ALIVE: Chapter 76, Reluctantly Letting Go of Moses

Perambula circled around Mt. Hor, over the dead body of Moses, while Gracefeld accompanied his soul to Sheol. Day and night Perambula hovered there to protect this precious flesh and bones from being defiled by hungry animals. The angel waited for men to arrive to carry Moses back down the mountain and then to bury him in Moab.

Passing Gracefeld and the soul of Moses, God arrived at the scene where Perambula was guarding the Elder.

“My Lord!” exclaimed Perambula surprised to see God appear.

“”Good morning Perambula.”

“Look at this dead body of your servant Moses. This shell of the man to whom You revealed Yourself and the history of the world. He is lifeless!”

“I can see that Perambula.”

“Lord, I thought that you were so disgusted after the Flood that you planned to destroy death. Look at this man, and all those thousands of people, your people, who died before entering the Promise Land. My Lord, and I say this with utmost respect, how do You think You are doing with this plan of Yours to destroy death?”

God smiled His most confident smile and replied, “Patience my dear Perambula. When I destroy death, it will be perfectly and thoroughly done and it will be forever. These human beings, although they were made in my image and likeness have so disfigured My Face that there is much restoration needed, and much for them to experience and to learn.  Besides, I have given the devil and its demons freedom for a time to oppose Me, but actually through their evil deeds they will show men the effects of ignorance and disobedience. This revelation will allow the wiser ones decide for themselves whether or not to choose life.”

“Lord the humans are so weak, is that fair?” mumbled Perambula meekly.

“Of course it’s fair! Freedom is the greatest gift I have to offer life. These beings are free to choose life or death. I see so many of them choose death by rebellion, faithlessness, and distrust; passions gone wild. Satan rejoices in that. But disease, strife and maladies of every kind result and so they go out of their ways with all their intelligence to repair the causes of death without going to the root of the problem, that is that they chose death and don’t even realize it. They choose suffering and then lament it.

One by one a man or a woman learns. The light of life will shine through the darkness. On that day I will rejoice that Life was the precious choice of his or her own will after their personal confrontation with Satan and death. This change of mind, this awakening, this resurrection is important to Me. Transformation means more to Me than even those who chose life from the beginning for the repentant have confronted My enemy and prevailed.”

God simplified His response and added, “My friend Perambula as much as I despise death, as much as death was not, I repeat NOT in My Will for Creation, I must endure it a while longer. You will understand all of this when the heavy fog that surrounds you is lifted.”

Perambula’s angel eyes opened wide to look around for the fog that God meant as a metaphor.

“For now, fret not for Moses or any of the people in Sheol. I will free them and judge them with a judgement that no other keen eye can judge man by: one by one. Reading their hearts and intentions, remembering their acts of kindness and hatred, faith and rebelliousness. Knowing their battles with the enemy and the part the evil one played in their evil deeds. On that day, and I won’t tell you when, I assure you that the heart of flesh will never again suffer death. Trust Me. Here they come. Accompany the men to carry Moses down this mountain. I don’t want them to drop him!”

“Yes, my Lord.” replied Perambula wrapped in a shroud of thought as the angel observed Pineal and Zachariah who were approaching to carry the heavy lifeless flesh of Father Moses down the rocky mountain.

“There he is!” shouted Pineal. Zechariah rushed to catch up. The two men looked down upon old Moses lying on the rock, his face looking up at the heavens and his legs twisted from collapsing beneath him. Zechariah bent down and touched his cold hard hand and in fear he immediately stood back up.

“Let us pray Pineal.”

Pineal nodded. The two strong young men bowed their heads. Zechariah filled with the Spirit said, “Blessed be God, and blessed be His great Name, and blessed be His holy angels. May His holy Name be blessed throughout all the ages. Though He punished this man Moses, He has had mercy on Him. Blessed are you, oh God with every pure blessing; let all Your chosen ones bless You. Let them bless You forever. Be our guide on this path to take Your holy man down this mountain. This mountain where his flesh saw you for the last time, and let us bury him deep in the earth of your making. Give him peace in death. Amen and Amen.”

Pineal added. “Amen and amen.”

Then Pineal and Zechariah struggled to get a good hold on the body and carefully retrace their steps down the steep mountain of Hor.

The task was difficult. Perambula frequently had to adjust the men’s steps. More than once Perambula needed to defy gravity to keep the body from falling out of painful arms. Perambula looked on the lifeless shell of Moses, whom the angel had grown to love with great sorrow and awe. The angel wondered how such a holy servant of God could be reduced to matter alone, like a rock or a piece of rotten wood. Perambula, being immortal, thought that the death of a person, who was so much like God, so much like an angel, must be the most curious, most mystifying of all phenomenon on the planet.

Following the burial of Moses Perambula flew up into the second heaven, beyond the sky. The farther Perambula flew from earth, the cleaner and more free the angel felt. Perambula zoned in on Gracefeld and together the two angels, who had been awarded a sabbatical after decades of watching over Israel, left the tribes to the care of lower angels and flew somersaults in the air. Carefree at last they played and gazed at the universe to see the sun and moon rotate in a steady rhythm like a giant heartbeat. The view from the heavens was stunning. Perambula thought that the beauty of the heavens was a marvel so spectacular that familiarity could not ever diminish its glory by even one iota.

