In the Light of Truth

55. The crucifixion of the Son of God and the Lord's Supper

At the death of Christ the curtain which closed off the Holy of Holies from mankind was rent in twain. This happening is taken as a symbol that the separation between Divinity and mankind ceased at the moment of the Savior’s sacrifice on the cross, and that a direct connection was established.

However, this interpretation is wrong. With the crucifixion men rejected the Son of God as their expected Messiah, which made the separation greater! The curtain was rent because henceforth the Holy of Holies was no longer necessary. It was exposed to all eyes as well as to impure currents because, symbolically speaking, after this deed Divinity would no longer set foot on this earth, thus rendering the Holy of Holies superfluous. This is the exact opposite of the existing interpretations, which express nothing but a great presumption on the part of the human spirit.

Neither was the death on the cross a necessary sacrifice, but a murder, a dastardly crime. Every other explanation is a misinterpretation which either is meant as an excuse or stems from ignorance. Christ certainly did not come to this earth with the intention of letting Himself be crucified. Neither does redemption lie in the crucifixion! Christ was crucified as an inconvenient bringer of Truth because of His teaching.

It was not His death on the cross that could and should bring redemption, but the Truth He gave to mankind in His Words!

The Truth, however, was inconvenient to the religious leaders and heads of the temples of that time, an annoyance because it severely undermined their influence. It would be exactly the same today in many places. Mankind has not changed in this respect. The teachers of that time, just as those of today, relied on the old good traditions; but through their practitioners and interpreters, these had become rigid, empty forms, inwardly lifeless. It is the same picture which often shows itself again today.

But He Who wanted to bring the necessary life into the existing Word naturally also overturned their practices and explanations, not the Word itself. He liberated and redeemed the people from the oppressive rigidity and hollowness, and this was of course a great vexation to those who soon recognized how seriously this would interfere with their false leadership.

For this reason the Bringer of Truth, the Liberator from the burden of erroneous interpretations, had to be rendered suspect and persecuted. When in spite of all their efforts they did not succeed in ridiculing Him, they sought to discredit Him. His “earthly past” as the son of a carpenter served to brand Him as “uneducated and therefore incompetent to give enlightenment!” As a „layman!“ Just as it is today with anyone who exposes the rigid dogma that chokes every free and vital upward striving from the very start. His opponents carefully avoided going into His explanations as such, because they quite rightly felt that they would lose in a purely objective discussion. They stuck to slandering Him maliciously through their corruptible instruments, until they finally did not shrink from availing themselves of an opportune moment to accuse Him publicly and falsely and bring Him to the cross, in order to remove the danger He represented to their authority and power.

His violent death, customary in this form at the time by the Romans, in itself was not and did not bring redemption. It atoned for none of mankind’s guilt, liberated them from nothing, but as a murder of the basest kind it burdened them still more with guilt!

If up till today a cult has arisen here and there, which sees in this murder a necessary and principal part of the Son of God’s Work of Redemption, this only diverts men from what is most precious and valuable and which alone can bring redemption. It distracts from the true mission of the Savior, from that which necessitated His coming from the Divine Sphere to the earth. The purpose of His Mission was not to suffer death on the cross, but to bring the Truth into the maze of dogmatic rigidity and emptiness which drags down the human spirit! To explain things between God, Creation and mankind as they actually are. Through this knowledge everything that the limited human mind had constructed, and which covered up the reality, had no strength and had to fall away by itself. Not until then could man see clearly before him the way leading upwards.

Redemption lies solely in the bringing of this Truth and the consequent liberation from errors!

It is redemption from obscured vision, from blind faith. The word “blind” most suitably depicts this false state.

The Last Supper before Christ’s death was a farewell meal. When He said: “Take, eat, this is my body. Drink ye all of it, this is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins,” He declared thereby that he was even willing to accept death on the cross, just to have the opportunity to bring the Truth to erring mankind through His teaching, which alone shows the way to the forgiveness of sins.

He says expressly: “Forgiveness for many” not “forgiveness for all!” Thus only for those who take His teachings to heart and make vital use of them.

His shattered body and His blood that was shed through death on the cross are meant to help mankind recognize the necessity for and seriousness of the enlightenment He brought. This urgency is only meant to be emphasized through the re-enactment of the Holy Communion and in the Holy Communion!

That the Son of God did not shrink even from such enmity on the part of mankind, the probability of which was already recognized before His coming*(Lecture: World events) should point out most especially the desperate plight of the human spirits who could only be dragged back from perdition if they grasped the lifeline of undimmed Truth.

When during the Last Supper the Son of God referred to His death on the cross, it was only a last explicit emphasis on the compelling necessity of the teachings He had come to bring!

In partaking of Holy Communion each person should always realize afresh that the Son of God did not even shun the probability of death on the cross through mankind, but sacrificed His body and His blood so that mankind might have the opportunity to receive an explanation of the actual happenings in the cosmos, which clearly show the operation of the immutable Laws of Creation that bear the Divine Will! With this realization of the profound gravity of the situation, emphasizing as it does the burning necessity of the Message for Salvation, ever new strength should arise in men, a new drive truly to live the clear teachings of Christ, not only to understand them aright, but also to act in accordance with them in everything. Through this they will then find redemption and forgiveness of their sins. Not otherwise! And not immediately. But they will surely find them through the way that Christ showed in His Message.

For this reason Holy Communion is meant to vitalize this process ever again, so that the only way of salvation, i.e. the zeal to follow the teaching brought at so great a sacrifice, does not weaken; for with the setting in of indifference or mere outward forms people lose their life line and sink back into the arms of errors and perdition.

It is a great mistake for men to believe that through the death on the cross, the forgiveness of their sins is guaranteed. This thought brings in its train the terrible harm that all those who believe thus are held back from the true road to redemption, which lies only and solely in living the Word of the Savior, according to the explanations given by Him Who knows and overlooks all. And these explanations show in practical pictures the need to obey and observe the Divine Will as expressed in the Laws of Creation, as well as their effects when they are observed and when they are not observed.

His Work of Redemption lay in bringing this enlightenment, which exposed the flaws and the harm of religious practices because it contained the Truth and thus brought Light into the ever-increasing darkness of the human spirit. His Work of Redemption did not lie in His death on the cross any more than Holy Communion or the Consecrated Host can offer forgiveness of sins. Such a thought is contrary to all Divine Law! Consequently, the power of men to forgive sins is null and void. A man only has the right and also the power to forgive what he has personally suffered at the hands of another, and then only when, his heart quite freely urges him to do so.

He who seriously reflects will recognize the Truth, thus the right way! Those, however, who are too indolent to think and who, like the foolish virgins in the parable, are too lazy to exercise the necessary care and attention to keep constantly in order and in readiness the little lamp left to them by the Creator, i.e., their ability to examine and illuminate, may easily miss the hour when the “Word of Truth” comes to them! Since they allowed themselves to be lulled into a state of sleepy comfort and blind faith their inertia will make them incapable of recognizing the Bringer of Truth, the Bridegroom. They must stay behind when the vigilant enter into the Kingdom of Bliss.

[Grail Message by Abdrushin]  [Resonances to the Grail Message]