The 7 Last Words of Christ

To read part one of this two-part series, please click here to read The Passion of the Christ, Symbolically Speaking.

The second part of the series on The Passion of the Christ is a piece on metaphor. It is offered as an introduction to our symbolic analysis of The Seven Last Words of Christ, as taken from all four canonical gospels in the Christian Bible. This introduction and analysis isn’t offered in an attempt to detract from the emotional impact of the crucifixion tale, but rather to put it into a perspective that can allow it to be accessed and understood in a much larger context.

Michael: Modern scholars know that Yeshua bar Yosef lived and died as billions of human beings have done on this planet, in obscurity and conditions so poor and harsh they are almost unthinkable to contemporary Westerners. The stories of his remarkable life and brutal death have resonated through 2000 years of telling and retelling, until the metaphoric beauty of those stories became mistaken for the literal, historical facts. The reduction of those powerful metaphoric truths into mere historicity had begun as soon as twenty years after his death, and has had increasingly unfortunate effects ever since.

Alesia: Metaphors were never meant to be taken as mere literal facts. They are symbols, or markers that point beyond themselves to something of deeper or greater significance. Their meanings are context-bound, as all meaning is. All mythologies (Christianity fits the cultural, sociological definition of a mythology) are metaphors which come to us through specific cultural and temporal contexts; once those contexts are outgrown or transcended, the metaphors themselves lose the rich field of growth which supported them. Cut off from their roots, so to speak, they become stale and flat — prose rather than poetry, fact rather than emotion, literal rather than symbolic.

Michael: Which leaves us in a bit of a predicament with the world’s major religions as widely practiced today. Consider this quote from one of Joseph Campbell’s lectures in the mid-eighties about the difficulties with metaphor and modern religion:

” . . .half the people in the world think that the metaphors of their religious traditions, for example, are facts. And the other half contends that they are not facts at all. As a result we have people who consider themselves believers because they accept metaphors as facts, and we have others who classify themselves as atheists because they think religious metaphors are lies.”

Alesia: It’s amazing and dismaying by turns. Some consider themselves believers because they accept their religious metaphors as fact when they were never meant to be fact! Then the others who think they are atheists because they think metaphors are lies — in other words, they deny the factuality of that which was never meant to be factual! This isn’t confined to the major religious traditions either — we’ve seen it in the “New Age” community, as well as the Neo-Pagans and Wiccans.

Michael: Volumes could and are being written about the infinite number of intricate variables that have contributed to the reduction of myth and metaphor into prosaic fact, with its inevitable consequences. Rather than retrace that ground, we refer you to any of Joseph Campbell’s later works (The Joseph Campbell Foundation) or Ken Wilber’s Kosmos Trilogy, and his website (http://www.wilber.shambhala.com) where all his remarkable works can be purchased.

As a final note, the reader should realize that the hours of the day were not kept in the First Century as we do today. In the First Century, the day was divided into four “hours” (three, six, nine, and twelve) of three hours length, and the night into four “watches” of three hours length. Thus Mark’s recounting of Jesus having been crucified “in the third hour” simply means it happened (if it really happened at all) in the morning (logical), between 6am and 9am — the three hour span covered by the Roman “third hour” of the day.

Alesia: I think that’s a perfect place to end this introduction, with the metaphor of an hour and how it points beyond the modern understanding of the word, referring contextually to a 3 hour span of time. That’s the basic nature of metaphor! Look to the meaning beyond!

So walk with us now into the passion of Christ as a path of transformation, encoded in The Seven Last Words of Christ on the cross, and discover once again how symbolic or metaphoric sight reclaims the inherent power of myth and metaphor.

1. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
   

   Alesia: This saying appears only in the gospel of Luke (who was also the author of the Book of Acts). It was allegedly said during the third hour of Jesus’ ordeal, as the soldiers cast lots for his garments. As the opening statement of the seven, it brings us right down into the very heart of humanity, our ignorance, confusion, our “not-knowingness,” the darkness that frightens us into acts of brutality and hate.

   Luke was a physician and an educated man. As I imagine him writing this, I can almost hear him thinking: Jesus was addressing God the Father, but these words are for his fellow human beings. You are in darkness, Luke seems to be saying. Your ignorance made you lash out in hate, but Jesus was asking for forgiveness — indeed, Jesus was demonstrating the path out of ignorance and darkness with his plea for divine mercy on behalf of his fellow humans.

