When Jesus died, he was given all the markings of a King, but done in mockery:
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Two days before he was anointed for his burial by a woman bearing an alabaster flask, which his own disciples challenged him on, as an alabaster flask of fragrant oil was very expensive. This tracks a king's anointing before coronation.
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They held an election between the Barabbas the Insurrectionary(not actually just a murderer, he slew a Roman officer while leading a resistance to free Judah from occupation), and Jesus.
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He bore a crown of thorns, which punctured his skull.
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He was scourged, which mimicked kings being fanned with palm fronds.
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He briefly bore a red(violet and red were interchangeable in Greek) cape/robe.
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He was judged and found unblemished by the Roman Governor (Pontius Pilate) who went on to place a INRIover him on the cross, basically doing the Roman paperwork necessary to designate him a King.
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He was given Vinegar to drink and Gall(a curative oil).
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He was punctured by a rod of iron / scepter. Notable that he was stabbed in the same place Adam had his rib removed, though no bones of Jesus were broken.
Basically.. The Romans and Pharisees unwittingly performed the entire Coronation Rite on Jesus, but in mockery.
I'm probably missing a few, but there are far more than enough to make the case that Jesus wasn't just a normal prophet. He truly was the King of Kings and just as he said, "they know not what they do", we really were clueless at the time that we were coronating him in the most savage way imaginable.
What indignant little jerks we are, aye?
If you want a follow up, check out the Supper of the Lamb and how Jesus IS the passover lamb (whose blood is shed so that death may pass-over the holdings of the Exodus-era Hebrews). All the apostles would have realized what Jesus was doing, performing the Temple Seder Passover Feast OUTSIDE the temple -- big no-no.
They would have been confused, however, that the lamb was not present. When Jesus said "I tell you, I will not drink from this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom” he was telling them that the feast did not end there, and that he was to be the lamb. None of them understood, except maybe Judas, what was soon to come.
Some other parts of this ritual is the judgement by the authority. Whenever a sacrifice is to be given to God, it is judged to be unblemished. So a lamb, for instance, must be declared a "choice" offering free of blemish and sin. It can't be the funky lamb that walks funny.
Consider, what did Pontius Pilate do?
And Pilate said unto the chief priests and the multitudes, I find no fault in this man.
What about the vinegar laced with gall?
Read above about the Seder requiring bitter herbs as part of the Passover Ritual.
Yup, the entire Passion narrative is a series of Prophetic check-boxes affirming the identity of the Son of Man; the Messiah; the Christ; Emmanuel; the Right Hand of God.
The Lamb Seder Passover Meal detailed in the Old Testament was a prophetic "remembrance" of events yet to come -- a Prophecy revealing the true Messiah. This is the real meaning of the words "Do this in remembrance of me."
Jesus is basically told the Apostles (and us) that what was about to happen (his sacrifice) had already happened, he was just fulfilling it so that we may come to recognize him. Had any of them been as learned in the teachings, they would have caught the subtlety.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Ultimately, what's funny is that the people who fought hardest to prove he was not the Messiah were the ones who, unwittingly, performed every single rite necessary to prove he was.
God's got a funny sense of humor, I tell ya what!
Yeah thanks for the replies, good stuff.
You explain creation from a hermetic alchemical perspective, which I tend to enjoy. In freemasonry you have the Solomon's Temple, possibly a real story (debatable) or allegory about self improvement. King David's "uniting of the Israelites" (dominion over the lower realms / subconscious) and "he captured Jerusalem" (holy city / heaven / enlightenment). In the Plato sense, he brought his "people" (subconscious) up and out of the cave.
Enlightenment can often be had through the mastery of your craft (career work) for example, or raising a kid. Your three phases adding up to 9 remind me of three trimesters and 9 months until birth.
The Rig Vedas Soma hymn explains the making of a holy plant medicine. Soma had many names, as they say the Lord does.
The practice of medicine/physician was sacred and goes way back to a time before writing.
Before there was the concept of the Great Work in culture, there would have been plant medicine and divinity, or you might say proto-alchemy. So I'm not sure exactly when the allegories make their way into history, but it must have started when the first man ate the first plant and wanted to tell others about it. So the plants spoke to us, and we spoke about it.
This is the importance of Plato's allegory of the cave, which explains just this. The freed prisoner who sees the Sun outside the cave (Truth), will return to the cave and help the other prisoners get free. That is the duty of a philosopher king, to elevate others to the same height and not leave your own brothers to dwell in a cave.
So what do the lower kingdoms represent? Plato explained that it is actually two things. Your subconscious is a cave of dwellers who inform you and whom you can obtain dominion over (emotions). And society has it's cave dwellers too. This is what Plato's Republic was about, that the phenomenon of this cave is both within us and outside us. Enlightenment is an internal, and then external process. Marcus Aurelius was an example, who not only transcended his own cave, but also that of the people, and elevated his entire community out of the shadows, as well as generations to come.
Yup, that's what I'm talking about.
All Acts of Creation follow the same formula. Otherwise, they are imitations and counterfeits. Shortcuts only lead to ruin.
The three phases of three stages adding up to 9 ARE birth. What is birth other than an Act of Creation?
The Motif is present in everything we consider "good." Keep this in mind, and the whole world starts to fall into place with revelation after revelation and miracle after miracle putting you where you are now.
The Motif is present in every culture, but many fight over the semantics.
