Each Easter, I try to contextualize one facet of the Easter diamond. This year, I will attempt to modernize Dante and Milton’s perspective for you, while illuminating our role in the crucifixion itself. Our job is to anticipate. Enjoy!
Hot hell is within us now.
On Friday we, aligned with the Devil, murder the God-Man. His bloodied corpse propped up for all to see that evil had triumphed.
Goodness himself is dead. And with him, Truth and Love wiped away. Hope is gone.
The world now belongs to Satan. All have fallen.
He’s stoned-in by a rolled rock. And us all walking away in a forever defeat and servitude to Satan. Good is forever dead. So only evil remains.
There is the smell of burning flesh, tinging our nostrils, only to realize our own hands branding ourselves as the serialized property of Hades. Our swelling arms and emasculating legs, bearing a hundred fresh tattoos of bondage by our own selves. This is the hell of Dante.
Our deed, to bury the only Good Man, turns us from rebels to devils. And with Satan, those nice men – the popes, philosophers, executioners, cowards, and priests lying in Dante’s Inferno of Hell offer their “amen and amen”. The dastardly act was done to their satisfaction. Love was always in their way. They always preferred the likes of men to the Beloved of God.
"Nice men always prefer the likes of men to the Beloved of God."
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Our shovels turn five-pronged pitchforks with each step away from his tomb. The steel handled loops melding to our fettered hands. And since wood is banned in Dante’s hell, our arms become tools for farming destruction on ourselves. And we know it.
Wishing now we were bodies that just so happened to have souls, and not forever souls in a forever hellish bodily chaos. For the hope of all good is gone. Our souls there exchanged for diabolic spirits of hate, with each step away from the tomb.
Our souls there exchanged for diabolic spirits of hate, with each step away from the tomb.
Love vanishes. Hearts probed. Minds turned to frosted stone with each step. Identity mixed into the murky confusion. Darkness returns to fill up every Rembrandt in our minds and the world. Panting for a drop of relief. Rainless cracking thunder. Lightning teasing our tongues. We thirst in a waterless world. And it is early Saturday morning.
Saturday Morning
The cackling laughter of demons to never cease. We cut off our ears, but they regrow as grotesque antennae masses. The sins of our lips now turned against us to only hear their scowling screams. Wishing to die or sleep, we inadvertently wish ourselves into another penalty—eternal awareness. And we become that to which we are most aware forever. This is the curse promised by all philosophy and religion. Mind your attention.
"Wishing to die or sleep, we inadvertently wish ourselves into another penalty—eternal awareness. And we become that to which we are most aware forever. This is the curse promised by all philosophy and religion. Mind your attention."
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Above, we know Christ, that best possible man, was monstrously murdered in the most heinous of manners—horrifically offending the eyes of all humanity. Deceived by a best friend. Declared innocent by Pilate who is evil’s man himself. His hands and soles lanced. Not just hanged or beheaded—flogged and pierced as a spectacle naked in front of his own mother. He is abhorrently dehumanized beyond all recognition. His heart penetrated by lance and drained of its water—water that loving remembrance of us all. Stripped of his humanity—externally and internally. No longer appearing as God-Man. His body lying in repose.
But, Christ’s dying shakes reality, and even the underworld. Like a subterranean earthquaking tsunami that opens up rubble-lined steps for His own descent into Hell.
Supposing once losing to Evil Death—that most perfect God-Man is permitted into Death’s hell. He is welcomed. The forever wish of Satan now made true. Parades with demon marching bands walk the street. Spirits of corruption and cowardice line the dark streets in hate, envy, and loathing. And Satan carries a haunted doll representing us all, who he has just conquered with death. For hate is on the line. All are watching. The villain crowned the hero of hell, a crown cast in solid gold.
He steps down into death as we step away in demise. Away from life, love, and truth. And the tomb where Love lies.
We look away from every threat of hope.
In hell there is darkness. For the fires are not allowed to illuminate.
The Inversion
But imagine for one moment the unthinkable…
Inversion.
The inversion of everything we once thought we knew about death. We walk away from the tomb, never imagining we are being pursued.
Just one time. One flick of the author’s quill. And, what if, like my entire senseless life, losses are indeed the way. Pain makes men strong. Perhaps, one death—the utmost pain—is not eternal but temporal—in yet another inversion.
