Summary: There are elements in this drama that are extra-biblical, particularly John's revelation about “light bending in water.” To anyone who even does a casual reading of the biblical account about John, it will be obvious that John had no such revelation. The John of this play, however, is a John who speaks to a modern audience so that he can articulate the magnificent knowledge he has received about the Messiah.
Style: Dramatic monologue
Duration: 20 mins
Scripture: Luke 1:57-80, Matt 3:1-17, Mark 1:1-8, John 1: 19-34
Setting: A dark cell in Herod’s prison, Machaerus
Characters: John the Baptist
Scene: John the Baptist is in his prison cell at Machaerus, just before the events leading to his beheading. He is washing his face and hands from a large bowl of rainwater. As he dries himself with a cloth, he gazes at the water and mutters to himself.
John: See how light bends when it enters the water--
(He glances up, seeing some people arriving to visit him. They are his followers, who have come to question him about Jesus' claims that he is the son of God. John addresses the audience as though they were his followers.)
Why are you visiting me here in the darkness when the light of the world is walking among you? What do you seek here in the darkness that you cannot find in the light?
Don't come to me with your questions! Leave me here to meet my death.
(forcefully) I cannot baptize you anymore!
(sadly) The waters of the Jordan are far away.
In this pit I am imprisoned in, there is only sewage. And blood.
I am in Machaerus, a place of torture.
A place of death.
Why are you not visiting Jesus of Nazareth?
Are you afraid--of Him?
Did someone tell you that his fire is igniting the universe?
Has someone warned you that his axe is at the root of the vine, and that every vine that does not bear fruit will be cut down! And burned!
Listen to me, hear me!
I drank no wine and ate only locusts and wild honey.
I wore only a shirt of camel hair that some merchant had discarded in the desert, and I turned its rough fur against my skin, and belted it tightly with the harness of an ox.
I made my home in the desert, beneath the sky, with only the flashing lights of the stars to keep me warm.
Yet some said I was insane, that I had demons in me!
Jesus lives among you as an ordinary man, eating and drinking with men and women and sinners.
Yet some accuse Him of being a drunkard and even (whispering) a fornicator!
Listen to me, hear me!
I am not the Christ!
I am a voice calling from out of the wilderness:
(loudly, joyfully) Prepare the way for the lord!
Make your paths straight!
The king of heaven is coming!
(Looking down, seeing a bible that has been placed at his feet, he picks it up and opens it, reading perfunctorily from Luke 7:18-20.)
“When the men reached Jesus, they said to Him, “John the Baptist sent us to ask you, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?’ “
(looking up at the audience, puzzled)
Are you here today because you think that John the Baptist may have doubted that Jesus is the Messiah?
Are you here today because you listen to your doubts more attentively than you listen to your faith?
How little faith you have!
Isn't it enough for you that the blind were given sight?
That the crippled could walk again?
That the dead were restored to life?
That the good news was preached to the poor?
You ask me for further testimony before you will accept Jesus as your savior? Do you not believe that Jesus is the son of God?
Speak wisely now, and remember that we both are looking at each other through prison bars--
Am I in prison?
(John picks up two metal rods and holds them in front of his face as he speaks)
Or are you? Or you?
(He throws the rods down)
My name-- John-- means "gift of God."
My parents, Elizabeth and Zacharias, were faithful to God all their lives, yet they could not conceive a child together. When they reached middle age, they were still barren, but one day the angel Gabriel appeared to my father and told him my mother would give birth to a son. He could not believe this would happen, so the angel took away his voice until the day I was born, when I was named "John". But my father was murdered on the steps of the temple by Herod's servants, who were looking for the Christ child. When I grew older, I became a Nazarite and left my mother's home to be alone with God in the desert.
I returned home only once after that--
The night my mother was dying:
(He does the voices of John and John's mother in dialogue, shrouding himself in a cloth to represent the mother)
(John’s mother’s voice) John, the angel Gabriel is before me.
He who prophesied my birth to my father?
(John’s mother’s voice)The angel of birth.
The angel of death. Are you in pain, my mother?
(John’s mother’s voice) Birthpains. I will be with God soon. And with my beloved husband.
Mother, let me cool your face with the waters of the Jordan.
(John’s mother’s voice) I can see beyond the Jordan. Beyond Israel.
Can you see the Messiah?
(John’s mother’s voice) I have seen the Messiah. He was conceived when you were yet unborn.
How do you know?
(John’s mother’s voice) The mother of the Messiah drew near me and you moved inside my womb.
But who is this Messiah?
(John’s mother’s voice) The son of Mary.
Who is His father?
(John’s mother’s voice) The Lord our God is His father.
Mother, don't die! Stay with me! Mother? Mother!
(weeping) All flesh is like grass, its beauty like the flowers of the field. The grass withers, the flowers fade when the breath of God blows up them--
(composing himself) --but the word of God endures forever.
I returned to the desert alone. My only companion was God. I welcomed hardship, and loneliness, and terror, because I was awaiting a sign from God, a final revelation of where this Messiah could be.
Then one day I was passing by the banks of the river Jordan watching people wading through the water, when I heard a voice. The word of God came to me and it said:
(gently) Comfort my people!
