|
" 'But bury in this desert the true certainty that you are God.
Then, you'll suffer it all as a man suffers it. Then you'll know whatthis suffering is at its heart. Then will all the glory be stripped fromagony! And you will see what men see when flesh is ripped, and torn,and blood flows, and it is your own. It's filth!'
" 'Memnoch, men die on Golgotha every day. What is importantis that the Son of God knowingly dies on Golgotha in the body of aman.'
" 'Oh, no, no!' I cried out. 'This is disaster.'
"He seemed so sad suddenly that I thought he might weep for me.
His lips were parched and cracked from the desert. His hands were sothin I could see the veins. He was not even a great specimen of a man,only an ordinary one, worn down by years of toil.
" 'Look at you,' I said, 'starving, thirsting, suffering, tired, lost inall the darknesses of life, the true spontaneous evils of nature, anddreaming of glory when you exit this body! What kind of lesson cansuch suffering be? And who will you leave with the guilt for yourmurder? What will become of all those mere mortals who deniedyou? No, please, Lord, listen to me. If you won't leave your Divinity,then don't do it. Change this plan.
" 'Don't die. Above all, don't be murdered! Don't hang from atree like the God of the Wood in the Greek stories. Come with meinto Jerusalem; and know women and wine and singing and dancingand the birth of little ones, and all the joy the human heart cancontain and express!
" 'Lord, there are times when the hardest men hold infants intheir arms, their own children, and the happiness and satisfaction ofthose moments is so sublime that there is no horror on earth that candestroy the peace they feel! That is the human capacity for love andunderstanding! When one can achieve harmony in spite of everything,and men and women do this, Lord. They do. Come, dancewith your people. Sing with them. Feast with them. Throw your armsaround the women and the men and know them in the flesh!'
" 'I feel pity for you, Memnoch,' He said. 'I pity you as I pity themortals who will kill me, and those who will inevitablymisunderstand my laws. But I dream of those who will be touched to the coreby my suffering, and who will never forget it, and will know what loveI felt for mortals that I would let myself die among them beforeopening the gates of Sheol. I pity you. Feeling as you do, your guiltwill become too terrible to bear.'
" 'My guilt? What guilt?'
" 'You're the cause of all this, Memnoch. You're the one who saidI should come down in the flesh. You're the one who urged me on todo it, who challenged me, and now you fail to see the miracle of mysacrifice.
" 'And when you do see it, when you do see souls perfected bysuffering ascending to Heaven, what will you think then of yourpaltry little discoveries made in the arms of the Daughters of Men?
What will you think? Don't you see? I will redeem suffering,Memnoch! I will give it its greatest and fullest potential within the cycle! Iwill bring it to fruition. I will allow it to sing its own magnificentsong!'
" 'No, no, no!' I stood up and railed at Him. 'Lord, just do as I ask.
Go through with it, yes, if you must, found this miracle upon a murder,do it that way, if that is your will, but bury your certainty ofDivinity, so that you really, really do die, Lord, so that when theydrive the nails through your hands and feet you know what a manfeels and no more, and when you enter the gloom of Sheol yours is ahuman soul! Please, Lord, please, I'm begging you. For all humanity,I'm begging you. I can't see the future but I have never been morefrightened of it than I am now.' "Memnoch broke off.
We stood alone in the sands, Memnoch looking into the distanceand me beside him, shaken.
"He didn't do it, did he?" I asked. "Memnoch, God died knowingHe was God. He died and rose knowing the whole time. The worldargues over it and debates and wonders, but He knew. When theydrove the nails, He knew He was God.""Yes," said Memnoch. "He was man, but that man was neverwithout the power of God."Suddenly I was distracted.
Memnoch seemed too shaken to say any more just yet.
Something changed in the landscape. I looked towards the circleof stones, and realized a figure was sitting there, the figure of a dark-skinned, dark-eyed man, emaciated and covered with the sand of thedesert, and he was looking at us. And without one fiber of his fleshbeing other than human, He was obviously God.
I was petrified.
|
