… And Then What Happened?

WED., APR. 10, 1996, 8:50 AM
OFFICE, PULLIAM

Yes, o son, the Lenten season and Easter day have passed for this year. It was good that your breakfast group focused on the 4 Gospel accounts of that Holy Week experience. And then today you finished with “What happened next?” Now you shall hear, in this mystical way, how I perceived the “aftermath”. For I was there.

You needn’t be concerned about the rather few details that are reported in the same way by the Gospel writers. In one sense it does cast some doubt upon the oral tradition that supposedly strong at that time. However I recommend acceptance of the perception that each selected some aspects of the total experience and told these. Consistency is not as important as variety and breadth in the recounting of those events.

There was an angel or there were angels. What is important is that I was “assisted” in My return to body, as Jesus, by “helpers” from the Father. Did I really need help? Not really, but it was symbolic that the Father who set the plan for My crucifixion and death sent these special, dedicated souls to assist me in the return. They also stayed on as messengers, assuring the women who came that I really had arisen (rather than My Body being stolen). But I was soon to leave that place.

Remember My affirmation about where I was during the hours of “death”. I was not limited by time nor space. I could be several places at the same time and not bound by earth time. It was similar after I returned. I had to assure My disciples that I truly had returned, in the “same” body I had before the execution. And yet it also was illusion. I could eat fish, affirming the reality of My bodily return. I could also appear and disappear, indicating more that the body was an illusion of some kind. In one Gospel account I had Thomas feel the nail holes in My hands and the wound in My side. In another I ordered, “Don’t touch Me!” There was a reason for each, and they needn’t be consistent.

I could tell the disciples in the boat where the large school of fish was, from the shore. (I even (9:17 / 9:43) could have “led them” there.) I also could have a fire going (and how did it get started?), with fish frying, and was able to serve them fish and bread. I was freer to utilize the mystical, supernatural powers I always had than before My “death”. I could be unrecognizable… and then rather suddenly recognized fully (even by Mary Mag…)

You raised an interesting point this morning, which certainly deserves a response from Me. Was I truly a poor teacher, in that the disciples (who were with Me quite constantly for 3 years) still didn’t understand that I had to die and then be resurrected? Or was it My “super style” to allow their doubt and disbelief until the dramatic resurrection, which was “actual”, with Me as the supreme “visual aid”? You are not surprised when I affirm the latter, yet there is still some lingering doubt about the capacities of the disciples.

You had not heard the term, “the quiet Pentecost”, as a designation for My command, “Receive the Holy Spirit!” Yes, I did, in one Gospel account, bestow Me upon these friends, even as I had been part of the whole “mission”. Yet later you read that the disciples were “holed up” and not sure what having Me meant. So… the hot, windy, attention getting Pentecost, where all who were gathered could understand the preaching affirmations, in what ever language they spoke (a sort of “crowd miracle”).

And, of course, there are 2 accounts that say I rose or ascended up into heaven (away from the earth) and 2 that don’t seem to consider this noteworthy. In one I assure the disciples that “I will be with you always” and the other, John’s more spiritual Gospel, says nothing about a leaving of this planet. I have told you that I am here, fully, in Spirit, and I, as Holy Spirit, often use the first person for Jesus, as well as Myself… for we are both separate and One. And don’t try to determine what that means!