The Man In The Red T-Shirt (2024)

This piece was inspired by the 1,614 individuals who went public with their faith in Jesus Christ at The Church of Eleven22’s Beach Baptism on May, 5th 2024. May each one feel a deep sense of connection with the Father, the Spirit, and the Son who was plunged into the baptism waters before them. Click here for more information on baptism at The Church of Eleven22.

“Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” (Matthew 3:15 ESV)

It was a phenomenon. Like a strong, invisible wind rustling through the palm branches without warning. The masses had gathered from the city and its surrounding areas and now stood at the water’s edge awaiting their turn. They came by the thousands to do it. The only thing they all had in common was the yearning to be clean and the red t-shirt they were given at the registration table. John was out in the water. He was the most unlikely prophet. The years he spent in wilderness solitude having conversations with God in the presence of the bugs and bees had built up like pressure-cooker steam in his belly. Eventually it shrieked out of him like a forgotten teapot. He sounded angry, but it wasn’t malicious. It was conviction. John felt the un-rightness of the world. It was off axis and off orbit, careening toward destruction at light speed. He had been living in the tension of it knowing something needed to be done. There was a shape in his mind of what needed to happen. He was waiting for it, for him. He had seen his silhouette in a reoccurring dream as he lay on his back alone night after night under the desert stars. The dream of the man was always accompanied by the same feeling. His heart began to race and what he thought was his soul fell into his gut. In his mind’s eye he noticed the ease of the man’s gate as he squinted through the bright desert sun, the particular way his arm swung at his side. It haunted him in the most peaceful way. In a sense the man in John’s dream seemed common, just like everybody else. But in another he knew he was altogether different, and he knew that, given the chance, he could pull him out of a crowd of thousands. As John thought about his dream, he knew the shared desire of the crowd at the water’s edge to be clean and the man were somehow intermingled.

John couldn’t keep his mouth shut about it all. After all those years of quiet his voice bellowed through the cliffs and crags of the desert rock formations like a war cry. He was impossible to ignore. The more people listened to him the more they believed what he had to say. That’s why they came and come they did. They couldn’t print the red t-shirts fast enough. John knew that other than the fact that it flowed through the desert, there was nothing special about the river. It was wet like any water was wet, but the desire in the eyes of the people in the red t-shirts and the looks on their faces when they came up out of that water…well, there was something to that. He saw a little bit of the meaning of his dream in every man, woman, and child that he plunged under the surface. They went down dirty, but they didn’t come up that way. Sure, there were still traces of dust between their toes and behind their ears, but their hearts were light and airy.

Going out to the river was instinctual for John. A horse was made to run and a fish to swim, and John knew from the time he was a boy he had a purpose of his own. The crazy thing is he knew the reason he kept breathing had more to do with someone else than it did him. As he entered the water day after day and placed his hands on the people streaming out to be washed, he kept an eye on the horizon. It was a sea of red. Some were taller in stature than others, some young, and some old. To his eye they began to bleed into one another in mass. They were like a giant beating heart waiting in anticipation for the same thing he was. His own personal angst over the state of things had rubbed off on them. They longed for the man in John’s dream too, and the great culmination he would bring with him. When the masses parceled out and came to meet him in ones and twos in the waist deep water, he looked into their eyes and saw their souls. Each red t-shirt represented a story of loss and emptiness, but each story had discovered hope in both the washing and the waiting.

The day it happened started the same way the days before had. John raised his voice at the water’s edge and announced the possibility of being clean to anyone who would listen. And just like the days before the crowds began to gather and the line began to form. But today, just before he turned his back to the crowds to make his way into the water, he caught something out of the corner of his eye. There at the table where the crowds were gathering to for their red t-shirts, he noticed the particular swing of an arm. His eyes strained and squinted as the sun reflected off the water behind him. At once his heart raced and his soul fell into his gut. His feet affixed themselves to the sand on the shore beneath him. He couldn’t move. The motion of the swinging arm had him in a trance just like his desert dreaming had. In a way It was like John was seeing something he had seen his whole life, but he knew he had never seen it before. The man to whom the swinging arm belonged stood in the long line with everyone else waiting for his t-shirt. John took a deep breath to calm himself down. He squinted harder. Surely the moment that he had been waiting for would come with more pomp than this. He watched as the people in front of the man took their turn bringing him to the front of the line. The man leaned down placing his open palms on the surface of the white folding table and greeted the woman who sat behind it. She asked him for his name and his shirt size. He looked at her and smiled as she wrote them down on the clipboard list in front of her. She found the requested size and held it out to him. He thanked her in response.

The crowd began to notice that John hadn’t moved. He still stood speechless on the shore with his eyes fixed on the man. An odd restlessness hung in the air. Eventually the crowd started looking in the same direction as John trying to find whatever had taken him over. He didn’t notice. He watched as the man pulled the red T-shirt down over his head, and found his place in the back of the line that led out to the water just like everybody else. John was dumbfounded. All the prophet in him surged from his belly to his tongue. His voice shuddered as he spoke…

“Everyone….look!”

He raised his finger and pointed to the back of the line.

“It’s him.”

There was a stir in the crowd, but they were all looking for the same grand entrance John had been looking for. They didn’t recognize him. How could they? He had taken every possible measure to blend in and become one of them. As the crowd looked around puzzled the man lifted his chin from the ground, made eye contact with John, smiled, and nodded. That’s when he knew. John understood he didn’t want special treatment. The way he had come was so unassuming. He was taking great pleasure waiting for his turn. After a moment the man from John’s dream swung his arm again and motioned his hand toward the water. He looked at John and raised his eyebrows. It was an invitation. It took everything he had to break eye contact, but he knew what the man wanted. John turned his back to the crowd and waded out into the river.

The Man In The Red T-Shirt (2)

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The Man In The Red T-Shirt (2024)

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