Good Friday

Most of you have little idea how much pain I suffered on the cross.

The Roman nails were not like the nails you use when you build homes in East Machias—thank you for doing that, by the way. No, Roman nails for crucifixion were six inches long. The nail was pounded into my wrist hitting my median nerve. Terrible pain. The nails didn’t go through my hands as many of you have been taught, but through my wrists. And through my ankles. They turned my legs sideways, placed my feet between a block of wood and the cross, and hammered one nail through the wood. The terrible thing about this Roman torture was the way crucifixion forces one to press against the painful ankle nail in order to breath. Five hours of this. How does one endure such pain?

By the time I was 25 I already knew that my Father was within me—that I had special abilities. I could heal other people, for one thing, and I did everywhere I could. You might say I was a social worker. But then I became more and more aware of large-scale suffering and I felt a calling to move from being a social worker to being a “social activist,” you might say. That kind of change leads to pain. It wasn’t easy accepting that change and its consequences. I accepted the challenge and the risk during my time with Satan in the desert.

The Spirit pushed me into the desert. I was there for forty days and nights—the same amount of time Noah endured rain in his Ark, the same amount of time Moses was on the mountain. This was my trial. I faced Satan. Don’t accept the argument that there is no Satan just because they have seen no red man with horns, they are kidding themselves. Satan knew I was hungry and tempted me to turn rocks into bread. I wanted to make the pain go away. I really did. And I could have done that, I think. But then I remembered the Torah—the Holy Scriptures from Deuteronomy “Man does not live by bread alone, but by the Word of God”. I was able to look Satan in the eye…and tell him “No.” There is a power stronger than pain. I felt it that day. And I felt it on the day of my crucifixion.

We do not live by bread alone, but by God’s great power which sustains us in times of trouble.