Jesus is alone. He is walking slowly, coming forward, behind the Baptist. He approaches noiselessly and listens to the thundering voice of the Penitent of the desert, as if He also were one of the many who came to John to be baptised and purified for the coming of the Messiah. There is nothing to distinguish Jesus from the others. His clothes are those of common people, but He has the bearing and handsomeness of a gentleman. There is no divine sign discriminating Him from the crowd.
But it would appear that John perceives a special spirituality emanate from Him. He turns round, and at once identifies the source of the emanation. He descends impulsively from the rocky pulpit and moves quickly towards Jesus, who has stopped a few yards away from the crowd and is leaning against the trunk of a tree.
John, after scrutinising Him with his piercing eyes, exclaims: “Here is the Lamb of God. How is it that my Lord comes to me?”
Jesus replies calmly: “To fulfill the Penitential rite.”
“Never, my Lord. I must come to You to be sanctified, and you are coming to me?”
And Jesus, laying His hand on the head of John, who had bowed down in front of Him, replies: “Let it be done as I wish, that all justice may be fulfilled and your rite many become the beginning of the higher mystery and men may be informed that the Victim is the the world.”
John looks at Him with his eyes sweetened by tears and precedes Jesus towards the bank of the river. Jesus takes off His mantle and tunic, and is left with a kind of pair of short trousers. He then descends into the water, where there is John, who baptises Him, pouring on His head some water from the river by means of a cup, tied to his belt. It looks like a shell or a half pumpkin dried and emptied.
Jesus is really the Lamb. A Lamb in the whiteness of His flesh, in the modesty of His gestures, in the meekness of His look.
While Jesus climbs on to the bank and after putting on His clothes concentrates on praying, John points Him out to the crowd and testifies that he recognized Him by the sign that the Spirit of God had shown him as an infallible means to identify the Redeemer.
Poem of the Man God