<<When between midnight and sunrise the soldiers lay hands upon Him
Whom Judas has kissed, Jesus does not oppose them. Rather, he opposes Peter
who wants to fight for Him. The fight which was waged on the human level
on the previous days is now carried on in a higher sphere, and so takes on
still more powerful dimensions. He fights against the Luciferic powers,
the glittering beings of deceptive light, who want to estrange man from the earth,
and likewise against the Ahrimanic powers who want to harden and fetter man to death matter. In humanity’s evolution up to the “turning-point of time”, death which had
formerly been a friend of man had taken on more and more the features of Ahriman.
During earthly life it binds him to the world of matter; it makes all sorts of promises
of earthly fulfillment, which are no longer kept after death. After death we have only
as much spiritual command over matter as we have gained upon Earth.
In the quiet grove of the Mount of Olives, where He has so often been with His disciples
for intimate teaching, He must now withstand the most dangerous attack of the enemy
in utmost loneliness. The consciousness of the disciples is absorbed in the twilight of sleep
in Gethsemane, out of which Peter will deny Christ.
One could not misunderstand the Passion of Christ by thinking that Jesus prayed
to be spared from death. Not fear of death, but death itself assails Him.
The Destroying Angel wants to possess Him. The secret of the conflict in Gethsemane
lies in the fact that death wants to outwit Jesus. It wants to wrest Him away too soon,
before He has ended His work and filled the last vestige of the earthly vessel with His spirit.
For three years the Fire of divine Ego-hood has burned in the body and soul of Jesus.
The human vessel – from within outwards – has already been consumed almost to ashes. What still has to be suffered and completed demands so much strength from the earthly sheaths that there is a real danger of premature death. Ahriman lies in wait and hopes to
make use of this moment.But Christ is victorious and death is repulsed.
It is an echo of this fight when He speaks on the Cross the words that seem to betray a weakness: “I thirst”. It is not His will to pass into the spiritual world simply through dying.
It is His will to remain united with the Earth when He goes through death.
He wrestles to enter still more deeply into the earthly world of matter which He bears in Himself through His physical body. There is still a last remnant to be ensouled.
On the morning of Good Friday Christ confronts the whole of humanity,
as represented by the three figures of Caiaphas, Pilate and Herod.
When the sun is darkened during the sultry midday hours of Good Friday,
it is as though the demon of the sun were straining to the utmost against
the God of the sun. And when the earth is shaken by the earthquake,
all the demons of the earth seem to storm forward to help the satanic death-power
to victory. However, death can strip nothing from the sovereignty of Christ’s spirit,
from His authority over all earth existence.
Christ, in dying, goes directly to the Earth. The blood streams from His wounds;
His soul goes with it into the body of the Earth. Later the Earth opens in an earthquake
and takes into itself the body of Christ. The Earth receives the body and the blood of Christ, the great Communion, and so the medicine for the spiritualizing of all material existence is incorporated into Earth existence – “The medicine that makes us whole”.>>
~excerpt from “The Three Years” by Emil Bock
Easter-Tide Study throughout Holy Week
(Chapter 10 of “The Three Years” by Emil Bock)
at The Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago
Good Friday & Holy Saturday March 25-26, 7pm-9pm
Including Eurythmy – The 7-pointed Star
(Steiner called it the Heptagram of the Lamb)
If you would like a copy of the text contact Hazel ReverseRitual@gmail.com
~ ~ ~
Rudolf Steiner Branch of The Anthroposophical Society,
4249 North Lincoln Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618
Check out our Web site!
Chicago, IL (Anthroposophical Society in America)
