Death Is Life…

SAT., APR. 6, 1996, 7:35 AM
FARM, STUDY

This is the “day between”, in Holy Week. As Jesus I am crucified, dead, and entombed. (Good that they didn’t yet have sealed caskets and equally sealed vaults… ‘twould have required more of a miracle!) Lo, in that grave I lay, but My Spirit was no longer in that wrapped-up body. I was free of it, even as I was to use it again to show that death and life are not vastly different, which is your cultural belief.

Where did My Spirit go? Before, I offered two alternatives, one based in Scripture and the other in the creed you use most. First, remember that I no longer am in the body and therefore I am not bound by the dimensions and restrictions of earth life. The actual earth time was, say 39 hours, but that didn’t apply to Me. I had “time” for whatever I wanted and needed to do. Further, I was not limited to one place. Just as I, Holy Spirit (sometimes I wish I had a name), am wholly with you at this time and also in myriad other places with other missions, so I was both with the saints and the sinners who had moved on, in death, to realms beyond.

It is an earth orientation to affirm that I descended to hell or to the dead or that I ascended to paradise. More simply, I ministered to souls who had not known or accepted Me in their lives AND I rejoined souls who had “known” Me as Messiah. The other “complexity” is that some of these had not yet been born, but would be, at some time, and would serve Me with dedication and zeal that even they would not understand.

Another aspect of this “death” as Jesus was the promise of Me, as Holy Spirit. The Bible story commences with a single God, and yet I, as Spirit, am mentioned as being there, “but it was not yet My Time.” Throughout My adventures with My chosen people I, as Spirit, was assisting, in various ways.

Then there were prophesies of a Messiah… and later I was born, as Jesus, in the lineage of David, My favorite king. I had my time on earth, preaching, healing, and leaving a legacy of Scripture written about Me. As both Jesus and Holy Spirit I raised up Paul to be the means for mystically translating My dead body into the Living Church. My actual body had served its purpose. It died, as it should have. (And there are almost many among you who should pass on over before their spirits become corrupted by the deterioration of body and mind.) Out of this came a Body, and Paul’s analogy was more true than he could imagine.

Not only were there young and old, intelligent and less so, happy and glum, serious and joyous, dedicated and hanging-on… parishioners in every church, but the Church Body now ranges from Orthodox and Catholic (different from each other) through you “mainliners” on to Pentecostals, Quakers, and, even, snake-handlers… all part of the Body. Out of My death came all of this.

And now a personal application, that I “promised” as you were still abed. In somewhat over a year you will “die” as an active professor. There will be some lingering memories, but they won’t last long, as you already see the “younger ones” dominating the research aspect of your Department. You will have some temptations, even offers, to keep this “professional self” alive, and I’ll advise you as such arise.