RESURRECTION, ASCENCION, & PENTECOST - Author's Cut from FIFTH GOSPEL a Novel.

‘I am the light that is over them all, I am the All. The All has come forth from me, and the All has attained unto me. Cleave the wood: I am there. Raise up the stone, and you will find me there.’

Gospel of Thomas saying 77

THAT EVENING, when his followers were gathered in the Cenacle, Christ Jesus came to them. He bestowed peace upon them and the comfort of the Holy Spirit and showed them the nascent life forces and the creative power of his resurrected body of light.

Thomas did not believe that this body which stood before him belonged to his resurrected master and Christ Jesus bade him to touch it that he might believe. Though Thomas’ senses did not recognise Him, but his own soul could now do what Magdalena was not able to do in the garden, it could reach out and be one with his master’s soul, for the mystery of his resurrected body was consummated, that is Christ had raised up the perfected body and united with Jesus once more.

Thus did Thomas know him and yet Magdalena had known him even without touching him.

Now those disciples who had fled the garden on the night of his arrest could see all that transpired in their absence for within their Lord’s youthful body of light was written, like a great tableau, the memory of it.

Forty days did He remain with them and in that time He taught them sacred things and deeply moved were those who were able to partake of his words with full awareness, for they were like a food and drink, like an enrichment that formed the higher aspect of his last Passover meal. Lazarus-John, his beloved disciple, Mary Magdalena, his spirit pupil and his Mother and the  women were able to partake of it, however the other male disciples only heard his words with some lucidity here and there, so that all of it was experienced as in a dream.

Many times these teachings appeared to the male disciples as visions experienced in far off places - a garden of a new earth, which they accordingly likened to those places they had frequented with him: Mount of Olives, Mount Tabor, or Galilee. More than once did they see themselves on a boat, floating on the glittering Sea of Galilee with the sun upon its waters shimmering in their eyes, and in this state they saw themselves as naked as babes, for they were born again through their experiences and were purified and had cast off the garments of matter. Christ directed them to catch fish and years later they did catch many fish – those who in future times would be taught the teachings of Christ.

And the disciples said to themselves:

‘We are blessed above all men on earth because the Saviour has revealed this to us, for we have received the pleroma - the fullness of his teachings and the entire consummation of them!’

Christ Jesus said unto Simon-Peter, son of Jonah at these times, ‘Do you love me?’

And Simon-Peter answered him, ‘Yes, Lord, you know all things and you know that I love thee!’

‘Then feed my lambs, feed my sheep, take these words that I have spoken to those who are young and are old, feed them the outer knowledge, the outer teachings I have given you. For while you are yet young you may walk wherever is your want but when you are old you will stretch forth your hands and another shall take you where you do not wish to go, for you shall drink of my cup. You shall follow me and you shall glorify God through your own death…’

Simon-Peter turned around then, and his vision was raised so that for the first time he saw what grandness of spirit indwelt Lazarus-John and he asked his Lord, ‘What shall your beloved disciple, Lazarus-John, do, if I am to feed the old and the young?’

‘It is my will that he tarry, or come into the world, life after life in order to take into it what is appropriate only for a few, the inner teachings. This is not your concern for the inner teachings shall not unite with the outer ones until I come again. All of you shall walk after me!’

But as time passed the vision of Christ walking and talking among them began to fade and in their hearts it was as if the sun were descending in the west. They had been dazzled and dizzied to have his light and warmth these many days, but now a coolness was descending over them as their master’s spirit began to sink into the darkness of their souls and they fell upon their faces and were afraid when they could no longer see him. Loss and confusion and a mood of dullness came over them. Even the sacred meals had mislaid their meaning, for their master was no longer at the table in the Cenacle with them. Only Lazarus-John, Magdalena and the Mother of God knew this to be a further step reached, pointing to a promise - the promise that would soon find its fulfilment.

Full with despair, James, the step-brother of Christ Jesus, knelt in prayer from dawn to dusk, and so intensely did he beseech, with his questing heart, to know how he must draw close to the One whom he had not recognised until the very end, that Christ appeared to him in the fullness of his glory and said to him,

‘Fetch the bread and the wine, my brother, and eat and drink of it, do this in memory of me, for the Son of Man has risen! The sacrament of the bread and wine possesses the power to realize my presence if it is celebrated at the same time in many different places. It can cause my presence to light up in the fine airs of the earth so that it can shine forth and be experienced by you…for where two or three are gathered in my name; there I am in the midst of them. I am always with you, even unto the end of the earth!’

And so James, radiant as if he himself were the resurrected one celebrated the first Christian ritual with the disciples.

On the fiftieth day after Passover, the tenth day after the ascension of Christ and the failure of their spirit vision, the disciples were yet again in the Cenacle assembled to celebrate the ancient festival of Pentecost, which celebrated the gift of the Ten Commandments to Moses. During the night they observed the reading of the scriptures which was followed by the teachings and the soul loosening, heart-lifting, choral singing and dancing which evoked the mood of an offering before the Pentecostal sunrise. The breath of transubstantiation overshadowed the meal and its celebration lasted throughout the night until near sunrise when they heard the wind pick up outside the Cenacle. A wind had entered the city, an ancient wind called Ruach. It moved over the colossal bridge and swept through archways, forcing its way through the streets, curving its back around the walls of the houses and rising up to the upper room.

Ruach, Elohim, Aur! Breath, Elohim, Light!

They had heard it before, the roar of this wind and it turned their memory to the night of their Lord’s sacrifice when such a wind had blown through the city. Out of this recalling and the suffering that it evoked in their hearts they saw a vision as the mother of their Lord stood before them. She seemed to them like a pillar of light, full with a fire of holy enthusiasm, which was outspread towards all those present, descending like flames over their heads. A love filled their hearts to the very brim and overflowed in good will. This was a power of immortality, a divine spark, the spirit of truth that needed no outward law, was now birthed in each one individually through the agency of the Mother of God. This was the comforter, which caused an inner spring, an inner sunrise in peach blossom hues and the culmination of the Mother’s task prefigured in the marriage of Cana. For this was that community in which wine had turned to water, in which each soul had married the spirit! This was the moment foreseen by Simeon when he said that Mary would be pierced through her heart to become, once and for all, the mother of all!

What a mighty awakening was experienced now in each one! In them lived a force that could enable them to speak forth in a language that all men could understand, how Christ Jesus had died for all men and that each man now needed to come to his own knowledge of this mystery on earth, and not after death! To take this Good News to the world was to be their apostolic task.

But this awakening also caused a second realisation: they could see how they had been walking these last days since Gethsemane like sleepwalkers. Christ Jesus had returned after his sacrifice and had sat with them and had taught them over forty days and yet they had not clearly understood that he was that same man that had been with them for three years! Only now did they see Him truly, wakefully, consciously!

What joy! What sadness! What exquisite longing!

Only Lazarus-John, the Mother, Magdalena and Mary Cleophas had experienced these last fifty days in full consciousness and they had understood from the first, that just as the sun shines upon Thebes, upon Olympia, upon Jerusalem and Mecca, so too does His spirit live in the heart of every human being who chooses to hear His voice when he says: 

I am with you always, even unto the end of the world!

In the beginning, in the fine airs of heaven, was written the Eternal Gospel. And the Gospel was with God and the Gospel was God. All things were written therein and without it there was not a thing written that was written. It speaks of the life, the life that is the light of men. This light that shines into darkness of the heart and is not understood by men is Christ, the true light that enlightens every man. Christ came into the world and died and was resurrected.

Christ is the Gospel and the Gospel was made by Him.

But the world has not yet understood it.