"We walk away from the tomb, never imagining we are being pursued."
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And here, dear reader, we must melt away our bent causal logic—to imagine. The good must bow to the great.
Could His death be—as a rebel behind enemy lines—His way to triumph, when to all others’ death is always loss? It would be as if Christ commits treason, once welcomed inside—He double-truths the liar.
"Christ double-truths Death."
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And Death, giving Perfection that right passage across into Hades,
Does not realize the Perfect Man remains Paradox,
For Death’s crumbled stairs leading him down….also may lead us back up out of our hell.
Had Death known, he would have never admitted the Fountain of Life.
He, like the High Priest who met Alexander the Great outside Jerusalem, would have met the God-Man Power outside the walls of hell.
Death forgot all god-men in every great story descend to emerge as a hero.
And heroes always have someone to rescue.
The tables are always turned.
Had Death known, he would have never admitted the Fountain of Life.
For all hero’s journeys require the hero to lead others back up—out of their hell. Perhaps even leading the escape from a billion hells all at once. Satan’s error is ours still: thinking a true myth will never be seen in history.
But.
Only then.
The unthinkable.
This God-Man, condescending only to descend, heroically reascends with us all.
Whatever happens to one of us can happen to any of us.
As his presence, though unnecessary to maintain his threat, spilled up and over into our world. Past the now rubbled walls of hell.
"This God-Man, condescending only to descend, heroically reascends with us all."
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Oddly—and it’s the quirks of the stories that tell you they are true—possibly, the first error ever for this Perfect God. Accidentally, or so it seems to our logical minds, His life fountains up over and into our deserted world and we hear reports—in history—that He raised the damned bodies of the ancient prophets first. They walked around Jerusalem. The same earthquake quaked open their tombs—Will itself resurrected. Insanity of insanities.
But what could such a reckless act mean, if it is true?
We must watch and listen—even with our new flame-tipped pointed ears and blood-stained eyes, oven-calloused lips. For we may still hold a bit of hope—our demonic selves—demons filling our bodies—might fall off us. As cataracts fall from our eyes. Because we paid attention just once. Right here. Right now.
And I will ask you one more time for every ounce of imaginative prowess and mental fortitude for just a moment. Fully awake. Fully attentive. Fully open to anything being possible. Fully open to just 1% being true. Fully open to accepting love.
One Moment
You become that to which you give your attention. Demons as well as angels. Sinners as well as saints. We must struggle to see outward through those blood-colored eyes. For only hot hell is within us now.
We walk in a great stadium and smell smoke cloaking the source. We know not whether it’s from the opening fireworks, starting gun, or ending cannons—we don’t know where we are in the grand play. Dazed. As we look up, fog obscures the rafters, but slowly discloses the field of play below. Shadows of movement above and below, hiding as curtained. But the fog parts, as curtains reveal the stage. Parting not from their sideways movement, but because, we will suspect only later, hell and earth are being ripped apart as a razored scalpel to flesh.
And here we continue speaking of the excess of those extra raised men—the mistake bearing infinite meaning now tearing open reality. It is such that it requires a scene of meaning interpreted within a scene of matter, as a carpenter carves three timelines deep when he whittles the scene of family using a time-circled tree’s trunk. A triple metaphor in a single story.
In other words, allow me to walk with you back up those steps out of your hell.
I lead you up to a moment in the bursting sun. Sunday morning must be anticipated.
Imagine: John Williams at the Olympics
We both find ourselves omnipresent in a never before used stadium, set for a parade. I remember it was 1996, and I was a junior trumpeter. I just returned from playing a feature piece with our high school marching band in the Alamodome earlier that month. As I tried to fill-up that massive dome to be heard over the entire band as well, as a soloist must, I realized I was not powerful enough. Now, sitting there on the shagged floor of our old 2-bedroom house, I watch John Williams conduct the 1996 Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony. Imagine it with me as if we were there—taking in all the dimensionality from a seat on the third row at a forty-five degree angle from Williams’ baton.
Now exposed out of the haze, we visually see the orchestra’s conductor queue those once-suspected hundred extra antiphonal trumpets in lavish opulence well before the crescendo begins. This is where we begin the Perfect Man’s reckless act interpreted as spectacle.