For example, Yggdrasil has three roots extending into 9 wells, which make up the separate "realms."
I literally didn't know that until I looked it up 2 hours ago, by the way.
It is fractal. In every phase are 3 stages. Every stage is in turn a phase, and in them 3 stages. A Tree of Creation forms, and some call this the Tree of Life, or Yggdrasil.
The Truth is self-evident, but is constantly being forgotten and relearned.
9 is the number of Triumph. Not completion, as some suggest. 7 is the number of completion, but after that comes the trials and then the Triumph -- fullness that comes from your Creation bearing Creations of its own.
All things of merit must follow the Law -- that there is a planting, a growth, and a harvest.
All things follow this, and it is known as the Law. Prophets of the Old Testament worshipped the Law until the Word (which wrote the Law) was revealed to them.
Those who would take short cuts, or even usurp the Law in order to abuse it against itself, trying to craft contradictions and loopholes, are the Adversary, Satan.
They craft lies, abusing context to obscure the Truth. Lies on their own are not criminal under the Law, as the nature of exceptions permit Free Will and authentic beauty from spontaneous Creation. In other words, limiting one's knowledge allows for more awesome Creations. Limiting what tools you can use to make a table, for example, results in an entirely new type of table as one navigates and discovers new ways to compensate for what was lost. Doing so expands the wealth of knowledge, and is the very heart of perspective.
The Serpent took this virtuous nature and found a way to abuse the Law with it.
The Author of Sin and Father of Lies rebelled and sought to usurp Creation by convincing Man to plant the seed and skip straight to harvest; a shortcut.
By tricking Adam to skip the growth period, Lucifer sought to partition/steal that period for himself -- claiming the 4th, 5th, and 6th Kingdoms. He would rule the 6th, and the 5th and 4th beckon to his call. 654 - FED.
Which brings us back to pregnancy.
The curse the Law put on Eve after the Fall was to have pain in the act of birth. The curse on Adam was one of toil in the fields.
In seeking to skip the middle phase of Creation, Eve and Adam doomed themselves to toil during the phase of the Middle Kingdoms in all Acts of Creation.
We fallen Humans are limited in the realms of (4th)Material (Organization/Understanding/Classifying/Semantics), (5th)Sourcing (Acquiring Materials and Energy), and (6th)Construction (Knowing how things fit together/Understanding the bigger picture/Realizing it isn't all about the Self).
We are unhindered (it costs nothing) in coming up with ideas(1st), determining if they are possible(2nd), and putting together a plan(3rd).
We are also capable of recognizing when something is complete(7th), that trials must be done to prove something's merit(8th), and that we can accomplish our goals and produce actual change in the world(9th).
The middle phase of Kingdoms(456) are where we struggle, toil, and have the most disputes with one another because Authority over them was taken through a devious scam.
These latter three (789), however, are what the Devil seeks to obscure by the sequester of the middle three.
No, it started before then. You assume that the plant itself, by its own nature, is always capable of the fullness of Creation.
It can be, but Nature permits these only as a proof, so that within the Universe, at some time, the proto-typical archetype of that thing to aspire to makes itself known to all.
No, we must reconsider Birth.
Without nurture, a Stone cannot form. What is it to be born into hands that treat you like a burden?
All things done in Love are begotten of Love, just as it is said Jesus is begotten of the Father, not made.
We are all Philosopher's Stones. You cannot simply make one from nothing. A Stone's own essence is needed to "make" a Stone.
Like the fish and bread being divided among the masses, a Stone multiplies itself and is the only source of true radicals.
They all trace their origin to the One Stone that started it all, God.
To craft a new Stone, you must nurture it like an infant babe. These are the Trials(8th) and the Triumph(9th) is had when the babe goes on to make its own Stones.
So the plants you speak of are one of many prospective things found in nature. To take them to plant, grow, harvest, and all the while nurture them with Love that emanates from your own Heart, your own Stone is the Act of Creation.
You simply found the one that resonates with you more than others. The brand of Love that goes into its tender Creation is exactly what your Soul has been crafted to receive.
Cain and Able offered sacrifices up to God.
God did not favor Able's sacrifice because his cattle is worth more than Cain's wheat.
God favored Able because he offered up the best he had -- the First among his cattle, a Living Philosopher's stone.
Meanwhile, Cain offered up his surplus wheat. No Love went into it, only necessity.
So it is that the poor woman at the well who offers two coins is more honored in heaven than wealth enough from a King to feed the nation.
And so is it that Jesus fulfills the Prophecies.
That the Creator would make himself known through his Works.
Every inventor eventually realizes that a successor must be named. In mastering every end of his craft, there is one more thing left that can be made -- himself.
In this, he sets out with his full knowledge to impart it onto one he finds worthy; one that will inherit all the Master has.
And so too did the Universe look within itself and birth and nurture one for whom all things will have been made.
That is why I am content with Jesus being the Messiah, in a world where I realize there are many Revelators.
One must stand amongst all others knowing fully the mind of God better than any other before or since, as to be indistinguishable from God; for who can say they know the better but God himself?
Jesus, as of yet, is the only Revelator who freely sacrificed himself for the sake of Creation, which is the fullest act of Love, and the type of Creator I would hope for to be True.
If another comes along who speaks and acts as Jesus did and proves themselves even more-so worthy of the title of Son of Man, I will recognize them as they are. For right now, though, Jesus is the best we've ever had.