“IT IS ACCOMPLISHED!”

THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST

by Ray Comeau

Part One        Part Two        Part Three        Part Four          
 

Part Four:

Here is a poignant aside, underlining the profound significance of replacing once and for all the cross,  the 2000 year old symbol of Jesus suffering for our sins, with the empty tomb. Carlos Castaneda, one of the seminal writers exploring shifts in consciousness in the 1960’s, published his first book in 1968, The Teachings of Don Juan, describing his apprenticeship to an Indian Shaman in the deserts of New Mexico, and his induction into “the Yaqui way of knowledge.”

Castaneda “died” of cancer on April 28, 1998, at the age of 72. 

Almost four months later, August 21, 1998, he appeared to a journalist, Martin Goodman. 

This is a description of their first meeting.

The first drops of rain fall.  They bounce off his head, and give an extra sheen to the silver hair with its curls drawn back across his scalp. I stop on my walk—not because he looks at me, because he doesn’t.  He has never seen me before, yet he yells my name out loud against the thunderclaps as he looks up at the naked body of the crucified Christ.

“Martin.”

It’s a cry for help.  I do nothing but remain where I am as the rain falls.

“Come here and look at this!”

I step up to his side, and we both raise our heads toward the face of Jesus.

“Tell me what’s wrong about this, and what’s right.”

“Is this a riddle?”  I ask.

The only riddle is why I am asking you, and not telling you.”

“It’s wrong that Jesus was killed?”  I suggest.

“You have a simple mind.  Maybe that’s a virtue in you.  Can you absorb all that I am going to tell you? We’ll see.  First I will tell you what is wrong about this statue.  It is pathetic that this crucifix is here.  People paid good money to have this piece of wood carved, painted, and erected.  What purpose does it serve?  Every time they come and go along this road, they are faced with death.  Christ is not about dying.  He is about eternal life.  Not death, but resurrection.  If people want a symbol by the side of the road, then let them build an empty tomb.  At least such a structure could shelter passersby from the rain.  Come on, Martin.  We will go to your home and get dry.”  Martin Goodman, I Was Carlos Castaneda:  The Afterlife Dialogues, 2001, pp. 1-2

He is risen.  He is risen.

Matthew 28:6

And now we come to forgiveness.  When the Roman soldiers begin driving the stake into his feet, Jesus cries out, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do!”  What they are doing in form is a dream, an illusion.  They are unaware of being God’s Sons, crucifying God’s Son.

Forgiveness recognizes what you thought

your brother did to you has not occurred. 

It does not pardon sins and make them real. 

It sees there was no sin.  And in that view

are all your sins forgiven.  What is sin,

except a false idea about God's Son? 

Forgiveness merely sees its falsity,

and therefore lets it go.  What then is free

to take its place is now the Will of God.

Do nothing, then, and let forgiveness show

you what to do, through Him Who is your Guide,

your Savior and Protector, strong in hope,

and certain of your ultimate success. 

He has forgiven you already, for

such is His function, given Him by God. 

Now must you share His function, and forgive

whom He has saved, whose sinlessness He sees,

and whom He honors as the Son of God.

W-p11.1.  What is forgiveness? 1,5

Thank you, Father, that we walk out of the movie with the last 80 seconds freshly in mind, walking into the light of the lobby out of the darkness of the theatre.  We are certain, as it is written, that Jesus appeared subsequently in his resurrected body.

 And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified.
  He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.

Matthew 28:5-6

And as they went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail. And they came and held him by the feet, and worshipped him.

Matthew 28:9

 Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them.
  And when they saw him, they worshipped him: but some doubted.
   And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

Matthew 28:16-18

And he is present with us today in resurrected mind as he promised.

Truth has rushed to meet you since you called upon it.  If you knew Who walks beside you on the way that you have chosen, fear would be impossible.  You do not know because the journey into darkness has been long and cruel, and you have gone deep into it.  A little flicker of your eyelids, closed so long, has not yet been sufficient to give you confidence in yourself, so long despised.  You go toward love still hating it, and terribly afraid of its judgment upon you.  And you do not realize that you are not afraid of love, but only of what you have made of it.  You are advancing to love's meaning, and away from all illusions in which you have surrounded it.  When you retreat to the illusion your fear increases, for there is little doubt that what you think it means is fearful. Yet what is that to us who travel surely and very swiftly away from fear? T-18.III.3 

Not long ago, from October, 1965 to September, 1972 Jesus came into the mind of Helen Schucman as a voice, dictating his unworldly masterpiece, A Course in Miracles. It began the evening of October 21.  She heard Jesus say to her, “This is a course in miracles, please take notes.” Ken Wapnick, ABSENCE FROM FELICITY:  The Story of Helen Schucman and Her Scribing of A Course in Miracles, 1991, p. 199

Pick up A Course in Miracles and open it anywhere and begin reading.  You are listening to the voice of the resurrected Jesus.

If it helps you, think of me holding your hand and leading you.  And I assure you this will be no idle fantasy. W-p1.70.9:3,4

Raymond H. Comeau, Ph.D.

Teacher of God, Endeavor Academy

chris.ray@verizon.net

www.throughamirrorbrightly.com

(608)254-2320