Forerunner

          As Isaiah foretold, you will be the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Clear a path for the Lord! Level a highway through this wasteland! That is what the angel said to me as I lay by my sheep in the field.

I had gazed long into heaven absorbed by God’s operations, scarcely noticing as stars began to gather and join in one brilliant blaze like frozen lightning.

          Don’t be afraid. Father had often told how he fell by the altar, but I never understood till my own heart leapt like a goat at a sudden roar. The messenger spoke his piece untroubled, told me who I would become.

But who am I? Not one anointed, not great like Isaiah or Elijah, not a worker of miracles. I have not so much as raised a single lamb from death.

I am only a boy of the desert who throws loud shouts across the emptiness like stones from David’s sling, warning of snakes and wolves, looming storms, wildfires in the underbrush.