But we cannot yet see the raftered trumpets—as the tip-toed en pointe ballerina cannot see the conductor. Never seeing, we must always trust the conductor will queue everyone at their proper time. And he will shine out to them—grasping them through that cloudy haze for his queue. And we wait for what seems forever.
But if we look close enough and do not get carried away by the pomp of a marching flame, killing time, we shall see. See their fractal-lit shadows—as only John Williams could from where he stood. Shadows of a century of antiphonal trumpets cast down—seemingly from the sky—and onto the field—and hearts—of play. Casting as a prophecy of the glory to enter upon the conductors’ queue. For only He—the Commander and Conductor perched on that wooden platform can see all—only He knows the score and the proper time they should enter. Too early and the music falls apart. Too late, and the power vapors away. He knows where the music will laud the grandest story. Where the yellow should be speckled over the stormy sea.
The Olympics begin before the heroes can take the line—we take the hand offered to lead us out of our hellish chaos.
And as those stadium-surrounding uniformed trumpets—like an occupying military force—prepare to enter for the ages, we all see. All of Humanity together sees—Coca-Colas in hand—as they raise those extended bugles. And as they rise—before the mouthpieces lean into their whetted lips—we see a prophecy a second before it happens.
If we will pay attention, one moment can remake us all.
We now know that the whiff of smoke—the haziness—was not from the final canons but opening fireworks marking the entrada of a new universal regime. As the cleansing fire steaming from our tears prefaces the ultimate battle.
All across the stadium—crowds of flag-waving children, parents, and demi-gods await in awe. Participating in a once-in-a-lifetime epic. Awe turns to quiet reverence for the beauty of the moment.
Tears flow, not for what has happened. But for the threatening hope hanging in the air of what might. The world wonders what majestic miracle may unfold on that field. Not because it would happen. But because we may witness an un-eviling of our eyes by unfolding beauty.
"we may witness an un-eviling of our eyes by unfolding beauty"
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The family of humanity is seated around the same table.
And suddenly without warning all across the aisles and fields—flashes of light.
Sabers slicing through the darkened crowds—world leaders, parents, ushers—randomly.
Assassinating the dark.
The spotlights point from around the bowl, in planned choreography, sizzle on those hundred heralding silver Bach Stradivarius trumpets a moment before they blow.
The smudged window we have always been looking at shatters. We should have been looking through it to Truth all along. Our eyes see only because we have anticipated. Only because we had the faith of the thief on a cross a moment before the entrada.
Our eyes see only because we have anticipated. Only because we had the faith of the thief on a cross a moment before the entrada.
These still silent musical lightsabers—the same ones Williams wrote to us about the decade before—are now casting through the world’s windowed screens in a new and exciting way. As if his trilogy of trilogies becoming a triple-deep analogy—known to the entire world but not in a single mind then. It was but a warm up—a pre-story—for a truer contest of heroes in real history to come.
The same conductor, also composer, commands all practices before the performance.
And we see beams of mini suns flash across the entire world a moment before they ever sound. But because they first flash, we all know they will breathe—then sound before breaking the inverted 9-level mountainous void which Dante told us is our fate if we remain as we now are.
Order matters.
But they will not enter, unless the conducting-author—who is also the only one who sees all, including the score—allows them to enter with that queuing Point. To take the step no musician wants to take alone.
And His points become The Point, when the gravity of all Humanity’s attention is focused on it and there’s only one shot. When the author walks onto the stage, it’s too late to decide to practice. We must anticipate.
When the author walks onto the stage, it’s too late to decide to practice. We must anticipate.
Follow the breath whispering from those trumpeters as they prepare to enter. The anticipatory breath enlivening all men—the universal mangu of the savages & wisdom of the ancients—always breaks the void to announce light. A mountainous range of majesty approaches in clear sight—smudges crunched away like ice but the wood frame remains.
And as everyone knows, this Olympics opens with the familiar trumpeting tune: Summon the Heroes.
Summoning the Hero
Humanity knows—heroes, like the blazing sun, are born for glory. For glory carries the idea of illumination.
Some Jews say they witnessed those ancient hero-prophets summoned—perhaps Isaiah, David, Alexander, Aristotle, Homer—run all over Jerusalem three days after that earthquake assault on hell. More alive than those Jewish religious leaders—for a moment.
And those Jews who told of seeing those raised saints in the streets—themselves became prophets. For they saw what would be—the light cast onto the world’s audience—as if it already happened. Tensing matters.
