Gabriel walked slowly from the city and wondered at the words of John. Today – ‘As John stood there with two of his disciples, Jesus passed and John stared hard at him and said: ‘Look, there is the lamb of God.’ Hearing this, the disciples followed Jesus [John 1. 35 – 42]

Gabriel thought:

‘how lucky to be alive at that time. Surely no one would have passed up the opportunity of following the corrective force of world history, whether you believe in him or not.’

‘Surely,’ he asked himself, ‘if I had been alive then, whatever position was open to me at the Emperor’s Court, whatever the power and glory available – whatever riches at the Greatest Phoenician trader – I would have given up anything to be there. And when I arrived at that little sandy, impoverished village, there would have been thousands, if not hundreds of thousands there before, if everyone else at that time had been given the opportunity.”

But Gabriel stopped a while in the City’s supermarket and thought as if of a sudden: ‘But that message is still there. I am the passer by. Why don’t I; why can’t I follow the way painted by John too?