His father is not a priest so what did he mean?” Sandra asked.  “God sent him, but is he different from all of us, or the same?  We all have a mother and a father.”

“Well, well, Missy, you are finding things out aren’t you.”

“But I need to know, Monika.” 

“All right, let me try to answer.” Monika said as she sat down and pulled her chair a little closer to the fire.

“God sent men before Yeshua came.  Those men we born as we are all born and when they were grown up he called them to serve him and to do what he said.”

“You mean like Moses?”

“Yes, like Moses.  But the Coming One was different.  His life did not begin when He was a new baby, but He was with God before and came into the world from God as a new baby.  His birth was different.”

“So that is why he said ‘My Father’s things’!” Sandra said slowly.  “That means that His father is God, not really that man.”

“Yes.  But He still lived with the man and His mother – He was their eldest son – and He worked as well in their business when He was grown up.  Everyone in the town liked Him.”

“How funny!” said Sandra after thinking for a minute.

“Funny?” asked Monika, not quite understanding.

“Yes, because He is sent by God and God is His father and He works in a shop!  Did Moses know He was going to do that?”

Monika laughed.  “No, no-one did.  They thought He would be so big and scary that everyone would obey Him and He would be king over everything.”

“Yes, but God didn’t send Him just to work in a shop!  When did He stop, and what made Him stop?”

“When He was about thirty…”

“Thirty!” interrupted Sandra, “That’s so old.  Why did He wait so long?”

Monika smiled.  “Not that old, Missy!  Anyway, God decides these things, not us.”

So they sat and talked for a long while as Monika told the story of John the Baptiser who wore camel skin and ate grasshoppers with honey.  She told how people were scared of John, even the king, and how John made them even more scared when he told them about the Coming One, and how he told them to get ready by turning away from their bad habits and bad words. 

Monika made Sandra feel she was right there, standing beside the river and watching John push the people who wanted to be ready under the water and up again.  She felt she could almost hear him calling out to them to get ready.

“Monika,” she said when there was a pause, “Would you have been baptised as well if you had been there?”

Monika had never been asked that before, and she was a bit surprised by the question.  She was looking for the answer but it didn’t come, so she said instead, “Well Missy, would you?”

“I would be a bit embarrassed I think.  But if that’s what you had to do to be ready then I suppose…”

“Well, let me tell you what happened next,” said Monika, changing the subject just a little.

So Sandra was standing by the river again, watching and listening.

As each man was baptised another would come down into the water where John was standing.  John baptised each them, one after the other. 

Then another man came down into the water and came to John.  But instead of baptising Him John stopped and looked scared, as if something was wrong.  John was shaking his head and talking to the man.  But then the man said something to him and John suddenly changed his mind and baptised Him, but it seemed more slowly and carefully than he did before.

Then the man walked out of the water and began to pray, though you couldn’t hear what He said.  As He prayed something happened that no-one could explain except that it seemed as if a dove flew to Him and somehow stayed with Him.  At the same time everybody standing around heard a voice that came from above them saying, “This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased”.  Then the man walked quickly away and was gone.

“Did John keep on baptising after that?” asked Sandra.

“He did, but from then on he knew who the Coming One was.  So when he next saw Yeshua he said, ‘Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world’”.

“The world?  You mean the whole world?  And why did he call him a lamb – he’s not a lamb He’s a big man?  And whatever could a lamb do anyway?”

“Slow down, Missy,” said Monika, standing up and stretching, “Your dinner is ready and I am going home.  See you again soon.” 

“But, Monika…” protested Sandra.  But Monika was already gone.

That night, Sandra lay in bed thinking as hard as she could.  It was hard to understand, but she wasn’t going to give up.  She felt she was on a treasure hunt, and this was one treasure she really wanted to find.