All that day, from the Euphrates to the Jordan and throughout the world, the dark current of death flowed until not one of Christopher’s followers remained alive. Some who fled west got as far as Jerusalem and the Kidron Valley, where their blood filled the ravine to as much as three feet deep.[305] And for four hundred miles, the birds of the air feasted on the rotting carcasses of a hundred million people.[306] By late afternoon, the sun shone again.[307]
Thus it was that in a single day, the epic of eight millennia came to an end.
Epilogue
The Right Place at the Right Time
“Pull his hair!” the voice called again from somewhere beyond the hole.
This time Decker recognized it as the voice of his older brother, Nathan.
There was no time to understand what it meant. He felt his mother’s grip on his arm slip away.
As the fingers of her left hand released him, the muddy slope slid upward against his chest and stomach and he dropped farther into the gaping sinkhole. But the fall was short. With her other hand, she still held firmly to his arm, as his fingers remained locked around the root he had clung to for more than an hour.
His eyes closed briefly. Then suddenly, without explanation, it felt as though scalding water was being poured over his scalp. The pain seemed unimaginable to a boy not yet eight years old.
Decker’s mother understood what Nathan meant. She had let go of Decker’s arm with one hand and had taken hold of his hair. As she pulled, she heard her son’s cry of anguish, but she didn’t let go. She pulled him toward her, letting much of the weight of his body hang from his hair. It took only a second before it had the desired effect.
With every fiber of his being distracted by the pain, Decker’s fingers released their hold on the root, and his mother was able to finally pull him free.
Quickly releasing her hold on his scalp and with hundreds of uprooted hairs clinging to her damp, muddy fingers, she took hold of his other arm. Mud slid across his cheek as he felt his body rise. He tried to help but had no control of his blood starved arms and hands.
When she had finally pulled him to her, she rolled to her right side to try to lift him from the hole, but that was as far as she could get. He tried to help, but couldn’t get a foothold on the muddy bank. At last, Nathan, who still held his mother’s feet to keep her from sliding in, realized the problem.
Moving up carefully beside her, he grabbed one of Decker’s lifeless hands. Nathan was sixteen, and it had always seemed to Decker that he was remarkably strong. That strength now proved useful as, with a loud grunt and a single heave, he pulled his younger brother from the hole.
Dragging him from the side, Nathan tried to stand him on his feet, but the legs of the exhausted boy couldn’t hold the weight.
Quickly, their mother crawled from the hole to join them. Still on her knees, she held Decker tightly and finally let herself cry.
Decker felt her shake from the fear she had held inside while she tried so long to free him. He cried with her, his arms hanging limp and nearly lifeless beside him.
Behind his mother, Decker saw the glow of the sun setting in the west. The shadows in the pit had made it seem much later than it was, and he felt an added warmth in knowing the day had not ended without him. As his mother held him and he watched the sunset over her shoulder, blurred by his tears, he could feel the itching and tingle of blood returning to his arms and hands. The feeling itself was odd, but it seemed that something even odder was happening. The sun appeared not to be setting, but rising.
Could he have been in the pit the whole night? Was this the sunrise? No, he knew that was west by the position of a large oak tree where Nathan had built a tree house.
Then, as he watched, the sun grew in size until it seemed it would soon fill the sky. The brightness should have been blinding, but he couldn’t look away. There was no pain in looking at it, only warmth. Decker closed his eyes briefly, not because of the light but rather to reorient himself. When he opened his eyes again, he had the strange sensation that he was somewhere else. As his eyes adjusted to the light, he realized that there were people around him.
There was his brother Nathan, but he was older. And standing near him was Scott Rosen, his forehead marked with the seal of the Koum Damah Patar. Next to Scott were his parents, Joshua and Ilana. Close by stood Tom and Rhoda Donafin and their children, Tom Jr., Rachael, and young Decker. As his eyes cleared, he could see there was a very large crowd, perhaps a thousand or more, around him. There were some that he knew well and others he had seen only once or twice before.
With remarkable clarity, he remembered every face and what involvement each had in his life. It seemed suddenly that he had total and complete access to the memories of every event in his life.
Then he saw someone that he didn’t recognize: a boy about four years old standing with a woman. He had seen the woman before; twice, but only briefly. Decker remembered. It was in Turin. She was the woman whose son had been ill. Somehow he understood that the boy had died there in Turin, but was now restored to his mother.
As unexpected as all of this was, he then saw something that made no sense at all. Standing there among the others was his mother! But it was his mother’s arms he felt around him, wasn’t it?
His senses seemed to be reemerging one by one, and he became aware that the people around him were cheering. Decker Donafin was laughing and clapping, and others were dancing as if in celebration. He realized that he was back in his own body, fully grown, but he felt youthful and strong.
At last he looked to see who held him and to his utter disbelief and rapture saw his beloved Elizabeth looking up at him, tears in her eyes. Beside him were their daughters, Hope and Louisa, with their arms around both of their parents. They appeared just as they had the day before the Disaster.
Only now did the meaning hit him.
Decker held his family to him and wept openly with joy. His family cried with him, as did many of those around him, even his crusty old boss, Hank Asher.
