Part II

"Awake, O Sword, against My Shepherd, Against the Man who is my Companion, says the Lord of Hosts. Strike the Shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered; then I will turn My hand against the little ones, And it shall come to pass in all the land, says the Lord. That two-thirds in it shall be cut off and die, but one-third shall be left in it" I will bring the one-third through the fire, will refine them as silver is refined, and test them as gold is tested. They will call on My name, and I will answer them. I will say, 'This is My people'; and each one will say, 'The Lord is my God.'"

Zechariah 13:7-9

The plunge into the river Jordan was steep but they went nonetheless, dying under its stagnant pool, raised dripping and stirred to a pregnant and joyful richness they did not yet fully understand.

The man presented a clownish sight, clad in rough-hewn edges of camel's hair and the leather belt around his waist, a preaching, prophesying figure that emerged from the wilds of Judea.

Sometimes the baptist ran, sometimes he walked, and the crowd murmured among themselves that he only feasted on wild locusts and wild honey. A sacred madness lingered around him, a burning, holy lunacy that hinted at sights which only he had beheld, yet the crowd merely discerned shards of sunlight that filtered through thick canopy of leaves. He looked at their feet, still rooted in parched ground their bedrock, an incinerated conflagrate of chaff.

Perhaps it was this dismal sight that stirred his heart. Perhaps he saw they were dead to their own needs and had forgotten their thirst.

It moved him to shout, its sound a channel of radiant vigour that coalesced into these few words that circled him as his strides covered the area on which they stood.

"Repent!" He moved from an end to another, never desisting, scoring many with his preparation of the way of the One to come.

Who are you, they asked, questions incessant and curious, wanting to know if the days of the prophets had finally swept back.

A voice, crying in the wilderness, making straight the way of the Lord.

"I baptise you in water, but among you stands one whom you do not know! I am not fit to tie the thong of his sandals, for He is far mightier than I." The urgency had built in his voice, a palpable overflow of excitement at the imminent arrival of the One.

"For the Spirit of heaven will descend upon him as a dove; this is the One who baptises with the Holy Spirit, and I only with water."

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It began with a sliver of light, a perfect needlepoint through the broad canopy of clouds, a seemingly insignificant ray that struck the undulating water. Under its oblique tip, the liquid glittered a brilliant silver and smiled.

The man who stood waist-deep in the same waters, readied himself, turning to the other man who stood by him.

"Let this be so for now, for in this way it is fitting for us to fulfil all righteousness." The sliver of light broadened, as though an impatient hand had reached out to wave away the clouds.

With a fluid motion the man was then dipped backwards, disappearing under the Jordan's placid surface and emerged a moment later, drenched with the love of the universe in His eyes. The heavens split, a blinding doorway of light from which a dove fluttered gracefully out, alighting on his shoulder.

This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

Across the earth, understanding dawned. The unbodied figure rose, claws and talons suddenly furled, moving through a mirage whose shower replaced gaping darkness with the chimera of resplendent beauty.

They both remembered, he was sure of it.

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On the third hour, they brought out the nails. The arteries split under the unrelenting, driving pressure of the metal point.

The Christ hung on the highest point of Golgotha, suspended between heaven and earth.

Below, vile words and wayward rumours of sorcery ran amok. Above him, the heavens darkened in shades of blackest grey and harnessed the stray corners of history, rotating the Alpha and the Omega on the axis that was him.

He hung limply, a figure pinned to quiescent eternity by the jagged points of nails, circled and bordered in by the violent, carnal tempest that was humanity.

He saw the fig leaves that had covered skin, and the fig tree that he had cursed. He glimpsed depravity and disease and hauled it onto his back, roping up poverty by its neck. He heard the laughter of Lazarus and remembered the touch of the haemorrhaging woman, their healing joy morphing his face into the hideous.

He thought of the burnt lamb that the Children of Israel had feasted on, and swiped his blood across their doorposts. He remembered the atoning rites of Aaron's priesthood and exchanged it for the eternal blessings of the unchangeable Melchizedek, sealing the stone tablets under a lid of pure gold scattered with his blood under the watchful eyes of the cherubim.

He called those who had eyes to see, the impaled bronze serpent on the Moses' pole, crying out when the rod of Moses struck his flesh to yield water for those who thirst.

A cup of judgement that steadily filled itself to the brim.

He saw the terrible, blazing sword of the cherubim, guardians of the holiness and righteousness of God that guarded the tree of life, its sharp point turning all ways – and walked into it.

Resolutely, with trembling hands that grasped the cup, the bitter draught was drunk, replenishing itself until the last drop rolled down his tongue. And it was revealed to him the unnameable filth he had become, wearing naught crowned with a diadem of thorns and lacking in all things, the most cursed of mankind.

And then he saw the void that his father once filled.

On that eternal plateau where his foot was, a crack appeared; the crack became a chasm, and the chasm an ever-widening abyss filled with the fire of separation. He was alone – where he had once stood with a father, there now merely existed a distant God on the opposite side of the chasm whose back was turned, whose face he no longer saw.

He wept, not seeing that the distant God wept with his back turned.

Eloi...Eloi...lama sabachthani!

There was only one more thing he needed to cry as darkness leapt into glory, an apparent harbinger and clincher of victory to the dark powers.

It is finished...

A thousand forked-tongues exulted. Death smiled and swaggered under that final heave; out of its gnarled feet, hissing serpents uncoiled and released their snarling heads, crushed immediately by the mighty heel of one borne of woman's seed.

The gaping chasm was once again closed; he perceived it as the faint creak of a slowly opening door that abruptly swung fully outward on its hinges, soft as the tearing of the temple's veil was loud.

It was the footfalls of the once distant God that passed beyond the torn veil, in whom he now sought and found the familiar face of the Father.

Father, into your hands I commit my spirit...

The last breath of his body took flight, coming to rest in the hands of a weeping, exposed Father.

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