And we also shall turn prophets regardless if we believe the Sun rises or the world spins. Both, like, many of our earthly beliefs, point towards the Truth. But they are not the thing itself—they only tell us what He is like. The Son shall return to us—rise or spin. The important thing is not that it spins to us or rises to meet us, only that He shall return to us holding his performance baton and for us to be watching.
And here, perhaps Alexander, finding his true fountain was actually in Samaria, was now christened the only true god-man—just three centuries too early. But now, the God-Man brings him up out of death, and with him, all the Philosophy of Aristotle and Stories ever rooted in Homer. The Hero rescues all heroes ever summoned by every trumpet ever played.
"The Hero rescues all heroes ever summoned by every trumpet ever played."
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Hot hell’s steam from the tears of ten billion pains now cleans all prophets into saints, hazing the field. The Evil which caused this steamy haze as Satan expected a battle. And instead he was handed a Paradox—a defeat wrapped in Trojan wood. That smoky steam was merely prophesying the fireworks to come celebrating his own demise. Satan wafts his own defeats’ celebration. He prophecies his own demise, while thinking he wins. He falls as a liar, for even when he tries to form a truth it inverts to his Enemy’s advantage. For he fights against inevitable Reality—just as we.
"When Satan tries to form a truth it inverts to his Enemy’s advantage."
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As every seed which enters back up through the dark death shall be made to bear fruit. Because it once saw a lavish act of the Sun. Love is a circle which too rises and spins, as Dante will tell us in The Banquet.
For all the false prophecies of the great religions and philosophies were turned true. Their lies lie defeated still at the bottom of that stage. Dante says they are frozen. Frozen in time by the chained-up fluttering wings of that son-of-a-bitch Death himself.
"For all the false prophecies of the great religions and philosophies were turned true."
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You see, by defeating Death, Sin is emasculated. But like night, evil is fruitless because it cannot exist on its own and can certainly no longer embark to wipe away life. It has no seed remaining. For it had once seen the piercing flash of the Son of the ages to whom Daniel prophesied that all the great kings of history shall cast their crowns by way of the Father. And those cast down crowns shall mirror the glory more than a million trumpets before they fall at the feet of God.
We need a piercing glance. A flash of the silvered Olympic indulgence. A mustard seed’s worth of anticipation that Sunday is still here.
The So-What
Some insist in worshiping those felled philosophies and religions even still. Comforting shade from them is but false folly. A mistake to sit in the dark while the flash of antiphonal glory is being cast out to you—to bask. For if you watch the great conductors, they seem to cast out a line whenever they queue the rear brass. The bigger the brass, the longer the cast. Love is on the line, as the finale is noted on the next page.
Shade is nice when my daughter Rosie and I are floating in our 1980’s brick-lined pool at home in Spring. Looking up into the fluttering green—Dr. Peppers and Coke Zeroes in-hand—which keep us cool. But eventually—just as the evening winds pick up the chill—we desire the full force of the sun one last time before we leave the water. The cooled shade before only enhances the sun when we decide to move into its warming beams. We were never meant to only swim in the shade.
In order for you and I to see this darkened world for what it is, we must cease. We must cease seeking to understand Christ through our minds, the truth through hearsay, or the sun by looking at the beams through the trees. The beams through the trees allow us to inspect their sabers. But to inspect a beam means to miss seeing the sun. We must be pierced by the beam if we are to see the sun. He must queue our hearts if we are to get purified minds.
And never seeing the Sun is like missing the once-in-a-lifetime glory of a hundred trumpets because you were trying to look at the flashes on the walls. We miss the meaning because we worship the matter it shadows to us. Meaning shadows matter into our world.
No one who is content to remain in hell is fit for heaven. No one who is content to be nice shall even become good. No one who is content in the shade shall ever glimpse the sun.
"No one who is content to remain in hell is fit for heaven."
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All religions and philosophies only throw shade, but they will never cast Sun. This is why we can’t trust them. But we can trust the Sun. The Sun shall rise.
"All religions and philosophies only throw shade, but they will never cast Sun."
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The Son of God was raised up on a wooden cross. The Son rose out of hell. The Son rose out of the dark grave which kept our Light hidden.
And the Sun shall rise again as surely as the Son rose on Sunday. He always does.
Happy Easter 2025, friends.
Rick