(more emphatically) And tell them to repent!
Baptize them with water!
The word of God commanded me to (forcefully) baptize with water!
(John kneels beside the bowl and washes his face and hands vigorously. The expression on his countenance is rapturous.)
They watched me baptize myself in the river Jordan; they watched as the waters stripped the desert off the filthy body of the crazy Nazarite; they watched as my skin began to shine with an unearthly whiteness--
(shouting) Mothers of Israel! Sons of Israel! Turn away from your sins! Clothe yourselves with nakedness in the sight of the lord! Be baptized in these waters and make yourselves clean!
(more intimately) Come forward! There is nothing more to fear! The shepherd is calling his sheep!
I am baptizing you with water, but there is one who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit-- and with unquenchable fire!
Prepare yourselves for the coming of the Lord, for I tell you the truth -- He is here among us now!
He baptizes an invisible throng, one by one, miming immersions and blessings.
I began to hear a voice again, whispering to me.
“Light bends--water--see how light--bends--water—"
What did you say, o Lord? I am listening but I cannot understand!
The whispering continued for days, growing louder until it so filled up my ears that I could not hear my own thoughts! Yet I could not understand the words, so I returned to the desert to pray to God.
(He recites the words he heard, beginning quietly then gradually increasing in volume)
“--water--light enters water--bends when it enters--light bends when it enters water--water--lights bends when it enters water--see how light bends--bends when it enters water--see how light bends when it enters water...”
(suddenly kneels) I hear but I cannot understand! Lord, let me understand your words!
“See how light bends when it enters the water.”
“See how light bends when it enters the water!”
I could not understand this prophecy, but I knew that if I waited, it would be revealed to me, and I would learn who is the Messiah. Every day I returned to the Jordan to preach repentance and to baptize thousands who wanted to prepare themselves for the lord's coming. I had many followers who helped me baptize the large crowds. John, the son of Zebedee, and Andrew, the younger brother of Simon Peter, became the first. I confided in them, and they in me.
You two young men are fishermen, I asked them once, and you fish on the sea of galilee -- tell me this mystery: why does light bend when it enters water? And what could that mean?
But neither of them understood how or why. So I never told them that this was my message from God about the Messiah.
Then one day, on the sabbath, I saw a familiar man approach me from the crowds. He was a man about my own age whom I recognized as a cousin of mine -- Jesus, the son of Mary.
My eyes fixed on Him. I could not look away. He waded into the water toward me and then stood in front of me for a moment, motionless.
I began to hear the whispering in my ears again, but this time it was like--like a distant chorus of angels singing a hymn of praise. I--I tried to speak to Him, but my tongue was paralyzed as my father's tongue had been paralyzed when he was struck dumb by the angel gabriel.
Then I understood. I understood!
(He does the voices of John and Jesus in dialogue)
Jesus began to bend down into the water…
(Jesus) See how light bends
And a bright light fell around Him…
(Jesus) When it enters the water
And I realized that this was the Messiah…
(Jesus) The light has come into the world
And the Messiah was to be baptized in water…
(Jesus) And darkness shall not overcome the light
And I was to proclaim his presence…
(Jesus) See how light bends
And to be a witness to the light…
(Jesus) When it enters the water
When he enters the water!
(loudly, to Jesus) Why do you come to me to be baptized?
I should be baptized by you!
But Jesus said: “This is the way it was always meant to be.”
Then I baptized Him and saw a bright light and the holy spirit resting upon his head like a crown of doves, and the whispering began again, louder and louder, and this time the voice of God, clearer than my own voice, said:
(God) This is my son, whom I love.
The Messiah! The Saviour!
My work was finished. It was to decrease so that his name would increase.
The very next day, I saw Him in the desert when I was with John, son of Zebedee.
Look! I said to the young fisherman. There is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of our world! I saw the spirit of God descend upon Him.
John followed Jesus and became his disciple. Andrew and many of the others also followed Jesus. I said farewell to the desert sands, farewell to the waters of the Jordan.
King Herod's soldiers arrested me and dragged me off to Machaerus. Now here I languish in Herod's dungeon, where they torture me endlessly, and my bones turn to sand, and my blood turns to water--
But they cannot diminish what God has fulfilled!
The Messiah has come!
The kingdom of heaven is advancing!
(Looking upward and hearing a party in the court above him)
(laughing) Dance, Salome, dance! Even though your lecherous king Herod may take my head– (He thrusts his hands, palms upward, beneath his jaws) --and serve it to you on a platter, you will know that my lifeless eyes have seen the coming of the lord!
(To the audience:)
But if my testimony is insufficient for you
If you still do not believe that Jesus is the Messiah,
The son of God,
Then go to Him! Yes! Go to Him yourselves
And ask Him if he is the one.
Let Him answer you in his own words!
And remember that you who are least in the kingdom of heaven
Are greater than I am.
I am only a witness to the light, but you-- --you are the light of the world--
(He kneels before the bowl.)
--and light must bend when it enters--
(He places his hands in the water)
--the water--
(He splashes it in the air triumphantly)
--of life!
End
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