   Michael: I find Luke’s placing this saying in the third hour highly symbolic. Three is the number that bridges the gap between the physical world of polarities (good and evil, right and wrong) and the divine: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, in Christian mythology; body, mind, and spirit from the New Age; or subconscious, conscious, and superconscious from psychology.

   So symbolically, Luke is illustrating Jesus’ transpersonal capacity to transcend the darkness and ignorance of temporal polarity (2ness) and not only touch the divine (3ness), but become the bridge between the divine (“father forgive . . .”) and the world (“them, for they know not . . .”). He “willed to do Thy will,” as the impulse truth to the 5th chakra puts it. (See Alesia’s Book for more details on the 7 chakras.)

2. Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.
   

   Alesia: This saying also appears only in Luke, and was uttered in response to one of the other men who was crucified with Jesus as Luke tells it. In the midst of his own torment, Jesus apparently reaches out to give comfort to another soul in similar torment. He relates to that soul, thereby recognizing the “I-Thou” relationship inherent in all existence, and as exemplified in the 2nd step in any Scalar 7-path.

   You don’t have to study much human development to see the huge leap an infant must make to be able to recognize Others as separate from Self. It happens at about age 2 and heralds a veritable flurry of growth and change. From the universe of One (self) there is now a multiverse of relationship (with others). It’s the 2nd major leap in development for any person, and it’s no accident that relationship forms the basis of the 2nd step in a Scalar 7-set. The quality of our relating is kerneled here — a quality Jesus symbolically demonstrates in this saying.

   Lastly, lest we be content in having achieved this next stage in our personal evolution, “paradise” is mentioned, a promise of better things to come. I see his mention of paradise as a motivator. He seems to be saying “Don’t stop now! We’ve got a long way to go!”

   Michael: I cannot help looking at his mention of “paradise” without thinking of the line in the Thomas Gospel where Jesus says: “The Kingdom of Heaven is spread upon the Earth, and men do not see it.”

   We take so much pride in our “wounds” today. The news is all bad, the changes in the world are all bad, the new cars or appliances or whatever aren’t as good as the old ones. Everything is doom and gloom. Yet Luke seems to be saying: Hey! Look here. Here’s a guy the Romans crucified, who might really have been treated as badly as is shown in the Passion Of The Christ, but was he whining about how bad it was? No! To the very last Jesus remained decentered, his mind focused on the Self, rather than himself.

   As a final note: Jesus wasn’t the only mystic to suffer, or the last. Nor was he the first to let himself be horribly killed. The ability of mystics, through their discipline and training to experience, and even share “paradise” while suffering seemingly intolerable indignities or pain is as old as their message. And it’s a skill available to us all.

3. Woman, behold thy son. Behold thy Mother.
   

   Michael: This is the first of the sayings to appear in John, which is considered “the spiritual gospel.” Professor Elaine Paegels, author of The Gnostic Gospel of Saint Thomas believes the gospel of John may have been written as a polemic against the Gospel of Saint Thomas. The latter focuses entirely on the life and sayings of Yeshua bar Yosef the man, rather than the passion of Jesus as the Christ on the cross. It is also interesting to note that of all the gospels, only in the Gospel of John is Jesus elevated to the level of a God in his own right. John attempts to turn Jesus into the Christ (which means savior, aka messiah in Hebrew). In much softer tones, Luke begins the transition from Jesus as apocalyptic preacher to Christ, divine avatar and sole savior of the world in Luke/Acts. But in John, written after the second sacking of Jerusalem, it is the main thesis.

   Personally, I cannot even image being in as much pain as Jesus must have been in after four or five hours of hanging on that cross. This saying is the last thing he’ll say for another another three hours. I can easily see how it either took the last of his strength, how the pain became so great he simply couldn’t speak, and I think this is critical to the image all of the Gospel writers wanted us to take away from the story of the crucifixion.

   Seen in this light, the simple fullfillment of his customary duties under Jewish law: His placing his mother Mary into the custody of “the disciple whom he loved” (probably his brother James) seems like an act of super-human, nearly deific compassion.

   Alesia: While a touching story (if it happened — John is the only one who mentions it), my attention is still drawn up in symbolic analysis of this 7-set. This is the third saying, which deals with what are essentially very worldly matters. Let’s blend the literal historicity with the symbolic meaning and see where it leads.

   First, Jesus’s world was one where women were chattel. A woman like his mother, the mother of an executed criminal now, would be in dire straits indeed if left to her own devices after Jesus’s death. And so, like all those evolved souls who approach the end of their own life, Jesus’s personal honor code must have dictated that he take time to wrap up this loose end, so to speak — he made sure his mother will be cared for in the aftermath. That’s historicity.

