JUSTUS Scrolls

Rejected by God . . . or called to an uncommon path?

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Is there anything that is boundless, that is infinite? In thinking about this, we also ask the question, "Since we ourselves are imperfect, how can anything satisfy us perfectly?"

Good question.
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There are two Watersheds from which we are nourished, and by which we derive the "Word of God."
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@KatKanada_TM testicles

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Here I sit on the outside . . .
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So . . . you think you are a Christian?

Do you want to feel (as in deep in your heart) the love of God? Do you want your sins forgiven? Do you want to feel God's strength in every fiber of your being?
-- PDM
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Aliens

Can you count the times when you have felt like an alien on earth? It is as if you were riding on a train and the Spirit of God were sitting next to you, and looking up through his newspaper says to you, “We’ll be there soon.”
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See you there!

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Ok, here's the word . . .

This website is a work in progress.

I like to write. I have written, and written, and well . . . written. Almost 67 years of it. You would think I would get tired of it.

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If you are interested come back often.

Enjoy!

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See you there!

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Dear Family and Friends -- Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Linkedin Friends . . .

The initial phase of my effort to reveal the diversions of my life -- You will find it here: https://t.co/I3WFh3pdu9

It is still a work in progress and will remain so for months to come

[JUSTUS Scrolls @JustusAuthor]

THE EASTER STORY
-- SEGMENT XIX (FINAL)

Sunday Morming

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome, a friend of the two Mary’s, went to the tomb. As they stood debating what to do, the ground suddenly began to tremble beneath their feet. The mortar and seal affixing the stone to the tomb cracked and fell away.

Abruptly, a large, powerfully built man appeared. His eyes penetrated the depths of the hearts of the three women. They were deeply frightened and clung to one another. The man said, while the earth was still shaking, “Do not be afraid.”

He again spoke gently to the women, “Please, do not be afraid. I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified and buried in this place. He is not here. He has risen, just as he said he would. Come,” he invited. “Step into the tomb and see the place where he lay.” When they entered, the body of Jesus was not in evidence!

Again, the man spoke gently to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? Jesus is not here. He has risen!”

* * *

Mary Magdalene stood outside the tomb talking and weeping. She turned and was surprised to see a man standing near her. She did not recognize him. “My sister,” he said softly, “why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?” The words seemed so normal. The question so routinely logical.

Then the man simply said her name, “Mary.” He had a amused grin on his face, and his eyes danced in the morning light.

She had heard her name spoken like this from only one person. It was as though her name had been caressed. Instantly she knew. She lifted her eyes to see joy in the eyes of Jesus. “My Lord!” she cried in the shock of joyous surprise.

“Don’t be afraid; I am not a spirit. I am here, but do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee. There they will see me.”

Excited and exhilarated, the women went to his disciples (he had called them brothers) with the news, “We have seen the Lord!”

-- from “The Justus Scrolls.”
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THE EASTER STORY
-- SEGMENT XXVIII

Burial

A woman past her time of bearing children stood before him, questioning in her face. “I must speak to Nicodemus,” said the man, “please, quickly!” She led him through a room to where the “teacher of Israel” sat absorbed in the pages of the Torah.

“Who is it, Minah?” he inquired, so absorbed was he that he did not realize that Joseph was standing near him.

“It is Joseph, my husband. It seems the least you could do is acknowledge his presence. He is agitated, I think.” Nicodemus looked up at last to see his friend standing with an excited, apprehensive look on his face.

“I have seen the Governor, Nicodemus. He is allowing me to claim the body of our Lord. See, he gave me his tunic with which to clothe the body in its death.”

“He did what?” responded his startled friend.

“He is allowing . . .”

“I heard! Pilate gave you his tunic?” Nicodemus could not believe what his ears had heard. “Then we must hurry, before he changes his mind.”

* * *

Nicodemus instructed his servants to bring the customary mixture of myrrh and aloe, about seventy-two pounds of it, to prepare the body for burial. The entourage made their way out of the city to Golgotha, carrying the spices.

Removing the nails required banging them from side to side to loosen their grip in the wood. Lifting the body of Jesus from the cross to a hastily assembled bier, they removed the thorns, trying unsuccessfully to avoid being soiled by the blood.

Lying upon the earth, they left behind a wooden cross, scarred with nail holes and soaked in blood, an ugly specter of execution and death. Yet this structure, this form, would become a sacred image, stamping its visage on the collective human conscience like no other. When men and women beheld this holy shape, they would instantly know that the world had been changed because of an obscure, peasant Carpenter. They would know that, with the world, their own heart could be changed and delivered into life eternal. Thus an instrument of death became a symbol of life—eternal life.

. . . from “The Justus Scrolls”
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(free to read online)

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THE EASTER STORY
-- SEGMENT XXV
Wrath Exhausted

Dark, foreboding clouds blanketed the expanse above. The noon of day had turned to night. Heat lightning snapped through the billows giving rise to distant rumblings. Like an Angel of Death, darkness crept over the land shaken by an occasional thunderous streak of dancing white through the morass of black and grey. The body of Jesus rose and fell with each strained, excruciating breath. The sun hid itself from the shame.

