CHRIST IN HIS CELL (a retelling by Cemachius)

23. CHRIST IN HIS CELL:

I could have sworn I was alone but evidently I was never alone they had placed guards at each of the two openings in the stone walls of the room I was in even though the windows were barred already and at the main gate leading into first the courtyard and then the actual room I was in I was watched constantly in both places and people coming and going even the curious kept popping their heads in and around corners and such in an effort to see me and even though I’d been pushed around and beaten some I was still able to stand and remain in one place uncowering although the resounding hum in my ears covered most other sounds evidently remaining from the quick yet harsh battering I’d sustained mostly at the hands of two special guards put to me Pachyrus and Dirani two oafs I hoped not to see again but knew I probably would and many of the jeers and hubbub I’d seen and heard came from what I at one time had thought were at least my ‘own’ people of whom but of course I should have known better and the ‘white sands flew’ as the old poem went and the entire time I was undergoing the present it seemed I was already undergoing the future for I knew already that I was to die and die brutally or at least become the one who died in such a fashion as the story says NOW REPLAYED LITERALLY BILLIONS OF TIMES over and over this Good Earth and what else could I choose but acceptance - nails cross blood and all - in order to portray in these terms the truer human drama within each person the struggle the loss the fight the death and the great resurrection and arrival of the arisen spirit BUT IT’S ALL TO EASY to simply recount and probably each person should do it for themselves and they do millions of times over even in one lifetime for that’s what the struggle was about and I heard the strange braying of animals and even flies and things which had started sticking to my face and blood and even my swollen eyes even there flies made noise as they died and I heard that sustained and lowering buzzing sound much this day and so many characters passed by me that I knew they were as undetermined about what to do with me as I was of them yet I knew already I was to die FOR IT WAS WRITTEN and somehow I had long ago accepted that strange proposal so remaining steady I merely sat still and looked carefully around examining and understanding all that had occurred and YES I was awaiting some form of lightning although it never came some crack in the sky some fissure opening beneath me something to characterize at the very least who and what I had become and had portrayed these few years across Judea and Samaria and these desert lands (oh so many miles walked and still the sandals hold - there’s a miracle for you) but all I received somehow instead were much stranger images to me of people taller and straighter than I’d been used to seeing and they were dressed in an awkward garb and odd and they walked in unison and sang and talked the same and mentioned my name and my story numerous times and they transported themselves on a hard blackened ground in metal boxes attached to that ground by orbs of rubber spinning and they moved over the land swiftly and carried their possessions with them they resided in enormous squares of wood and other materials unknown to me and they stared at lightboxes and ate tender food prepared by them on hot rectangles and small flames and illuminations seemed everywhere and they talked much wagging tongues incessant and moved about thoughtlessly and it seemed to me heedlessly of anything they did and they lived in different times and places yet things I could almost recognize but nothing I could devour and it seemed somehow for them and for what they did that I was about to die yet this odd image often made no sense to me yet with it I passed the time a long full afternoon and a quite tired night alas but one which brought little rest and I passed fitfully to sleep often yet kept awakening with noise and occasional peltings by guards throwing fruit cuttings and rotten pieces of lamb and fish at me and all I wanted was something to drink but got nothing and a place to piss and shit but got none and humbly in a corner I did so in public view and in so doing I even stained my own rank robes by this time sickly and sweetly stinking with odor but no one cared about that least of all me and the animals seemed to be getting louder around me and outside my window I saw people massing and stretching their necks to get a look and guards and Romans with spikes and spears took a circle around my window outside and even the big Jewish high priests and judges and lawgivers stumbled by bellowing in their way to the crowds massing there about my case and this situation and seeking to calm while aggravating the crowd all at the same time and really I saw what they were doing was manufacturing a case widening and embellishing it for whatever purposes when the judgment of tomorrow was to come and evidently from what I’d heard Rome had now gotten involved and Rome was getting annoyed and Rome was pressuring Pilate himself to cast judgment and stop the debacle and hear this case through but even I had always known Pilate to be weak and weasel-like in deference to whatever powers that be and the crowd roared and the situation was being deemed uncontrollable and I saw rocks were being thrown and I saw people falling and sticks being swung but nothing was able to stop the growing crowd and I passed perhaps to a state of short sleep but I do remember seeing large buildings with vast colored windows and men in black robes singing together and heads being bowed and again I hoped for the sky to rip open and lightning to pierce the heavens but nothing occurred and I heard a voice saying that I could not now avoid anything that was to happen that no errors were to come to me and that for me the gruesome path though filled with pain would be relatively painless and the pain itself would only come from the time expended previous to it and the noisy betrayals of hordes of people should mean nothing to me and if anything I was striking forth for all for everything for an entirely new time that I would not understand while undergoing this ordeal but would see and understand and preside over much later only and surely I shrugged things cannot be this bad cannot get any worse than this for whatever occurs what good can come from Nazareth what good ? and I realized at that moment alone that I represented all the hopeless all the beleaguered and all those with promise to come and in the event of my passage and the arrival of my time great things would come to those with faith and those who could listen to the gentle voices in the great dark night of soul and time and Heaven and earth together all things AT ONCE TOGETHER primary and secondary for all the days of our lives to come AMEN ! and with that and that simply all things were done and all time was forever changed for ONCE my name was Jesus and now it is the Christ.
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[“The Son of God for us men and for our salvation came down and was made flesh and lived as Man among men suffered and rose on the third day for IN ADAM’S FALL WE SINNED ALL and Adams disobedience brought death into the world not sin alone and God’s word itself was spoken “walk before me and be thou perfect” and Jesus’ death on the cross served to effect a reconciliation with God for in the Old Testament forgiveness of sins was associated with animal sacrifice the ‘blood atonement’ of Leviticus 17:11 and the prophet Isaiah spiritualized this offering in his prophetic account of the “man of sorrows” sent by God to bear the sins of the many the suffering servant who interceded for all transgressors in his redemptive act of self-sacrifice and according to the Gospel of Mark Jesus himself spoke of his mission - the missions of the “Son of Man” – as “not to be ministered unto but to minister and to give his life a ransom for man” Mark 10:45 and to this Matthew added the further saying of Jesus “this is my blood of the new testament which is shed for many for the remission of sin” Matthew 26:28 yet there is no single New Testament doctrine of the atonement - the process by which man may be redeemed by Jesus’ death – but rather a collection of images ranging from a general winning a military victory to a king establishing his power to a magistrate pronouncing judgment to a ritual sacrifice before a priest and altar to the payment of ransom to redeem captives and tradition has made use of all of these images at one time or another and Paul said of atonement’s paramount importance “for I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures” 1 Corinthians 15:3 and it was Paul who drew the crucial parallel between the two representatives of humanity Adam and Jesus that as mankind fell through the sin of Adam so it would be redeemed through the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus “for as in Adam all die even so in Christ shall all be made alive” 1 Corinthians 15:22 – a divine offer of reconciliation with humanity paving the way for the resurrection and in plainer terms even than that it expresses the deep faith that good can come out of even the most fundamental evil.”]