He was drawn again to look into the light, but the light was no longer in the distance. Instead, it was right before him, and the light was a man.[308] He stood there, laughing warmly, his arms open wide.
In his life before, Decker would have curiously studied the strange similarities and yet stark differences between this man and the pretender, Christopher. But that was before. Now he simply understood, and dropped from Elizabeth’s hold and fell flat on his face at the man’s still scarred feet.
No sooner had he done so, though, than the man reached down to lift him up. Decker was afraid, but he couldn’t resist; he didn’t truly want to.
But how could he look his rescuer in the eye?
His suddenly perfect memory now seemed more a curse than a blessing as he recalled every dark detail of his life. How could he let one so loving look at his life of self love and the guilt that he knew would be written on his face? Tears of shame and loss welled up.
Then at once he became aware of the cool, sweet, freshness of the air around him. As the man raised him to his feet, Decker felt fearfully drawn to his eyes. Slowly he looked at him through his tears.
In the eyes where he had expected to find anger, there was only understanding. Where he had expected to find wrath, he found only forgiveness. From the one who should have condemned, there was only love. And in that moment Decker felt all of the fear, guilt, and pain of seventy-four years melt away, replaced by a glow of peace.
He was drawn to look deeper and as he did, though he didn’t understand it, he realized that the love of the man was the source of the light that surrounded them.
“Well done,” Jesus said in sincere appreciation. “Well done.”[309]
Surprised at his own boldness, Decker buried his face in Jesus’ shoulder and wept. “I’m so sorry,” he sobbed.
“I know, Decker. I know,” Jesus said as he wept with him. “But all is forgiven,” he said, stroking Decker’s hair, still holding him in his arms.
It was only a few moments, but it seemed a blessed eternity, for in those few moments Decker’s eternity had changed.
“I must go now, Decker,” Jesus said.
“But . . . ,”
Jesus smiled and nodded. “We’ll have time to talk later,” he assured him. “Right now there are many others who still wait. And your friends and family are here. But don’t be concerned, I am always with you.”
Then he was gone. For a long moment Decker didn’t move. It seemed incredible, but he had momentarily forgotten that anyone else was there.
“Sit down, Decker,” Elizabeth said from behind him.
Decker looked, and Elizabeth was standing next to an outcropping of rock that seemed a perfect height for sitting. He didn’t recall seeing it there a before, but assumed it had been hidden by the press of people. As he sat, Hope, Louisa, and Elizabeth gathered closely around him but left his view unobstructed so others could greet and speak with him.
Suddenly he perceived that the number of those around him had dropped to only those few to whom he had been closest in life. “Where are the others?” he asked Elizabeth, assuming she would understand his reference.
“They’ve gone to be at some of the other resurrections,” she explained, though he didn’t fully understand what she meant. “You’ll have plenty of opportunity to see them later.”
Decker looked around him at the incredible beauty. Everywhere there were lush plants and flowers and trees. Birds of great variety flew overhead or rested on tree limbs. Nearby a creek gurgled, filling the air with a soft peaceful sound. In the distance perhaps a hundred miles off, green rolling hills gave way to an immense mountain, higher than any he had ever seen. From the temperature he guessed it to be late spring. The air was so pure and fresh it was sweet in his lungs.
“Is this heaven?” he asked.
“No,” Nathan laughed. “This is Earth. Though it’s not at all the same as you remember it. Things have changed quite a bit.”
“But I thought that when you died . . .”
“You went to heaven?” Ilana Rosen said, finishing Decker’s sentence.
Decker nodded.
“In the book of Revelation,” Joshua interjected, “it says that with his blood Messiah purchased us from every tribe and language and people and nation, and that we will reign with him on the Earth for a thousand years in the Millennial Kingdom.”[310]
“So that’s where we are now?”
“Well, not officially. That begins soon — ten days from now to be exact — at the ‘Wedding Supper of the Lamb.’[311] Right now we’re thirty five days into a forty five day period between the destruction of the Antichrist and the Wedding Supper.”[312]
“So many details,” Ilana said, shaking her head.
“But what about heaven?” Decker pressed.
“Oh, well, you can certainly go there,” Joshua replied. “In fact you can go anywhere in God’s creation you want: any place, any time, anywhere in the universe, and to dimensions you’ve never even dreamed of. But this is home. The Earth has been restored to the way it was in the time of the Garden of Eden.”[313]
This was not at all what Decker had expected. The images that had been painted in his imagination of sitting around on a cloud and playing a harp had never been very appealing, and he found this much more to his liking — still, he wouldn’t have complained otherwise, greatly preferring harps and clouds to the flames of hell.
“The last thing I remember,” Decker said as he instinctively reached up to touch his neck. He didn’t expect to find anything, but his fingers quickly came to rest on the scar of his decapitation. Immediately he reached up with his other hand to confirm his finding: The scar ran all the way around his neck.
His eyes filled with wonder — not that the recollection of his death was accurate, but that he bore the scar. It seemed terribly incongruous that having been restored to youthful form, he would yet retain the scar of his beheading. “I don’t understand,” he said.
