<html><body>Part 2:<div><br></div><div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"> Had Jesus <b><u>NOT</u></b> gone to John; had Jesus thought it an unnecessary step in His vocation; had Jesus not responded to a prompt from God, and <b><u>NOT</u></b> dedicated His life to God in that public way, none of those there would have recognised Him. I mean <b><u>REALLY</u></b> recognised Him.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"> I’m not saying that everyone did back-flip, just as the unborn John did twenty-some years previously. Whenever there’s some sort of revelation, there are always those who are looking the other way, insisting on telling a joke or attracting attention to themselves. There were – there still are – those who’d do anything and everything to deflect attention from others and draw it to themselves. And, still, there are folk who DON’T, who WON’T see the sign, who don’t hear a word, who won’t quiet down enough to hear something as gentle as a Dove’s wing beat in the air and cross the scene, who miss the flash of light that may have illuminated Jesus’ face, even if only for a moment.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"> But to those who saw, who head, who noticed, however puzzled they may have been, <b><u>SOMETHING</u></b> may have registered. At least they may have begin to comprehend that Jesus was someone to watch.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"> So if Jesus HADN’T gone to the river; if Jesus hadn’t gone into the river; if Jesus and John had, somehow, not connected and Jesus hadn’t affirmed His obedience, then He wouldn’t have been recognised by the crowd that was there.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"> Or, quite like, by us.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"> There’s an interesting phenomenon about life on this earth. We lived in a closed system. In other words, what we see, what we experience through our senses, stays within the system. It may be transformed in one way or another, to our detriment or our benefit, but it stays. Water, the basic cushion of our lives, like John’s and Jesus’ amniotic fluid; water is here in a finite capacity. What Jesus stepped in, what cascaded over Jesus, as well as everyone else that day, is intermingled with the water that exists today. Each molecule has a role to play, and each molecule impacts others, which impact yet others, and so on, till we discover that all the molecules of hydrogen oxide which fell on to Evangeline’s forehead on Christmas morning have a relationship to those which touched Jesus.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"> And so it is with people. Those who listened to John and crowded around him; those who saw this nondescript affirm as they had; those who saw a Dove hovering overhead; those who sensed God’s spectacularly happy approval of what was going on; <b><u>ALL</u></b> of those people interacted with others, who interacted with others, who interacted with others, who interacted with others, and so on, until we discover that we have been touched, comforted, healed, corrected, affirmed by people whose lives are connected directly to Jesus as He stood in the Jordan.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"> <b><u>THIS</u></b> is why Jesus came to John. <b><u>THIS</u></b> is why people, or at least some people, finally recognised Jesus. THIS is why we now have to make it possible for other people to hear, to see, to feel, to taste and discover how God loves every last one of us, and calls us to minister to every other single person – no matter whether they seem to be always in the midst of a crowd or on the fringes.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"> As John had a role to play in the revelation of Jesus, so we too have a role to play in the revelation of Jesus – so that our eyes, our hearts, our minds, our hands can be opened further and further, until there’s no one we haven’t touched whom we might touch.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"> Mt friend, Louie Clay, relayed what one of his friends experienced recently in London.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"> “My wife and I were sitting in the second-from-the-front pew (yes, we are Episcopalians anyway!) at St. Martin's-in-the-Fields in London, the parish church of the Royal Family and the Admiralty. In the row behind us there was a man who looked and smelled as though his last bath was at infant Baptism. He made loud unintelligible comments to the sermon by a recently-ordained woman priest. After he received Communion he turned in the nave and gave the finger to the priests (probably had not gotten enough wine). No one seemed to notice. At the end of the service his hand was shaken like everyone else's. Those are my kind<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">of people!” <sup>1</sup><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"> You and I have to extend more than one finger. We have to extend our whole hand, all of who we are, to even the most strange, or the most innocuous, or the most indistinguishable person – because Jesus walked to the river; and stood in the crowd, <b><u>IN</u></b> the river; and looked John in the eye; and said, “Yes” for all who were, and all who are, and all who will ever be in creation.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"> We can do no less.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 15.3333px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 15.3333px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">NOTE:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 15.3333px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 15.3333px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[1]</span></span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 15.3333px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> <span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Lane Brown, via Louie Crew, on Facebook.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div><div><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 15.3333px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><br></span></span></div></body></html>