I, Chief Spirit Santorino, will tell you today about the last hours of Christ's life on Earth. I will not talk about everything that occurred then, and about that which has been correctly described in the Gospel.
FRIDAY. The clock neared five. High above the crowd, Christ looked on it from the cross, and looked out over the Holy City. His hands and feet, having been nailed through, burned horribly. With each smallest movement, the nails slowly tore the flesh ever more. If He wanted to slightly relieve His hands, His feet began to hurt unbearably, and if He wanted to relieve His feet, then His hands hurt just as unbearably. It was not much better even when He let His body hang loosely. Every muscle ached like an overstrained string.
How can this pain be expressed in words? It can be understood only if one personally suffers it.
His suffering was even greater when He saw the suffering of His mother and other relatives. His mother's suffering in particular was not much less painful than the Son's suffering, because it was even more dreadful.
He saw His most beloved disciple, John, standing next to His mother. He could also see a few other disciples in the crowd. He raised His head slightly and cast His glance over the town of Jerusalem. He had suffered there so much yesterday and today. The past hours of the past days flashed before His eyes.
For a moment, different scenes flashed before His eyes – of Him being greeted by the people and accompanied by their cheers, as He rode into this town of torture. Then His eyes focused on the Hall of Feast, where He sat with all His disciples. Here before Him were reborn the torments which He underwent, by permitting one of His apostles to betray Him – the Son of God.
For a long time He had sought the right man – a man He would feel the least sorry for. Yet, how could a man like that be found, when there was no man for whom He would not feel sorry, no matter how bad this man might be? When He broke His piece of bread with this disciple and told him, "Go and do that which you must do!" then, for the first time in His life, the Son of God felt that He, too, had become a sinner. He knew that there was nothing with which He could repay the apostle for the sin placed upon him, and that the only way out was to let his soul pass into nonexistence at the moment of his death. Will Christ be ever able to forgive Himself, or will He have to suffer torment for that eternally?
I reveal to humanity this – the world's greatest tragedy – for the first time, because it surpasses all the tragedies in the world, but the people had failed to comprehend it.
Then the night in the Garden of Gethsemane flashed before His eyes. He had discussed with His Father all His courses of action on Earth, and also how to give humanity an example, so that it could not complain that God had not suffered the way people have to suffer. Therefore, it was easy for Him to summon people to self-sacrifice for the sake of God and humanity.
Obviously, He and God had considered other possibilities, and probabilities that could have arisen during the time of Christ's life on Earth, but they did not arise. People were still so subordinated to the power of matter that it was possible to help them to set themselves free from it only by utilizing everything that was possible for a human. Knowing what His Father's reply would be when facing the foreseeable, atrocious torture, His spirit sought His Father's help. Obviously, not even His Father was able to help Him, without undoing everything that had been accomplished, and what could be done after that?
Christ hoped that His disciples would be with Him during this difficult moment, but their spirits were weaker than their bodies, and Christ woke them up three times in vain. And then, when they were ready to leave the garden, He saw Judas coming with the soldiers. He understood that the hours of torture were beginning.
"You betray your Teacher with a kiss," He said bitterly. That was His parting from Judas for eternity.
This kiss proved that a kiss can bring not only happiness and love, but that it can also bring torture and death. Thus the kiss, too, lost its value that night.
Then before His eyes flashed scenes of how He had been brought before the high priest, and how, with false witnesses, he tried to make Him guilty of profaning God, by claiming to be the Son of God. However, only two witnesses were found who would testify against Him. The Hebrew high priest, though, found fault with Christ's words, and proclaimed Him to be guilty and to be punished.
He was taken to Pilate, but Pilate did not find Him guilty.
Then Pilate, the Roman, sent Him to the Hebrew King Herod. The king did not find Christ guilty either, and sent Him back to Pilate.
Once again, Pilate could not find Christ guilty, for Christ said that His Kingdom is not on Earth, and that He has come to Earth to proclaim justice and love to the people.
Pilate's wife, too, begged that this Prophet be spared. Yet, the priests, Pharisees, the learned men, and the entire synod demanded the death of Christ.
In order to avoid possible trouble, Pilate gave in once the Hebrews began to threaten him. They said that Pilate wanted to spare a man who called himself the King of Jews, and by doing this, he was supporting the enemies of Rome. Pilate washed his hands in a vessel of water, and having dried them, said, "I wash my hands of this Prophet's blood!"
Then Christ saw once more the torture, mockery, spitting in His face, beatings, and all kinds of degradation.
Christ received yet another blow. Representatives of the Hebrew nation found a murderer to be more deserving of being set free than He – the Son of God.
Thus began the road of the cross. He was so weak, and the cross so heavy, that it was given to someone else to be carried. And so, you see, here He was, crucified, in between two criminals.
The sixth hour approached. The torment became ever more unbearable. He looked at His mother and John, and told John to take His mother as his own mother, and care for her as a son, until her death.
The sky began to turn dark, and enveloped in darkness the Earth as well. The ninth hour approached. The people continued to ridicule Him in various ways, saying, "You claimed that You could tear down the temple and build it anew in three days. If You can do that, then why can't You free Yourself from the cross?"
Another said, "If You are the Son of God, climb down from the cross, and then we will believe You."
This went on.
"These people are so merciless and even detestable!" Christ thought. "They deserve to be destroyed."
The voice of God came, "If You want Me to, I will carry that out!"
Christ thought, "But My mother is in this crowd, as well, and so are My relatives, My apostles, and followers. I do not want them to perish."
"I will spare them," God replied.
Christ was absorbed in thought once again. He saw children grasping at the clothing of their mothers, saw some people with compassion on their faces, and even tears in their eyes. Then He thought, "No, they have to live!"
Then He began to think about the others, "Just how guilty are they really? Many of them do not know Me, and believe in all the evil that the priests tell them. It is not they who are guilty, but rather the priests!"
And He said, "No Father, there are very few here who are really guilty, and because of them You may not destroy all the many deceived ones and all the many unwittingly guilty ones, therefore everyone must be spared."
It turned ever darker. Christ felt that it was no longer possible to bear the pain, and moans came inadvertently from His lips, "Oh, God, why have You abandoned Me?"
"I have not abandoned You. I suffer along with You. If You can no longer bear it, then leave Your body and return to Me!"
Christ said a few words, expressing them in thought and a few in words, "Yes, Father, I deliver My spirit into Your hands, for everything has already come true!"
He lowered His lifeless head to His chest.
In order to prove to those people who were capable of understanding that Christ truly was sent by Him, God shattered the cliffs with lightning, shook the ground, and tore the curtain in the temple. He released many of the dead from their graves, and many people acknowledged their sin and fell to their knees in front of God.
Many, however, did as Christ had already told the synod, "If I were to tell you the truth, you would not believe Me anyway. What sense then is there in My replying to you?"
Thus ends my tiding about Christ's last hours on Earth.
Santorino.
History of The Religion
Reading Materials
