I didn't answer for a moment. The comment was charged with contempt and humor, of course. Then I spoke.
'That's true, Lord. And suffering is so terrible for humans, injustice is so terrible for the balance of their mind that it can destroy those lessons learnt in bed, magnificent as they are!'
'Oh, but when Love is reached through suffering, Lucifer, it has a power it can never gain through innocence.'
'Why do you say that? I don't believe it! I don't think you grasp it, Lord, listen to me. There's one chance for this to be proven my way. One chance.'
'If you think for one moment you will interfere with my ministry and my sacrifice, if you think you can turn the tide of the vast forces already moving towards this event, then you are no more an angel, but a demon!' He said.
'I don't ask that,' I said. 'Go through with it. Minister, outrage them; be arrested, tried, and executed on the cross, yes, do all of it. But do it as a man!'
'I intend to.'
'No, you'll know the whole time you're God. I'm saying Forget that you are God! Bury your divinity in the flesh the way it's been buried intermittently. Bury it, Lord, leaving yourself only your faith and your belief in Heaven, as if it had come to you through Revelation immense and undeniable. 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 what this suffering is at its heart. Then will the joy be stripped from agony! And you will see what men see when flesh is ripped, and torn and blood flows, and it is your own, and you will be broken as well and not ask this of your Creations!'
'Lucifer, men die on Golgotha every day. What is important is that the Son of God knowingly sacrifices himself in the body of a man.'
'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 so thin 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 in all the darknesses of life, the true spontaneous evils of nature, and dreaming of glory when you exit this body! What kind of lesson can such suffering be? And who will you leave with the guilt for your murder? What will become of all those mere mortals who denied you? No, please, Lord, listen to me. If you won't leave your Divinity, then don't do it. Change the plan.
'Don't die. Above all, don't be murdered! Don't hang from a tree like the God of the Wood in the Greek stories. Come with me into Jerusalem and know women and wine and singing and dancing and the birth of little ones, and all the joy the human heart can contain and express!
'Lord, there are times when the hardest men hold infants in their arms, their own children, and the happiness and satisfaction of those moments is so sublime that there is no horror on earth that can destroy the peace they feel! That is the human capacity for love and understanding! When one can achieve harmony in spite of everything, and men and women do this, Lord. They do. Come, dance with your people. Sing with them. Feast with them. Throw your arms around the women and the men and know them in the flesh!'
'I feel pity for you, Lucifer,' He said. 'I pity you as I pity the mortals who will kill me, and those who will inevitably misunderstand my sacrifice and my laws, and what I would ask of them. But I dream of those who will be touched to the core by my suffering, and who will never forget it and seek to replicate it, and will know what love I felt for mortals that I would let myself die among them and grant them the chance to redeem themselves from Sin and Sheol. I pity you. Feeling as you do, your guilt will become too terrible to bear.'
'My guilt? What guilt?'
'You're the cause of all this, Lucifer. You're the one who said I should come down in the flesh. You're the one who urged me on to do it, who challenged me, who asked me to offer these humans a way to reach Heaven, and now you fail to see the miracle of my sacrifice.
'And when you do see it, when you do see souls perfected by suffering ascending to Heaven, when you see my Chosen One cross the River of Lethe of their own volition, after suffering all a soul may suffer, what will you think of your paltry little discoveries made in the arms of Daughters of Men? What will you think? Don't you see? I will redeem suffering, Lucifer! I will give it its greatest and fullest potential within the cycle! I will bring it to fruition. I will allow it to sing its own magnificent song!'
'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 of your Divinity, so that you really, really do die, Lord, so that when they drive the nails through your hands and feet you know what a man feels and no more and when you enter the gloom of Sheol yours is a human 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 more frightened of it than I am now.'
[ he breaks off, looking into the distance, his words echoing. ]
no subject
'That's true, Lord. And suffering is so terrible for humans, injustice is so terrible for the balance of their mind that it can destroy those lessons learnt in bed, magnificent as they are!'
'Oh, but when Love is reached through suffering, Lucifer, it has a power it can never gain through innocence.'
'Why do you say that? I don't believe it! I don't think you grasp it, Lord, listen to me. There's one chance for this to be proven my way. One chance.'
'If you think for one moment you will interfere with my ministry and my sacrifice, if you think you can turn the tide of the vast forces already moving towards this event, then you are no more an angel, but a demon!' He said.
'I don't ask that,' I said. 'Go through with it. Minister, outrage them; be arrested, tried, and executed on the cross, yes, do all of it. But do it as a man!'
'I intend to.'
'No, you'll know the whole time you're God. I'm saying Forget that you are God! Bury your divinity in the flesh the way it's been buried intermittently. Bury it, Lord, leaving yourself only your faith and your belief in Heaven, as if it had come to you through Revelation immense and undeniable. 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 what this suffering is at its heart. Then will the joy be stripped from agony! And you will see what men see when flesh is ripped, and torn and blood flows, and it is your own, and you will be broken as well and not ask this of your Creations!'
'Lucifer, men die on Golgotha every day. What is important is that the Son of God knowingly sacrifices himself in the body of a man.'
'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 so thin 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 in all the darknesses of life, the true spontaneous evils of nature, and dreaming of glory when you exit this body! What kind of lesson can such suffering be? And who will you leave with the guilt for your murder? What will become of all those mere mortals who denied you? No, please, Lord, listen to me. If you won't leave your Divinity, then don't do it. Change the plan.
'Don't die. Above all, don't be murdered! Don't hang from a tree like the God of the Wood in the Greek stories. Come with me into Jerusalem and know women and wine and singing and dancing and the birth of little ones, and all the joy the human heart can contain and express!
'Lord, there are times when the hardest men hold infants in their arms, their own children, and the happiness and satisfaction of those moments is so sublime that there is no horror on earth that can destroy the peace they feel! That is the human capacity for love and understanding! When one can achieve harmony in spite of everything, and men and women do this, Lord. They do. Come, dance with your people. Sing with them. Feast with them. Throw your arms around the women and the men and know them in the flesh!'
'I feel pity for you, Lucifer,' He said. 'I pity you as I pity the mortals who will kill me, and those who will inevitably misunderstand my sacrifice and my laws, and what I would ask of them. But I dream of those who will be touched to the core by my suffering, and who will never forget it and seek to replicate it, and will know what love I felt for mortals that I would let myself die among them and grant them the chance to redeem themselves from Sin and Sheol. I pity you. Feeling as you do, your guilt will become too terrible to bear.'
'My guilt? What guilt?'
'You're the cause of all this, Lucifer. You're the one who said I should come down in the flesh. You're the one who urged me on to do it, who challenged me, who asked me to offer these humans a way to reach Heaven, and now you fail to see the miracle of my sacrifice.
'And when you do see it, when you do see souls perfected by suffering ascending to Heaven, when you see my Chosen One cross the River of Lethe of their own volition, after suffering all a soul may suffer, what will you think of your paltry little discoveries made in the arms of Daughters of Men? What will you think? Don't you see? I will redeem suffering, Lucifer! I will give it its greatest and fullest potential within the cycle! I will bring it to fruition. I will allow it to sing its own magnificent song!'
'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 of your Divinity, so that you really, really do die, Lord, so that when they drive the nails through your hands and feet you know what a man feels and no more and when you enter the gloom of Sheol yours is a human 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 more frightened of it than I am now.'
[ he breaks off, looking into the distance, his words echoing. ]