A Man Of Suffering

One of the greatest joys of my existence was witnessing Him lay the foundations of the earth.

I stood with the host above the waters before men had language for oceans, before stars bore names, before the world learned the discipline of orbit. Rank upon rank we gathered, flame beside flame, wings folded low in reverence as the Word stretched out the heavens with effortless authority.

Then He spoke.

Light burst from the void.

The morning stars sang together and the sons of God shouted for joy until heaven rang with worship. Galaxies spun obediently into existence. Mountains rose. Seas gathered themselves into place like servants hurrying at the sound of their master’s voice.

Everything obeyed Him gladly.

And then He made man.

I remember the silence that followed.

The Father took the dust of the earth and shaped a creature with His own hands. Not the same way he made us.

“What are they to be?” one among the host asked quietly.

The Word looked upon the man before answering.

“Our image.”

That confused many of us greatly.

We understood power. Holiness. Worship. But image? Likeness? Intimacy?

Those belonged strangely to mankind.

Then the Father breathed into Adam, and the man opened his eyes.

I have watched stars born and comets tear through galaxies like silver arrows, yet few things unsettled me more than seeing a creature formed from earth look upon God as a Father and Friend.

No angel had ever spoken with God as man. We worshipped.

They conversed.

God had given them dominion over all the earth, yet also given then free will.

It seemed an extraordinarily dangerous arrangement.

“I do not see why they were given choice,” Azarel remarked beside me once as we watched the man and woman walk beside Eden’s rivers. “Obedience is simpler.”

“Perhaps simplicity was not His intention,” I answered.

Not long after, mankind ruined everything.

I watched Eve listen to the serpent with growing fascination while Adam stood nearby possessing all the useful instincts of wet clay. The rebellion itself happened quietly. Most catastrophes do.

Then shame entered the world.

Then fear.

Then death.

The garden closed behind them, and heaven watched mankind stumble into history carrying both the image of God and the ruin of rebellion inside them.

The centuries that followed only deepened my confusion regarding humanity. They possessed astonishing talent for destruction. Give them land and they would wage war over borders. Give them abundance and they would invent greed. Give them prophets and eventually they would kill them.

And still the Father pursued them.

Not as a king tolerates subjects.

As a father grieves children.

Then came the announcement that unsettled heaven itself.

The Word would become flesh.

I remember the silence that spread through the heavenly places when Gabriel returned from Nazareth.

“She accepted it,” he said softly.

Michael stared at him. “Accepted what?”

“That she would bear Him.”

Several voices rose at once.

“The Word?”

“In human form?”

“How?”

Gabriel only shook his head. “I do not know.”

Neither did we.

I watched from afar as the Son entered the world not through thunder or fire, but through blood and labor pains in a dim room filled with animals. The Creator of lungs arrived crying for air.

That alone should have warned me I did not understand Him nearly as well as I imagined.

Years passed.

We watched Him grow.

And stranger still, He resembled them.

He laughed with fishermen. Wept at funerals. Grew weary on journeys. Yet power moved beneath His humanity like lightning beneath water. Storms obeyed Him instantly. Demons fled from Him shrieking. Death itself loosened its grip at His command.

The disciples, however, understood very little.

Peter understood least of all, though his confidence rarely suffered because of it.

“The Son favors him,” Azarel observed one evening while we watched Peter declare impossible loyalty over supper.

“He is loud,” I replied.

“He is unstable.”

“Also true.”

Below us Peter placed a dramatic hand over his chest.

“Even if all fall away, Lord, I never will.”

John lowered his eyes with the expression of a man already embarrassed on behalf of his friend.

The Son looked at Peter with such visible affection that I found myself irritated by it.

Before dawn, Peter denied Him three times.

Humans were astonishingly fragile creatures. Emotion moved them about like leaves caught in water.

That same night the Son entered Gethsemane.

The olive trees swayed softly in the dark as He walked deeper into the garden with Peter, James, and John trailing behind Him in exhausted confusion.

