Station XII: Jesus dies.

This is part ten of a series of posts on theStations of the Cross. Here are Stations I and IIand III and IV and Vand VI and VII and VIII and IX and X and XI.

Station XII: Jesus dies on the cross.

"It is finished."

"Where has God gone?" he cried. "I shall tell you. We have killed him - you and I. We are his murderers. But how have we done this? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What did we do when we unchained the earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving now? Away from all suns? Are we not perpetually falling? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there any up or down left? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is it not more and more night coming on all the time? Must not lanterns be lit in the morning? Do we not hear anything yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we not smell anything yet of God's decomposition? Gods too decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, murderers of all murderers, console ourselves? That which was the holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet possessed has bled to death under our knives. Who will wipe this blood off us? With what water could we purify ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we need to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we not ourselves become gods simply to be worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whosoever shall be born after us - for the sake of this deed he shall be part of a higher history than all history hitherto." ~Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science

Nietzsche regards himself as a prophet, heralding the rise of man. The death of God is a mighty deed, a definitive moment. It is definitive, but it is not our rising.

Oh, Nietzsche: Though we slay God endlessly (modern man is no great revolutionary--we have always killed God), still we look for him. We mourn for him "as for an only son." We look into the abyss and pray that you, dear Friedrich, were wrong.