   He’s also making a huge statement about where he must have been, internally, and here we begin to see the symbolism. He told Mary to behold her son, thereby reminding her of the truth that in reality, there was no difference between Jesus and James — or Peter, Simon, Tom, Dick or Harry for that matter. All Is One, the timeless truth of all eternity, is directly implied here. He then said the same thing to James: Look, this woman is your mother, as is every woman, because outside of this vale of tears there is no separation between you, me, them, us. This is powerful, powerful stuff — radical teaching, for any culture and era.

   In a Scalar 7-set, the third step or phase is the last of the worldly steps. It has to do with worldly things, for the most part. Note the reference to a personal code of honor here, and with the growing realization that this world has become too small to contain the growth of the spirit. Mastery of this step pole-vaults us into the next — and right into the very heart of the human predicament.

4. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
   

   Michael: This is the only saying to appear in any of the other gospels, namely Matthew and Mark, and only in Matthew and Mark. And according to Mark (Matthew simply copied Mark in its entirety, then embellished it) this happened in the “9th hour.” Symbolically the hour of completion, Jesus has completed his final worldly act under Jewish law.

   Now he turns to matters spiritual, turning to God. But he’s still wearing a body that’s firmly attached to the physical world, that feels pain and thirst. In that one sentence is wrapped the entire dichotomy of the human condition: The passion and longing for our true nature, while at times feeling it can never quite be reached. The sensing of our true potential, our true nature, the beingness of the “naught struck bell” that rings within us, its tone often hollow and distant in our Earthly ears.

   Nine is completion, but it is completion that begins a new cycle, a cycle that begins with discomfort. In the runes the ninth rune, Hagalaz, the “cosmic hailstone” (completion) is followed by Nauthiz, the rune of restraint, necessity, and pain — a symbol of the human condition.

   Alesia: The very things involved in any birth, I’d say. This saying haunts me more than any of the others. I’ve been in that darkness, metaphorically speaking. I’ve cried out in the desert, not knowing if anyone, or any god, could hear me. I’ve sat with other mystics, in their own moments of great personal pain, as they too despaired of ever seeing the light again, and grieved with them. Jesus’s pain, grief, and suffering mirrors ours. It’s all contained and revealed at the very center of this 7-set, appropriate if only because we’ve now begun to deal with matters of the heart, of the spirit. And to do that, it is necessary to enter a kind of void, a darkness that separates you from your own worldliness, from everything you thought you knew.

   It’s a painful time, but necessary. You have to die to what you have been in order to become something new. Christ’s passionate crying out on the cross at this phase is very like what we now know of the shaman’s death from Native American and other indigenous cultures. The would-be shaman enters a state where the flesh and bone of his body is stripped from him — metaphorically, but we are told it feels very real. The same agencies that stripped the body (or sometimes just parts of it) replace it with something new, usually seen as better suited to enduring the rigors of the shaman than mere human flesh. The reborn shaman then enters his new life as the bridge between the gods and the tribe.

   Until you have done this, until you have died the shaman’s death, until you have been nailed to your own cross and suffered there (symbolically and sometimes literally), you simply can’t endure the divine ecstasy on the other side. In Jesus’ terms, you can’t know paradise. The fact that it’s necessary doesn’t make it enjoyable, however.

5. I thirst.
   

   Alesia: In this saying the path returns to the gospel of John, who tells us Jesus said this in order to fulfill Jewish prophecy. I remember this raising my cynic’s hackles back when I was in love with literal Christianity as a young girl. The very idea that anyone could remember an obscure Jewish prophecy after hours of torture and suffering was just ludicrous to me then. Now though, I know enough about symbolic sight to look for the truth underneath.

   In a literal sense, Jesus probably had a lot going on at that moment. In incredible physical pain from the beatings, the crown of thorns, the humiliation of being nailed up on a cross as a criminal with all the dishonor it implies — and he’s talking about being thirsty? It has always seemed to me that he had a lot to complain about at that moment, and that mere physical thirst had to have been pretty far down on the list.

   But look deeper: In the sense of a personal evolution, he’s already left matters of the body behind him, back at the third step. This is the fifth (thirst = throat = fifth chakra), and that tells me that there’s a spiritual agency or force at work here. Jesus’s thirst is spiritual, not physical — and if I look at it in that way, it puts the apparent conflict to rest. For what did Jesus thirst? For what was Christ’s passion, to put it in the terms of the movie? Not water. Certainly not vinegar, which we are told he was offered. Jesus’s thirst at that moment simply had to be for Rumi’s Beloved — for the final dropping away of Ego, for Union with God and ultimate dissolution of physical things.