“My soul is exceedingly sorrowful,” He told them. “Stay here. Watch with me.”

Then He went farther alone.

The disciples lasted perhaps several minutes before sleep overtook them.

Azarel glanced downward. “Remarkable.”

“What?”

“The fate of the world appears to trouble them less than an evening meal.”

I almost rebuked him for the comment.

Almost.

Below us the Son knelt upon the earth He had created.

Not far away, Jerusalem slept beneath the night sky entirely unaware that heaven itself had gathered above a garden outside its walls.

Legions stood hidden beyond human sight.

Waiting.

My hand rested upon my sword.

One command from Him and we would descend.

Then the torches appeared.

They moved through the darkness like embers carried by the wind. Priests. Soldiers. Temple servants. Judas walked before them breathing too quickly, his face pale beneath the torchlight.

Azarel straightened beside me. “Surely now.”

The soldiers entered the garden.

Peter woke abruptly and reached for his sword with all the graceful composure of a drowning man.

Judas approached the Son slowly.

For a moment he hesitated.

Then he kissed Him.

The legion shifted violently.

Surely now the earth itself would reject this blasphemy.

But the Son only looked at Judas with unbearable sadness.

“Friend,” He said quietly. “Do what you came to do.”

Friend.

The word disturbed me deeply.

Then the soldiers seized Him.

Hands of dust closed around the wrists that had shaped worlds.

Peter finally succeeded in drawing his sword and lunged wildly at the nearest servant. The blade sliced across the man’s ear. Several soldiers stumbled backward.

Azarel smiled grimly. “There. Finally.”

But the Son reached out and healed the servant instead.

The garden fell silent.

Even the soldiers stared.

The severed flesh restored itself instantly beneath His touch.

He could still do that.

That terrified me.

Because it meant He was not weakened.

He was allowing this.

“Put away your sword, Peter,” He said.

Peter looked near tears. “Lord, let us fight!”

Fight.

Against Rome? Against priests? Against death itself? Humans often spoke as though courage alone altered outcomes.

The Son stood calmly while ropes tightened around His wrists.

“Do you think,” He said softly, “that I cannot ask My Father, and He would send twelve legions of angels?”

At once every blade in heaven flashed.

The host leaned forward.

Finally.

Finally the command—

“But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled?”

Silence.

Absolute silence.

The soldiers led Him from the garden.

And heaven followed.

The trial before Caiaphas descended quickly into chaos. Priests shouted over one another while false witnesses contradicted themselves with embarrassing frequency.

Humans lied poorly. It was one of their more consistent traits.

The Son stood silent through most of it.

Then the high priest demanded, “Tell us if you are the Christ!”

“I am,” the Son answered.

The room erupted.

One priest struck Him across the face.

Beside me, Azarel stepped forward violently.

“That is enough.”

But Michael barred his path without looking away from the scene below.

“Stand down.”

“He struck the Son.”

“I know.”

Another blow landed.

Then another.

The host trembled with fury.

Yet heaven remained still.

By morning they brought Him before Pilate.

The governor paced irritably while the priests hurled accusations from every side. Pilate questioned the Son privately, then returned looking distinctly unsettled.

“I find no fault in him.”

This should have ended matters.

Instead the crowd began shouting.

“Crucify him!”

Pilate hesitated.

Humans often mistook indecision for wisdom. In truth it was usually fear wearing more respectable clothing.

The priests continued pressing him. The crowd grew louder.

Finally Pilate called for water.

“I am innocent of this man’s blood.”

Azarel stared in disbelief. “He condemns Him and washes his hands immediately after?”

“Yes.”

“That seems dishonest.”

“It is Roman.”

The sentence was given.

The soldiers dragged the Son away.

They mocked Him openly, draping a robe across His shoulders and pressing a crown of thorns upon His head.

“Hail, King of the Jews!”

One soldier struck Him with a reed.

Another spat at His feet.