“It’s sort of a badge of honor,” Tom Donafin answered. “It marks you as one who gave his life rather than yielding to Christopher.”
Decker raised his eyebrows, surprised that, considering the circumstances of his life and death, he should be counted worthy of that distinction.
“All martyrs bear some mark of their martyrdom,” Tom continued. “Just as Jesus still bears the scars of his crucifixion. The scars aren’t so pronounced as to be disfiguring, though,” he concluded.
All at once Decker realized that Tom’s appearance had changed significantly from what he remembered. He wasn’t just young again; his head was no longer disfigured. “Tom, your head!” Decker said as he jumped to his feet.
“You like it?” Tom asked in jest.
“You look great!”
“Thanks,” Tom laughed. “But continue your story,” he insisted.
Decker thought back to where he had left off. “Christopher cut off my head,” he continued, as he sat back down on the rock, “And I remember discovering that there were a few seconds of consciousness before I actually died. My awareness was fading when, clear as day, I heard a voice. I didn’t know where it was coming from, but I was certain it was talking to me. It sounded like Christopher, but at the same time, it was very different from Christopher’s voice. And then I knew it was Jesus. He said, ‘Come.’[314] That’s all. Just, ‘Come.’” Decker looked up at Scott Rosen, “Then suddenly I remembered what you told me about the thief on the cross.”
“I’ll introduce you to him,” Rosen offered.
Decker was caught a little off guard by the fact he would have such an opportunity, but didn’t let it distract him from his account. “In that instant, I understood it wasn’t too late. I remember thinking how ironic that after seventy-four years, there I was, decapitated, and I finally understood why I had been born.”
“God is never too early nor too late, Decker, but always right on time.” The speaker was a beautiful brown-haired woman with a melodic Scottish accent whom Decker had never met, but whom he somehow knew was his great-great-grandmother.
He was just about to go on with his story when the sound of the woman’s voice and her accent abruptly caused him to realize that she hadn’t been speaking English. She and everyone else, including Decker, had been speaking in the universal language.
“Go on,” his grandmother urged, somehow understanding his surprise. “You’ll get used to it.”
He complied, though still in wonder. “I understood that, like the thief on the cross, all I had to do was ask and, despite all I had done, God loved me enough to forgive me.”
“So you asked?” Ilana Rosen urged.
Decker nodded. “I asked.”
“Of course he asked,” Joshua said. “He’s here, isn’t he?”
“The next thing I remember, I was dreaming — at least I think it was a dream — about something that happened when I was a kid. I was running and had fallen into a sinkhole and was holding on to an exposed tree root to keep from falling farther in. My mother was there trying to pull me out, but I couldn’t let go of the root. Then I heard Nathan yell, ‘Pull his hair.’” Decker looked over at his mother and brother who were nodding to indicate their recollection of the incident from his childhood. Decker looked at his mother. “In my dream, after I was out of the hole, somehow I found myself here.”
For a brief moment everyone seemed puzzled and then his mother explained, “What you remember is a dream that began as you slipped into unconsciousness before you actually died. A little of that dream came with you and was played out in your mind at your resurrection.” The pain you felt was more than memory though. It came from Christopher’s sword as he hastened your death. But he was too late.”
It could have been a guess, but somehow it seemed obvious to Decker that his mother’s explanation was correct. It appeared that everyone around him agreed.
“But what happened to me? How long ago did I die?”
“About four months,” Tom answered.
Decker let the answer settle in for a moment. “It seems like it all happened just a moment ago.”
“It did,” Tom confirmed.
“But you said I was dead for four months,” he persisted, speaking to the whole group, for it seemed they were all in accord on the matter. “How can they both be true?”
“God is not bound by time,” Scott Rosen answered, “and after you died, neither were you.”
“So,” Decker said haltingly, trying to understand the point, “what you’re all saying is that between my death and resurrection it was like I was asleep — I just wasn’t aware of the passage of time?”
“Well, no, not exactly,” Rosen insisted. “From our perspective it would appear that you were asleep in death during those four months. But from your perspective and God’s perspective, no time passed at all.”
Decker shrugged. “I don’t see what the difference is. If I died four months ago, that means that for four months I was dead, whether I noticed it or not.”
“Decker,” Tom interjected, “do you remember that old movie The Time Machine with Rod Taylor?”[315]
Decker burst out laughing. Even after dying and being resurrected in this paradise, Tom was still using movies to help explain his thoughts. Decker’s laughter was infectious, and the others joined in. Finally, he managed to answer. “Yeah, Tom,” he said. “I remember. Go ahead.”
Smiling broadly but in full blush, Tom continued. “Sitting in his time machine, Rod Taylor watched what was going on around him in fast motion because he traveled through time. Well, it’s not like that when you die. Of course, I mean in the past. In our new bodies we’re not bound by aging or sickness or death.[316] But, anyway, what happened to you is more like the movie Back to the Future.[317] When Marty and Doc Brown time-traveled in the DeLorean, they traveled instantly, jumping across time, from one point to another without experiencing any passage of time themselves.”
The Christ Clone Trilogy - Book Three: ACTS OF GOD (Revised & Expanded) Page 38