John the Baptist offers unsolicited advice to Jesus on his thirty-third birthday

Listen up.
I’m only a few chapters ahead of you in this book, but lemme tell ya:
it does
not
end
well
for either of us.

Well, nothing ever ends, not really.
But I promise,
it’s going to hurt.
When they braid that crown of thorns,
be thankful you’ve got a head to hang it on.
Circumstances are
a funnel. 
A cake, a sieve,
a cloud.
They will separate you into your constituent parts. Turn you into
something else.
A pincushion. A Christmas ornament. An effigy
of the God of Abraham.

The doubt and the pain are more than momentary,
they are the water you walk across.
They are what binds you
to the distant shore.
The surrogate sustenance that fills our lungs until we are born,
they are the medium
of your baptism.

Here’s the good news:
you can stop weighing your worthiness.
You. Are. Ready.
When you turned down that deal in the desert,
you placed a bet on your own infinitude.
So stop asking for permission to enter
and walk straight into the temple.
Audacity is the key that opens every lock, it’s the only reason
these motherfuckers keep getting over on us.
Don’t worry about that, though. 
This empire, that empire.
It is impossible to interfere with beauty.

And in the morning, shedding
the cocoon of your burial shroud,
stigmata scabbed over, face still puffy
from crying your eyes out in the garden,
wondering why your father left you,
press the perfumed mug of grief to your skin,
cast worshipful noticing on the landfill of creation,
Love uncritically,
and dance yourself
out of the tomb.