me like the burning fire in my bones when I was twelve and sick with fever.
    Now John withdrew his hand from my head and we stood in the river. Away went the dove. And John and I spoke to each other a little. I will tell of that, and soon. But when I left, I knew that I would never see him again. He began to sing as I left, but it was to the River Jordan, not to me. And the taste of that brown river was still in my mouth and the dust of the desert in my nostrils as I set out on my long march home to Nazareth.

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    It was late in the afternoon. The light upon the rocks turned to gold. And I could still hear John the Baptist as he sang. Since he knew no song, the music of his throat came forth like the voice of a ram.
    I walked with strength. For now I was no longer like other men. My legs took larger strides than before. Now I knew the other man who had lived within the shell of myself, and he was better than me. I had become that man.
    A great cloud came over the sky. There was a downpour. A rainbow arose from one end of the desert to touch the other, and above me was the radiance of the Lord. Soon I lay down upon the hot damp sand, and soon I heard His voice. He said: "Stand upon your feet."
    When I did, He told me: "Once I spoke to the prophet Ezekiel and he saved our people in Babylon. Now these words given to Ezekiel are for you: 'Son of Man, I send thee to the children of Israel, to a nation that hath rebelled against Me, even unto this very day. For they are impudent children and stiff-hearted. But you will speak My words unto them. Since they are not a people of a strange speech whose words you cannot understand but are the house of Israel, behold! I will make your face strong against their face. So fear them not.' "
    Then this voice said into my ear: "Those were My words to Ezekiel. But to you I say: You are My son, and therefore you will be mightier than a prophet. Even mightier than the prophet Ezekiel."
    I still had many hours to travel across land I hardly knew. Again I was full of exaltation, and again I was full of fear. I was also weary. The scrolls I had studied since childhood were not as close to me as the words of this high Lord my God, yet now that He was near, I could only fear Him. For the sound of His voice can be heard in the echo of great rocks when they fall. And I did not know how to serve a Lord who could leave boils upon the flesh of every man and beast in the land of Egypt and cast hail to blight every herb of the field, or fire in the grass until every tree was consumed. I raised my hands toward heaven as if to ask whether I was truly the one to exercise His force. And God said to me, "Since you are not yet strong, do not return to your home. Go up rather into the mountain that is there before you. Go now. In that wilderness, fast among the rocks. Drink the water that is beneath the rocks.