From time to time our two angels scooped down closer to the earth, but never as close as when they had worked there. All they could see from that distance were thousands of specks, each one a soul. One bright hot day the angels hovered over a long shoreline and saw specks in the shore and colorful umbrellas dug in the sand, and some other specks of humans floating in the sea.  Specks, each one representing a heart and soul. The angels didn’t care about the absurdity of those black flecks being important to God. They simply reveled in the light show of days and nights, the light show of time, months and years, which meant nothing to these angelic beings, and everything to God’s mortal creatures.

During this dazzling celestial light show Israel settled into the Promise Land. Each tribe occupied a piece of land that had belonged to others before them. Gad here, Reuben over there. They spread themselves wide apart so each would have plenty of space to grow their nations. Each tribe helped the other to supplant the peoples until each of the twelve tribes of Israel had a new homeland that gradually became an old homeland. No one gave any thought to the men, women, and children that died or had to flee their homes and villages to be replaced by Israel. They simply disappeared from the Promise Land and that was all that mattered to the Jews.

There were men and women, born during the days when Caleb and Joshua first returned from spying out the land, who had known nothing but wandering for forty years. These, it was who never knew Egypt. They  walked day after day from the moment of birth until forty years passed as they grew from lively children to mischievous youngsters and mature adults. These had to make the adjustment from being nomads to residents of a stabile homeland.

Through Moses God had bestowed upon mankind the laws with their consequences and punishments, and also with their blessings. Even as He had fixed the sun and moon in the sky to automatically create the day and to make food grow, He gave the Law to reveal Himself and to govern behavior. God created the earth on a firm foundation of physics, biology, astronomy, and all the sciences man had come to recognize and to learn about. Yet without the Law, without a knowledge of the origin of mankind and its history and its purpose, without the Law to govern human interaction, and man’s interaction with their Maker chaos would eventually make the planet uninhabitable. Wild animals could not destroy the world as much as wild humans.

“Evangeline!”

As I wrote those words, I was shocked to suddenly hear The Lord God call me. Me! Little me!

“Yes, my Lord,” I replied meekly, and frankly quite frightened that I had irritated the King of Glory. “What did I say? What did I do this time?”

“Stop!” He said firmly. “It is time for you to let go of Moses! It’s been two years. Move on, there is much more to describe about being Alive.”

“I just can’t my Lord.” I replied, “I have tried. I promise you. There is so much to say about Father Moses. It’s more than the story. Without Moses, his life, his service to You and for humankind I am afraid that humanity would sink deeper and deeper with each century into the darkness of ignorance, never to see Your Light, to know where we came from and where we are going. I imagine without Moses, his capacity to speak with you as he did, to serve you as he did, we would be no more than animals with speech.”

“Look around Evangeline. I would not allow that to happen. Humanity asked for death through Eve. The light that I offer even through the vail of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil will suffice. I will allow you this final chapter on Moses, but after that I insist that you never mention Moses again!”

“My Lord, that is too much to ask! Never even mention your servant whom You loved, to whom You revealed the secrets of the Creation of the World, who is revered by the holy and the heretics alike?”

“Evangeline!” God said firmly, “Now, I sense you are trying to persuade me as did Moses.”

“My Lord!” said I.

My Lord replied, “There is so much more to write before this book can finally end! You must move along.”

“I know that my Lord. I often think about how far we have to go and the diamonds along the road. In fact, I become overwhelmed by the beauty of it, so that perhaps I fear that I will not be able ....”

“You know better than to say that My child.”

“I know that I must explain the other side of Creation before I can move on.”

“True, I will allow that.”

“And My Lord, I am struggling to cross the bridge that takes me to the other side. I fear that I am clinging to Moses because it is dark and I can’t see the road ahead.”

“Now you are being honest with yourself. Keep writing. But remember My command, that this is your last chance to write of Moses. Leave the man in peace!”

“Until I see him on Tabor?!” I dared to blurt out.

With that my Lord faded into silence, and I returned with renewed enthusiasm and determination to leave Moses to his rest.

As vital as trees and air and food are to human existence, through the Law of Moses, the same Creator provided the vehicle within which mankind may make a safe journey on this glorious planet. The Law complements nature.

No sooner did God grant freedom from slavery and oppression to His people, than did He constrain them with His guidelines. Their voluntary yielding to His will would be rewarded with protection and abundance. God did not demand love, He only demanded respect which He richly deserved after all He had done for Israel by showing His providence and His ability to manipulate nature itself for their sake.

The legal structure that Moses handed to Israel identified these people as unique in their lawfulness. The Law separated Israel from the Hittites and Jebusites, and all the other peoples who God allowed to exist, but who never knew Him. Passion and pleasure drove most men from birth to death, whereas humility, self control, and reason rendered Israel the people of God. 

Dear reader, please be patient with me. Can you see that it was only to Israel through Moses that God told mankind the story of Creation, and the Flood, and about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? That history has spread to all four corners of the earth. These key patriarchs would have dissolved into obscurity as everyone else has, except their part was so fundamental to God’s plan to eradicate death that it had to be recorded and preserved. 

From time to time a prophet arose through whom God communicated briefly to the people, but never like Moses did. Sometimes the prophets were false and relayed messages that were generated by their own thoughts and feelings. But the Law from God through Moses and the commemoration of Passover all formed a rock-hard solid foundation upon which temples and generations of men would come and go, but true life would exist forever.

“Okay Lord, I am ready to move on. Where shall we go?”