Still He did not resist.

I no longer understood what I was witnessing.

This was not defeat.

It could not be.

Power still radiated from Him unbearably. We felt it constantly, pressing against creation itself like a storm held behind thin walls.

At any moment He could end this.

At any moment the Father would surely intervene.

Abraham had not buried Isaac.

Israel had crossed the sea.

Daniel had walked unharmed among lions.

The righteous were rescued.

That was the pattern.

That was always the pattern.

The Son carried the cross through Jerusalem while crowds followed behind Him. Some mocked. Some wept. Most simply stared with the terrible fascination humans reserve for suffering.

Mary walked nearby.

I remembered her younger. Frightened but willing. Now grief hollowed her face, yet still she remained near Him.

John supported her carefully through the crowd.

“Why does she stay?” Azarel asked quietly.

I watched her stumble after the Son as soldiers shoved Him forward.

“I do not know.”

At Golgotha the sky darkened slowly overhead.

The soldiers raised the cross.

Still heaven waited.

Surely now.

Surely now the Father would speak.

The Son looked down upon the men gambling for His clothing.

“Father, forgive them.”

Azarel turned toward me sharply. “Forgive?”

Below us the priests laughed.

“He saved others! Let Him save Himself!”

The thief beside Him mocked Him too, until suddenly the other criminal turned weakly toward the Son.

“Remember me,” the man whispered.

Even dying, humans reached for mercy.

The darkness deepened across the land.

Wind swept over Golgotha in violent bursts until even the mockers grew quiet. Soldiers tightened their grips upon their spears and glanced upward with the restless discomfort of men suddenly aware that creation itself was behaving incorrectly.

Still the Son hung there.

Still heaven waited.

Beside me, Azarel’s voice dropped low.

“This has gone too far.”

No one answered him.

Then the Son cried out.

“My God, My God,” He gasped, His voice tearing through the darkness. “Why have You forsaken Me?”

The words struck heaven like a blade.

Around me angels recoiled visibly.

One staggered backward.

Another lowered his sword slowly as though suddenly unable to hold it.

Azarel stared downward in horror. “Forsaken?”

I could not speak.

The Father and the Son had existed together before creation itself. Before stars. Before heaven. Never once had there been separation between them.

Not once.

Yet now—

The earth groaned beneath us.

Not merely grief.

Absence.

For the first time since my making, something in creation felt wounded.

The darkness thickened further until Jerusalem vanished beneath shadow. Horses reared below. Somewhere in the distance temple trumpets sounded faintly and then stopped.

No one moved.

No one dared.

The Son lifted Himself weakly against the cross to breathe.

Blood covered Him.

Still He looked upward.

Still no answer came.

Azarel took a step forward. “Michael,” he said, his voice shaking for the first time in all the ages I had known him. “We cannot simply watch this happen.”

Michael did not move.

“We were not commanded.”

“But the Son—”

“We were not commanded.”

Below us Mary collapsed to her knees.

John caught her before she struck the ground.

Even the soldiers sensed it now. Something vast and terrible moving beneath the surface of the world.

The Son drew another breath.

“It is finished.”

The words were quieter this time.

Not defeated.

Not broken.

Finished.

Then He bowed His head.

And gave up His spirit.

Silence.

Not the silence of peace.

The kind that follows catastrophe.

For one suspended moment all creation seemed unable to move forward. Heaven stood frozen. The earth held its breath. The wind itself died suddenly against the hill.

The Son of God was dead.

Dead.

I stared downward unable to comprehend what lay before me.

The Word through whom all things had been created hung lifeless upon Roman wood while blood dripped steadily into the dust beneath Him.

No angel moved.

No voice spoke.

Azarel’s sword slipped from his hand.

Then the earth split open.

The mountain trembled violently. Stones cracked apart across Golgotha. Somewhere beyond the city the veil within the temple tore from top to bottom with a sound like thunder.

And still heaven remained silent.

Because the Son had died.