“Unhh!” groaned his cross.

“Unnnhh!” louder. His jaw distended, moving as though trying to form words . . .

“Eli!” The Name escaped his lips in whispered longing.

“Listen!” said a voice in the crowd. “I think he calls for Elijah!” Silence as he hung there. Flies, braving the wind, licked hungrily at his blood.

“Eli - i-i-i-i!!” The sound exploded from the depths of his nearly dead body as he screamed for the first time. He sank again upon the cross. His breath evaporating, diminishing . . .

“Eli . . .

“lama sabachthani?” It ended on a soft, whimpering upnote. Confused. Pleading.

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The meaning was unmistakable. Could it be? Could God the Father actually turn away from God the Son? That his Son thought so is clear. Could not even the eyes of omnipotent, unmitigated love behold such agony? Such shame? Or did this selfsame agony so derange the thoughts of Jesus that he merely felt forsaken? How does one fathom such terrible rage? For rage it was. I came to understand. I came to know, far later than I should have, that eternal Holiness was exhausting its wrath, exhausting all of the pent-up fury, taking violent vengeance against evil in the miserable souls of humankind. There was Jesus, the solitary focus of the wrath of God, exhausting it, draining it of force, emptying it of meaning, sucking it of relevance. Only God could exhaust the infinite wrath of God, and on that day of morbid darkness it happened.

The terrible wrath of God . . . exhausted!

. . . from “The Justus Scrolls”
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(free to read online)

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@FoxNews Rogan has a filthy mouth, but he's right about the guy in the oval office.

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THE EASTER STORY
-- SEGMENT XXII
Place of the Skull

The sun did not rise this day. Instead, the expanse above cowered itself with shame as low clouds scudded in dismal pall. After a trek from the palace of staggering and falling, for almost one and one-half hours, they came to the place of the Skull, called Golgotha.

Why the name, “Place of the Skull?” It owes simply to the long-enduring tradition that the skull of Adam, the first man, was buried here. If it were actually true (and it likely is not), how ironic that the Second Man should die here!

Jesus would not die alone. With him were two criminals, each to die for his own crimes.

A Roman soldier extended a cup to Jesus, a solution of vinegar mixed with myrrh intended to act as an opiate for the torture he was still to endure. No sooner had the deadening liquid entered his mouth that he spewed it out. He would not numb himself with ought but love to mitigate the pain.

A soldier drove nails through his hands and wrists. Jesus made no sound, not so much as a whimper. With each blow of the mallet, the sound of steel penetrating flesh and wood reverberated through distance and time; this terrible, hollow sound carried through eternity.

The balls of his feet were pressed flat against the wood as the nails were driven through, scraping bone, penetrating wood. Jesus lay clothed only in clammy sweat, his chest heaving, writhing, nailed to the wood.

Soldiers now took the deadly instrument in hand and with combined strength lifted it while another guided its foot toward a hole in the earth. It hesitated at the edge for the briefest of instants, the lip of the hole crumbling beneath the weight, then plunged the three feet to its depth with a jarring thud. There they crucified him, and with him the two criminals—one on his right, the other on his left. The Scriptures were fulfilled: He was numbered among the transgressors.

-- from “The Justus Scrolls”
(free to read online)

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THE EASTER STORY
-- SEGMENT XXI
Crucify!

Pilate watched with a mixture of curiosity and amused disgust. He found it titillating to employ this sordid spectacle for his sport. Lifting his arm toward Jesus he shouted, “Behold your King!”

The crowd roared back, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”

“Then youtake him! You crucify him! As for me, I have no charge against him.”

The priests trying to convince Pilate, “We have a law! Our law stipulates that this man must die, because he claimed to be the Son of God.”
When Pilate heard this, he turned to Jesus and asked, “Where do you come from?” but Jesus gave him no answer. “Do you refuse to speak to me?” said Pilate, amazed. “You simple fool! Don’t you realize I have the power to crucify you or let you go?”
“You have no power at all, Pilate,” Jesus croaked from sheer exhaustion, his voice breaking, “were it not given to you from above. Those who handed me over to you are guilty of greater evil than you.”

Pilate was moved. This is curious. Could this wholly defeated man actually have compassion for me? What composure! He is magnificent! Merciful gods! What am I thinking? The governor felt queasy.

The Jews cried loudly, “If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar.”

Restless, hot, angry. “Cru-ci-fy! Cru-ci-fy!” escalating to a rhythmic, insistent chant.

“Bring me water,” said the Procurator to a slave, “in a basin!”

“Take him away! Take him away! Cru-ci-fy! Cru-ci-fy!”

The water came. The slave stood at Pilate’s side, holding the basin. Once again, Pilate appealed to the Jews, “Shall I crucify your king?”

“We have no king but Caesar,” the priests shouted.

“See here then, I wash my hands of the blood of this righteous man!” He plunged his hands into the basin.

The effect was galvanizing.

A lone, solitary voice from somewhere in the crowd shouted, “His blood be upon us . . . and upon our children!” Murmurs of approval.

Exhausted and resigned, Pilate nodded assent to the centurion in charge and handed the prisoner over to be crucified.

From “The Justus Scrolls”

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