ALIVE: Chapter 182, Buried Light

Seeing that the crucifixion accomplished its unholy mission to murder the three men on the preparation day for the Sabbath, the crowd gradually dispersed to go prepare. There was no more to see. The drama was done. The audience returned to their own lives of struggles and pleasures. Not one person realized that innocent Jesus who had healed them, fed them, and taught them had just also mysteriously received his and her sins on the cross. The Event was beyond comprehension on the day it occurred.

…

This was the plan from the beginning. Freedom. Let Eve disobey. Let Adam agree and distrust God too. Let Satan win. The curse. Abel died. Eve died. Adam died. Watch all humans die surrounded by grief. Death by distrust and disobedience reoccurs. Separation from God is sin. God is life. The separation of sin yields death. Both sin and death are anathema to God. The simple cure. Turn around. Instead of separating more and more, drawn near. Humility. Awareness. Trust. Through one man death came to humankind who was made in the image and likeness of supernatural God. Through one Man, the image and likeness was fully demonstrated. His final lesson, His last healing. His power over nature, His power over death was made evident and offered to all who follow closely in His footsteps. Full circle.

The phased plan. Phase 2. Remember the flood when God was so disgusted with humankind that He destroyed everyone to start over? After He saw the carnage God regretted that decision. So this time, seeing how dark with evil the world was again, He sent a great light - Himself as Jesus. Light of light, true God of true God. Unlike the flood the outcome of the power of the crucifixion would not necessarily devolve into the same human condition. However, just as with the curse on Adam and Eve, the power of the crucifixion would be universal and lasting. The curse of death was upended by the crucifixion. God = Life. Distrust + disobedience = Death. Perfect Trust + Obedience = Humility. Humility transforms sin and death into life.

God said to Himself, “Don’t kill them en masse, lead them out of their debauchery. Offer My Son, a powerful, supernatural man as Adam and Eve were. Have Him teach them, heal them, and ultimately die. But when He goes to Hades, He will trick Satan, the serpent who won. My Son in whom I dwell, and Who dwells in Me with the overwhelming power of Love and Life will lift the curse. My Son will go through the twirling flames of crucifixion to reach the Tree of Life. My Son, Jesus, will be uniquely able to unlock the gate and release every soul, from Abel to John the Baptist. I will judge their souls, and all souls that come after them fairly, knowing their hearts and minds, one by one. I will sort all of humanity that way. Each dead person will be pre-sentenced to one of two holding places, Paradise or Hell.

I will allow dying humanity to climb to refuge in the Ark (the Church). The Church will be a mother to feed them the life giving, restorative, body and blood of My Son, Jesus. When they fall, She will offer them the ability to stand up again. Her wisdom, My Wisdom will guide them through the perils of physical life in the world.

In this way I will save those who want to climb into the Ark. I will give them plenty of time to become aware - to wake up amidst the blinding chaotic world. When this phase is complete, when the time comes when those powerful dying have wreaked enough havoc on the earth I will permit them to destroy the earth, because I will create a new earth under a new heaven for My immortal children and I to live together in My holy kingdom. They will bring their knowledge and talents and personalities there and we will live happily every after as their fairy tales imagined.”

Jesus and aspects of the new covenant with God were revealed to prophets over the centuries, Daniel, Isaiah, David, Zechariah and others. Jesus pointed out the many times He was prophesied in Scripture to affirm His credibility as if the healings and teachings and even raising some from the dead weren’t enough. The prophesies were as His deep roots.

Yet, on this black day no-one knew the magnitude of what had happened.

Through the crucifixion God offered a powerful aid to repentance, which is a change of mind, for the married men looking with lust at the pretty women in the crowd, or caving to it in adultery, pornographers, pedophiles, rapists, cheaters, the gluttons, the gossipers, the greedy, the faithless, fearful worry warts, the paranoid, hostile haters, liars, even murderers and thieves, the arrogant and greedy. God took their punishment, death, upon Himself and offered Adam and Eve and all their children the road to reconciliation. No one is forced to take that road. Freedom.

All one must do though, is to be baptized. The sooner, the better. God, wasn’t ready to dismiss the purpose of flood, just its broad brush. Sin does deserve death. Death by water in baptism mimics the devastating flood. Baptism is rising from the deadly depths to the surface and mystically being able to climb into the ark (i.e., the Church) to be healed and reborn, it is dying with Jesus on the cross, and rising with Him too. Humility. Restoration of the supernatural (spiritual) image and likeness of God. Phase 3.

Only in baptism and crucifixion are death followed by resurrection, new birth. All other death is final separation from God. A human soul is not able to rise from the dead UNLESS it had risen in the flood in baptism and died with Christ, thus resurrected (reborn) and then nurtured by the Mother, Church. Phase 4. Noah’s flood resulted in the end of life on earth, but it was also a beginning.

The first birth is purely physical and limited, the second is spiritual and unlimited. Real. It is a simple prerequisite. What the baptized person does after being reborn, whether (s)he is a baby or an adult, with or without the age of reason, is the same: freedom to conform to the image of Jesus or not. The ability to transcend death (caused either by sin, or physical expiration) or to be consumed by death, is ultimately and always determined by the person’s own will. Freedom. St John wrote: “But to those who received Him (in baptism) He gave the right TO BECOME children of God.” It is not automatic. Becoming involves the person’s own human will and effort. Everyday decisions. Back to the day of the crucifixion.

