CHAPTER 8
IT IS OVER
It was all over. Jesus had died and given up His Spirit. Jesus was DEAD. The man who had healed the sick and raised the dead was now dead himself. The man who had taught men to love and forgive one another was dead. The man who did not deserve to die had died and given up the ghost. JESUS WAS DEAD!
“If Jesus who called God His own Father could be mutilated and killed in such a horrific way, how could there be any hope for anybody?” I thought. “If Jesus could die such a horrible death after doing nothing wrong, what was in store for me--a lowly tree full of hatred, bitterness and unforgiveness?” I cried. “It is over.” “There is no more hope for mankind when people become so cruel they destroy the just and promote injustice and iniquity,” I reasoned. I just wanted to die myself and get it over with.
I searched within my heart and mind for a reason for all this madness, but reason was absent. There were no answers. “Life is cruel and there is no hope for the just or the unjust,” I thought. All I could feel was despair, hopelessness, grief, sorrow and hatred for those who used me to help kill this innocent man--this man who said God was His Father. Jesus was dead and I felt a deadness in my own soul.
My mind went back to the times when He would pray next to the rock on the mountain, and how He would make me feel so alive. Now I felt nothing but a deep, dark hole in my heart. I had nothing to live for! I was destined to be thrown into the fire to be burned. My destiny would now be fulfilled and had become one of death, just as His death was. I had never felt such sorrow and sadness in my life. I wished I had never been born.
As the crowd began to disperse, the Soldiers came to take Him down. They ripped His hands and feet from the rusty spikes which clung fast to my beams. They pulled His feet from me, leaving pieces of His flesh hanging on the spikes.
I didn’t know where they had taken Him at first, but they took me and set me up against a rock wall near a Cemetery. Then some of His Disciples brought Him to the Cemetery and placed Him inside a Tomb which was hewn out of rock near the place where I was standing.
Some women came with spices and white linens and went into the Tomb to prepare His body for burial. After the women had finished preparing His body, the Soldiers took a great stone and rolled it up against the entrance of the Tomb. I heard one of the Soldiers say, “We must guard this Tomb to make sure none of His Disciples come and steal His body”.
At dusk the Soldiers began to gather wood as they made a fire to keep warm for the night. “This is an appropriate place for me,” I thought. “I am resting against a rock wall outside a Cemetery. I feel dead inside already. Now, these Soldiers are going to see me standing here against this wall, cut me up and place me in the fire to keep themselves warm. “I helped them destroy and crucify Jesus who claimed that God was His Father, and now they are going to throw me into the fire,” I thought.
My mind kept going back to the times I saw Jesus on the mountain. I had seen no evidence that God was His Father, yet, I had never before met a man like Him. I could not forget all the things He had spoken to His Disciples up on the mountain. Over and over again I thought about the days when He climbed the mountain to pray to His Father, and how I felt such peace and love whenever He was near.
Then I remembered the times He would bring His Disciples and teach them underneath my branches about the love of God. I remembered the story He told once about a Cross He must bear, and how He must die so others could live.
My mind could not comprehend how others could live if He was dead. And what about me, I was the very instrument of His death. Even if He was the Son of God, God could never forgive me for being such a burden to Him, and worst of all, participating in His death.
That first night was very cold and dark. My heart felt the same way. I tried to forget that Jesus was lying dead in a tomb just a few yards away. I tried to forget that I helped put Him there. I could not sleep or rest knowing that I too was just as guilty as the Roman Soldiers who had crucified Him, and those people who wanted Him dead.
I was sorry for what I had become to Him. I knew I had been wrong all my adult life when I became bitter against mankind. If anyone could have steered me in the right direction, I knew Jesus could have done it. But, now, all hope was gone, and I was terribly ashamed of what I had become. I knew I now had to come face to face with reality.
I was a disgrace to my father, my family and the entire Olive family. I wouldn’t have blamed God if He had decided to destroy the entire World and everything in it. Then suddenly I remembered the Words I had heard Jesus speak to His Disciples: “FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD HE GAVE HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON THAT WHOSOEVER BELIEVETH IN HIM SHALL NOT PERISH BUT HAVE ETERNAL LIFE.”
Those words had no meaning anymore, because men had mocked Him and put Him to death. “How could God still love the World after all this?” I thought. All that is left is for God’s judgment to be poured out on all of us. We are all miserable sinners who deserve to be punished.