Chapter 4: Hell's Darkest Day
Disclaimer: I don't own The Screwtape Letters, and nobody owns Jesus or the story of His death and resurrection.
Good morning, class.
I see you all are as depressed as I am that we're coming up on the humans' celebration of the Enemy's Resurrection. I know it's a discouraging time, but we must continue with our lessons. In fact, today we'll be studying that painful subject. I know it's a difficult subject to talk about, but you young fiends are old enough to deal with this.
About 2,000 years ago, the Enemy became human. Yeah, I know how ridiculous it sounds. When I heard the news from High Command, I thought there was a communications mix up. It wasn't until I saw Him in the Temple that I believed it. The next few decades were a nightmare. The sermons, the healings, the miracles, the souls saved, the establishment of the faith, it was crazy. I remember seeing our soldiers being sent back from Earth after being evicted from their possessions; the Legion was particularly outraged because they were His only eviction that was named in the Book. Our Father himself tried tempting the Enemy, but He refused at every turn. He even rejected his offer power over the whole Earth for the paltry price of bowing to him. I all ready thought He wasn't right in the head for creating the human vermin, but that just proved to me He really is crazy.
Our whole operation was going to Heaven in a handbasket. That's when Our Father Below masterminded the plot to be rid of the Enemy once and for all. He led a cadre of the greatest tempters Hell had to offer and launched an assault on two fronts that should have been in the Enemy's stronghold: the religious leaders and one of His own disciples. Judas was a fool who thought the Enemy should lead a war and drive out the Romans, which is exactly what any rational leader should do: kill and conquer. The Pharisees were a lot of hypocrites who ruled through fear and were ruled by fear themselves, replacing the Enemy's teachings with empty rituals and dogma. They were all perfect instruments and have since joined us here below.
It was so easy, get the Enemy arrested and executed by misusing the human laws. All Hell watched as the Enemy was arrested and brought before the Pharisees. False accusations and manufactured evidence was laid against Him, and He just answered with the truth. But of course truth has nothing to do with justice if Our Father Below has anything to say about it. He was found guilty, beaten and sentenced to death; oh I remember how we grinned and chuckled seeing fists smash into His face. They took him to the Roman governor, Pilate, so he could be crucified under Roman law. Unfortunately, Pilate wasn't part of the plan. He sent Him to be tried by King Herod under Jewish law. We knew Herod could be worked into the plan, after all he did get rid of that blasted John fellow. The meeting with Herod was a farce, we easily got him to send the Enemy back to Pilate.
Pilate, the worm that he was, wasn't ready to have Him killed. At the time, they released a prisoner in celebration of Passover, so Pilate offered to set the Enemy free. Our Father masterfully worked the crowd into a frenzy, demanding some other obscure vermin be free instead of the Enemy. Still, Pilate tried to weasel out of it. He said that he wouldn't kill the Enemy, just have him flogged. I tell you, class, when we heard that, our cheers eclipsed the wailing of the damned souls. All this courtroom drama and humiliation the Enemy was put through was fine, but finally we got to see some blood. Oh, I remember seeing the whips rend His flesh and the sting getting worse with each lash, it was glorious. And then when the soldiers stuck that crown of thorns on His head I couldn't stop laughing.
The Enemy was brought out again, beaten and broken. Pilate hoped that the Pharisees would be satisfied, but Our Father wasn't going to settle for anything less than death. Pilate gave in, let the crucifixion be ordered, and then "washed his hands" of the whole thing. The Enemy had to carry that big cross through the town up to the hill, and He kept falling again and again from the pain and exhaustion. It was amusing, but most of us were waiting for the real fun to begin.
When He finally got up to the hill, we finally got to see what we'd waited for since Our Father's plan began: the Enemy nailed to a cross, bleeding, humiliated, alone, and dying. We even felt the absence of the Enemy's Father and Spirit as He hung there. We took this to mean only one thing: we had won. The other two parts of the Enemy had vanished and when the Son died we would finally take back what was ours. Hour after hour, we watched the life drain out of Him, laughing at His pain and waiting for His death to finally come. Then the Enemy said, "It is finished." and died. Every demon in Hell was silent in that moment. We almost couldn't believe it was really over. And then, we cheered and laughed and celebrated. Our Father returned to Hell with his assault team in a parade of triumph. We've long spread the lie among humans that Hell is a party, well, for those two days Hell was a party. Well, it was a party for us at least, the souls still felt the burn. I remember seeing the earthquakes, the storms, the Enemy's body hanging limp and lifeless on the cross, it was magnificent. He was dead, and soon the Earth, Heaven and the whole universe would be conquered and Our Father Below would take his rightful place as the god of all.
And then, on the third day it all came crashing down. On the morning of the third day, we felt a shockwave of power that rocked all of Hell, down to the very throne itself. I was part of the team that was sent to Earth to investigate, and what we found was worse than anything we could imagine. The air was thick with impenetrable celestial fog that blinded and scalded us. Still don't know how we did it, but we made it to the source of this deadly holiness, the tomb where they put the Enemy's body. I saw two human females being told by two of the other side's messengers that the Enemy had risen from the dead. My comrades and I were bewildered; we were desperately hoping that this was just some Enemy trick to throw us off, but then we saw Him! He was alive, the plan failed. We felt the Father and Spirit too, the Enemy had pulled the rug out from under us. When we returned to Hell, Our Father greeted us and he was already aware of this new development. He was confronted by the Enemy while we were on Earth and he was told that things had changed. A new covenant was set up with the human race, and Our Father's previously undisputed claim to the Earth was void. He'd beaten us, He turned our victory into a defeat that we are still trying to recover from. It was the biggest disaster in the history of Hell.
Until the Enemy returned to Heaven, we couldn't stand to be on Earth for long periods of time because of the noxious effect the Enemy's Presence has on us. When we were finally able to get back to Earth, we'd found that the Enemy had done a lot of damage. The Apostles, as they came to be called, began spreading the Enemy's Word and the new gift of salvation. We scrambled to try to recover by killing all the Enemy's followers. Rome was a great help to us in this, but still the Enemy's converts flourished. For every Christian we had killed, ten more popped up. We've been trying to stop the Enemy's message from getting through ever since, and it just keeps spreading and more vermin keep finding the Enemy.
Easter is the yearly reminder of how the Enemy made fools of us. The only consolation, and it is a very, very small consolation, is nowadays Easter is viewed more as a time for baskets full of colored eggs, chocolate rabbits, marshmallow chicks, jellybeans and plastic grass. Admittedly, there's nothing evil about candy or the fairy tale about the Easter Bunny, but it's better the humans think about those things than for them to consider what the Enemy did for them and what effect it has on their souls. I know, this class has been very depressing, but cheer up cause we still have our chance for victory. Even now, you're training is making you all ready to go up to Earth and lead the humans to eternal damnation. What better way to make up for our defeat and make the Enemy's death meaningless than to bring humans here when they don't have to be here?
Class dismissed.
Author's note: Remember this is written from a demon's perspective so try not to get offended.
