Not everyone in the celestial kingdom knew what was about to happen.  The angels sensed that something stirred on Terra Ferma.  Something old and worn, but new and perplexing.  They discussed what it could mean.  ‘The mist on the hill is too dense, I can’t see what’s happening,’ one murmured.   ‘I see uniformed men, yes, and I see his mother and friend, said another.  Something’s wrong, why isn’t he moving?  Will he summon us like he did in the desert?’ 

Michal, who had remained quiet, chimed in.  He was known to become enraged when he smelled injustice. ‘Follow,’ he ordered. They descended like a single bolt of lightning, a thousand strong, unconquerable by any human measure. They welded what looked like swords, shimmering in the early morning light, and settled upon the rock called Golgotha. 

As the mist lifted, they saw before their bewildered eyes the Son of Man, suspended on a wooden edifice.  Blood coated him, breath thin on his lips, his head wagging.  Humans loitered about, most of them berating, but a few weeping. One of the angels blurted out, ‘Let’s build a fire wall around him, that way nothing will be able to harm him further.’  But when they approached there was already a wall they could not penetrate, a wall of pure hatred, and a grimacing figure hovering close enough to touch the Son of Man.  Nothing could have prepared their eyes to watch the Undefeated in such a state.  Nowhere had it ever been whispered that their Omnipotent Captain could ever be subdued. Tears dropped without shame from their eyes, as deep convulsions of agony ripped their angelic souls.  

Michael’s voice rose above the weeping. He spoke directly to the Christ.  

‘Remove yourself!’

But his holy reprimand met silence.  The Dying One had a different plan.  To wrest from the Slanderer the keys to death. To give to every woman and every man the breath of new beginning, life forevermore.   As the Son of Man slumped, the angels grew quiet, stunned and unbraided by the malignant stain they saw upon the body of the Son of Man. Openly they wept for the shame they felt.  Openly they denounced the crowd for their complicity, and openly they wept for their God, who now had sat down in conspiracy.      

As a hoard of demons celebrated, their captain spoke, his words bathed in determined and untouchable light.

‘I have won,’ he shrieked, “I now hold deed to the souls of all.  For if this man could die, all men will, and must, to join me in shadow’s paradise.  He laughed into the sky mocking the Father, who sat in resolute surrender to his own will.

In heaven, if one could see the Father’s response, they would notice He wore the trace of a smile.