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The darkness dissipated so gradually that few people even noticed. The crowd went home to prepare for their Passover Supper and Sabbath rest. The Roman soldiers went back to delicious food and the aromas of Roman trees and flowers. Artichokes and honey.

Jesus, having cleared out Hades, as quickly as possible was reunited by His Father and Holy Spirit to rest as One. God hadn't felt so relaxed since the Sabbath following the intense Creation week.

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Two Jewish men having heard the news of the rushed trial and sentence on Friday morning when they met accidentally in Jerusalem and who knew of the injustice and flaming jealousy of the shrewd hierarchy, but were unable to stop it, discussed what they could do in response.

They were Joseph of Arimathea, a wealthy man and a member of the council, and his friend, the Pharisee Nicodemus who had been sympathetic to Jesus and met with Him clandestinely several times. They came up with a plan to take the body, and bury it properly.

Fortunately, Joseph recently had a tomb hewn out of a boulder for himself, but he could make another one. He wasn’t planning to die too soon. Nicodemus would go out and get a hundred pounds of myrrh and aloes, and the linen to wrap the body in. While Jesus was being crucified, Nicodemus took his myrrh and aloes to Joseph’s tomb, then he went to Golgotha, found Joseph in the crowd and watched until it was over.

Unafraid of the chief priests Joseph boldly approached Pilate to ask him for the body of Jesus.

Pilate said, “What! Has He died already? Centurion, go find out for me!”

The centurion didn’t have to go anywhere, he knew that Jesus was dead. He saw the sword pierce Him.

“He is dead sire, I assure you of that.”

“Alright then, take Him with my blessing.” said Pilate and then ordered his carriage to take him back to his palace for a much needed nap.

When Joseph and Nicodemus returned to the site of the crosses, the gorilla men were already lifting the first heavy man’s cross out of the ground. They watched as the men carelessly drop the cross, which didn’t matter because the man was dead and didn’t feel a thing.

Before they came to Jesus’s cross Joseph approached the gorilla men and said, “Please, be more careful with this One. I will take Him, I have Pilates’s permission. The centurion next to him nodded to confirmed that. Joseph’s carriage was waiting to receive the Body.

"Okay, whatever you say.” So the gorilla men carefully lifted and brought the cross with the Body of Jesus to the ground, untied His hands and feet and yanked the nails out.

“Thank you. We will take it from here. Nicodemus laid his linen cloth on the ground and two centurions lifted the Body off the cross and carefully laid Him onto the cloth, wrapping Him in it. They then lifted Him onto the carriage.

Women followed the carriage on foot, far enough behind so as not to be seen. They were besides themselves with grief as they walked and cried, walked and cried.

When the carriage arrived, the drivers with the help of Joseph and Nicodemus, carefully lifted Jesus off the carriage and onto a marble stone inside the tomb where together they prepared the Body. The tomb wasn’t big enough for anyone else. When the body was finished being prepared, Nicodemus carefully laid a large linen napkin on His bruised face. The men prayed.

The ladies, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses and a few women who had been following Jesus from Galilee and wherever He went stood a far off tries to watch from the distance; they were grateful to know where He was laid.

When the men were finished and there was nothing more they could do, Joseph solemnly said, “Come Nico, I will give you a lift home.”

“Thank you.” He climbed on the carriage beside his friend and they drove back into Jerusalem.

With the men out of sight, the ladies approached and chanted. The angels and God looked on in sympathy at the grief of these women who watched their beloved suffer and die. He knew how bereft they felt.

Dusk forced them to leave.

“Come,” said Mary Magdalene,”Let’s go to His mother’s home and sit shiva with her.”

The ladies hated to leave but they knew they had to.

…

Meanwhile, some chief priests and Pharisees had a sleepless night. In the morning, the Sabbath of the Passover, they found each other milling around the City.

“You know, I had the strangest thought. What if that Jesus is stolen by His followers, and they all claim He rose from the dead! That would make Him more powerful than ever!” complained an old disheveled chief priest.

His friend replied, “Let’s go to Pilate and ask him to guard and seal the tomb.

“Good idea.”

To Pilate’s palace they marched in lockstep.

“Now what do they want?!” shouted perturbed Pilate to his servant. “Isn't this their day of rest? Isn’t this their high holy day?”

“What should I tell them sire?”

“Send them in.”

After they marched into the room, the bravest, youngest chief priest, boldly and unapologetically requested, “Sir, we remember that that deceiver said while he was still alive, “After three days I will rise again.” Command that the sepulcher be sealed tight until the third day, lest his disciples come and steal him away, and say to the people, He is risen from the dead: and the last error will be worse than the first.”

The priests and Pharisees looked at Pilate eager for his permission.

Pilate replied, “You have a guard! Go make it as tightly sealed as you possibly can.”

On the high holy Sabbath Passover day of rest, the priests went directly to the tomb and looked around for a bolder big enough and round enough to seal the entrance, while others went to find guards. These men found Sabbath rest in their hearts when they could be sure that no one would be duped by the deceiver.

God was resting peacefully, comfortably, happily. After all, it was was the Sabbath of Passover.