   In his position (metaphorically, of course), I’ve thirsted for the same. It’s a thirst that cannot be quenched with any worldly thing.

   Michael: It’s also a thirst that cannot truly be quenched so long as one wears a body. Momentarily yes, in moments of ecstasy. And in those moments truly extraordinary things can happen. Historical writings from the nunnery Teresa of Avila lived in report that she would levitate when in deep states of contemplation, and that the other nuns had to grab her to keep her from banging her head on the ceiling.

   And yet, we are also told of her frailty, her health problems, her mood swings. She was human, she was fallible. Those ecstatic periods could not, cannot, be sustained. We must rejoin the world, do our work in the world, be it pleasant or painful. And so we, like Jesus, are always thirsty for “the passion of the Christ.”

6. It is finished.
   

   Michael: This is where John ends it, though Luke lists one more saying, as will be seen.

   In this saying I can almost feel the relief from the pain. His body is almost dead, has probably gone numb; a glorious change from the hours of pain and anguish he’d endured. But as the body dies, his soul lights up, becomes vibrantly alive, as the majority of his consciousness shifts out of the physical world. He comes face to face with Godself: The self on the cross meets the Self still in heaven, and the path and pattern of his life becomes clear — as is so often reported by those near death. His life begins to “make sense” in a way it never could with the soul so tightly bound to the physical body.

   In plain language, Jesus now knows why he’s dying. He knows his work is done. He has a transcendental understanding of why he’s hanging on that cross. The work was good; it was perfection; and it is now finished.

   Alesia: I can’t add much to that. You’ve described the sixth step in a scalar progression perfectly: Coming face to face with one’s idea of God. The only thing I might add is the notion that whatever deity one is taught to revere is what is seen at this phase. Jesus was Jewish, and so he stayed true to the patriarchal God of Torah and the Old Testament.

   Now all that’s left is transcendence itself, which is addressed in the next and last saying.

7. Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.
   

   Alesia: Only the Gospel of Luke offers us the seventh saying. Keep in mind that Luke/Acts was written before John’s gospel. It helps explain, in the literal sense, why there are two endings to this tale. John doesn’t seem to have been able to leave any of the previous gospels to stand on their own merits.

   In the seventh and last step of a Scalar 7-path, Ego drops away so that there is no more Subject/Object separation, no more duality. The EgoSelf dissolves completely in Oneness with Divine Consciousness. This state cannot be described in words, for words are limited things and the state Jesus is preparing to enter here cannot be confined in limitations. Therefore very little can actually be said about it — and Jesus himself doesn’t speak to us from that state. He cannot. It’s said at the penultimate moment, before he “gave up the ghost,” as Luke relates it.

   If you’re wondering how we know such a state exists if it cannot be accurately described in words, I would encourage you to pick a meditative injunction, perform this particular experiment in higher consciousness, then report back what you find. You don’t have to get yourself nailed to a cross in the literal sense, but you sure do have to go through the process to know, for yourself and for real, the experience of what is being discussed.

   Michael: It is this state that mystics throughout the millennia have been trying to relate. Jesus attempted to relate it in life with such enigmatic statements as “I and my Father are one,” and “the kingdom of heaven is spread upon the Earth and men do not see it,” to name but two. Zen masters attempt to relate the experience using equally enigmatic questions: What is the sound of one hand clapping? is a very common one. One Zen master walked into room full of his students and wordlessly held up his walking stick. All but one of of them stared in incomprehension. The last student smiled, bowed to his master, and left the room to meditate upon the stick until he was the stick (the object of the meditation is irrelevant).

   And there-in lies the Truth of all things as best as limited words can portray them. Heaven is spread upon the Earth (immanent); we and the Father are One (transcendent). In contemplating on and experiencing those two, you will crucify your self to experience your Self; and in the end discover that even you do not exist.

In looking at this 7 series symbolically, it’s easy to see how tranformation occurs through all 7 steps. What isn’t as apparent, perhaps, is that for most of us such paths of transformation recur throughout our lives. We are continually becoming something other than we are, hopefully something better, higher, truer to our divine calling. Following the symbolic meaning in Jesus’ 7 last sayings in a mindful, contemplative fashion is a good way for anyone, Christian or non-Christian, to experience the rich rewards that only