A Painful Death

Mar. 28, 1997, Fri., 6:55 AM
Farm Study

Holy Week moves along, and this is the day of remembrance of a painful death.  Executions today are judged on being humane, meaning a minimum of physical suffering.  Lethal injections are quick and painless.  The electric chair is comparably quick, with consciousness going with the sudden flash of current.  Even firing squads make for a quick and painless death.

As Jesus, I lived in a time before any of these means of death.  There also seemed to be a desire to make the ones being executed suffer for some time.  The execution that was Mine to experience on this symbolic day was certainly one that brought pain and suffering.  But I was quite aware that I was fulfilling some somewhat relevant early Scriptures that called for Me to be the “suffering servant”.  I was not just to die for your sins; that death should be preceded by suffering.

I speak now as the physical Jesus, but, remember, this is a mystical week, and I still was a “part” of the Triune God.  I, the Holy Spirit, come to you, Bob Russell, in these Teachings, but I can never be actually separated from God and from the Christ.  So I can speak to you as either of “These”.  Comparably, I was the physical Jesus going through this painful time of execution… and I had to “hold on” to that experience of being in a human body, just as any of you might experience it.  I was doing it for you, so I had to experience what any of you would feel.

The mystical aspect, however, is that I could never give up who I truly was – the Triune God, Three but also, finally, One.  So I couldn’t actually experience what any of you would… unless… aha!… you are truly born again into knowing that you come from Me and you shall return to Me.  Further, being born again means that you regain the consciousness of who you are… spirit, which is of Spirit.

Yes, I suffered… first the mental pain of knowing that while My words would be remembered and followed I didn’t feel successful at that time.  You know how it feels to have students who don’t seem to respond to what you do and don’t remember accurately what you teach.  But you have some of the faith that I had… faith that some who don’t appear to learn much actually do.  The Scriptures tell of My disciples, with Me for some years, still not “getting it”.  That human realization was painful.

I had to select a disciple who would finally “betray” Me.  That was hard.  Some Scripture says that satan entered into him, but any power satan had finally came from Me.  It had to be, the crucifixion.  Judas was a means to that.  The case against Me was weak, and Pilate was not for the execution of one who obviously was not an overt criminal.  So it was additionally painful, but also a bit “heroic”, to make affirmations that would so inflame the Jewish leaders that they would demand My execution.  So I was condemned because I was a threat to Roman order, not because I claimed to be the Messiah.  It was painful, to Me, to be crucified for, really, the wrong reason.  You Christians have “fixed it up”, since.