A Stranger In The House : the website of Alan Hubbard : A University Education
A View From ACross
The Father, Son and The Holy Spirit - Concepts Of Christ
A Religious Studies Essay
All he can feel is the sun and the pain. He walks, carrying a crippling load on his back. Around him people jeer and leer. Sweat pours from his naked back. The sun beats him down, endless punishment. He falls to his knees and looks up at the sky. The sunlight burns his eyes.
Thorns are digging into his head, a crown of thorns which, like all crowns, pains the wearer. He keeps walking. He has been walking towards this all his life, and now when he is nearing the end of the march, he is unsure whether his feet will hold. He feels blood running down his face. He feels the blood in his veins speeding up, his heart beating faster and faster. Now is the time when he finally must stand alone and face the test. He feels the other, talking smoothly and calmly to him in his ear. The voice of God. His own voice. The voice of reason. He is not a man but a man and a God, and the voice of God remains calm. He knows that he will die as a man, he will flow from his body the voice of humanity fading away and only God remaining. The other tells him he is up to the task. That he is God and cannot fail, but his doubts remain. Will he be strong enough to leave all those that he loves, to leave the world that he loves? To loose the power to taste and smell. To touch and see. To ascend to his throne above the world. Mary Magdalene walks behind him. Will she be strong enough to cope with his death? His mother stands near the cross, can he be cruel enough to take from her the son who she was blessed with? His disciples hide their heads in shame. Already their steps are faltering. Will they be able to continue in his work if he has gone? Are they strong enough to cope without his hands to guide their steps? The other tells him that all will be well. That his death will save them and the world also. But in the other he has the power to burn the chains away, to heal his bleeding brow, to burn the cross. He could cast off his shackles and run free and safe. He is God and God can do anything. The other tells him that he has not the right. That he created these people to live. Gave them free will and he must not undo this act. But the people are sheep that he could shepherd. He could use the other to protect and shelter them from the storm. The other tells him that he will descend from heaven, when his body is gone and only the other is left. The other tells him that his death is the ultimate sacrifice and by his death he will lead his flock to pastures new. He walks on. Closer and closer to the end. He walks on. The convicts that walk beside him are tired. One of them cries. He walks on. The jeers of the crowd become deafening. He walks on. He sees some tears in the eyes of a few that watch. They are afraid to speak for him, but they love him still. He walks on. Blood gets in his eye. The other is still talking constantly, preparing him for what is to come, reassuring him. When he is upon that cross the other will leave him. He will be alone for the first time. He must die as a man, die as a man for man’s sins. He walks on. He is approaching the hill where his execution waits hungrily for him. He walks on, climbing now, the weight becoming heavier and the noise becoming so loud he can no longer hear it. Then he is there. It is time. He is pushed down. He feels his arms stretched out across the wood. He doesn’t struggle. The other is still there. It is at peace. He shuts his eyes. He feels the nails being placed on each of his arms. The other takes him over and he doesn’t scream as they are pounded into him. Endless beats of the hammer. He feels his flesh split and his blood flow. He feels his bones breaking. The other holds him tightly. He feels men holding his legs. Feels more steel passing through his skin. Feels the steel embedding itself into the wood behind him. The other holds his tongue. Then they are lifting him upright. He is raised into the air. He feels his body push against the steel, trying to draw itself to the floor, the steel holds. He opens his eyes, and looks down. Beneath him the crowd stare. Some awed by his silence, some still baying for blood. He sees the convicts being held down. Sees them being nailed to their crosses. Hears their screams. Their endless screams. One of them screams so much that his vocal chords break. His silent mouth still opens in a mute scream, his face screwed up into a look of unbearable pain. He feels the other begin to leave him. Feels its final benediction. He screams out in his mind, feeling this abandonment far more than the physical pain. He feels it leave and wills his body to hold it back. But he is powerless and finally he is alone. No longer God and man but man alone. “Looking down I see beings. Lonely beings, filled with confusion and pain. And for the first time I am truly one of them. I die for their sins but now I understand them. If I look up I see the sky, I am already there. But the pain pulls me back. Father forgive them for I am one of them. And I am you. I see the reason now. I understand. But still it hurts. Strange, I feel tears. Tears are flowing from my eyes. Why am I alone. Why am I abandoned. Father why have you forsaken me? Why have they all forsaken me? I gave them all I could. I could have made them great and they kill me. They turn their faces from my pain and I am expected to turn the other cheek. No. I will not. I cannot forgive. I am alone and no one comes. I will not forgive them. For they would not forgive me. I am a man. A man alone and like other men all I want is to survive. Why am I left alone. Why must I go alone into the darkness with no-one to hold my hand and show me the way? I hear the sound of birds singing far away. How dare they sing? How dare they carry on regardless while I am dying? Why should this world live and I die? Why must I be alone? But wait. This is not the truth. I am losing even the truth. Before I knew what was right. Now I am alone with no-one to tell me the truth. If I am a man and only a man what right have I to stop the birds from singing? What right have I to condemn those who know not what they do? Who feel alone like me, who reach for something to take this loneliness away. We are sheep, confused and alone. I was born once and before that I was everywhere. The other that is me created the world into which I was cast screaming. Before I could talk the other used my eyes, saw all that was around me, heard the choirs of angels, whilst I lay wrapped in swaddling clothes unaware and unformed. The other took me and moulded me to its purpose, and I knew that the purpose was right as it was I that had created it. Gifts were given to the other but never to me, all I was given was the love of she that bore me and he that had no part in my journey. But the other saw that all that I had was as nothing compared to the purpose and I had to leave them to lead the way. All my life I have spent leading the way and no-one has listened. Still the money lenders lend money, brother murders brother, the beggars are passed on the street. The rich are rich, the unjust are unjust and good people die. I have accomplished nothing. When the other was with me I knew that it was God’s work, my work which I did. But now I am alone and I don’t know anything anymore.”A Voice breaks through the pain and confusion:
“I travel’d through a Land of Men,A Voice breaks the calm after the storm: “You fight the devil. That’s not pretentious. You know what goes on when the lights go out? When I was having troubles, a Black present fear of death, a depression from which I could not return and into which I was going deeper and deeper. There’s got to be a way to stop that sort of thing.” 2
1 From The Mental Traveller by William Blake
2 Spoken by Martin Scorsese in an interview with Paul Schrader, the transcript of which forms the introduction to the screenplay of Taxi Driver by Paul Schrader
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