The Day of The Lord Signaled in 4 parts

John 11:9

"Are there not 12 hours of daylight" 

Acts 2:20 (quoting Joel 2:31, though in Joel the day was called "dreadful," not "glorious" as it is in Acts, as if the nature of this day was now shifted on account of Jesus)

"'The sun will be turned to darkness

    and the moon to blood

    before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.'"

Jesus also spoke of the sun darkening (paraphrasing/referencing Isaiah 13:10)

Matthew 24:29

“Immediately after the distress of those days

“‘the sun will be darkened,

    and the moon will not give its light;

the stars will fall from the sky,

    and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’"

In reading the gospels again, a significant sign stands out as being noted in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, but not in John.

Matthew 27:45

From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land.

In Matthew this darkness ended before/as Jesus died.

Mark 15:33

At noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon.

Again in Mark this happened before/as Jesus died.

Luke 23:44-45

It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two.

Again in Luke this happened before/as Jesus died.

John makes no reference to the sun going dark. Now some might say this was simply left out, but consider yourself as the writer here. If you are looking to create a complete record of what you have witnessed, it would make sense that the finer details you notice or do not notice might differ from other accounts on the same events, but given that the sun going dark is obvious and an important detail given that it is a sign for the day of The Lord impending, can you picture yourself omitting this sign if you saw it, either because it slipped your mind or because you decided it was not worth mentioning? While my proposed solution in this post might be considered by many to be a logical absurdity, is it not an absurdity to assume that a/the major sign signifying Jesus' death happened and was simply left out, either by oversight or intention, by one creating a record of these events with eyes open and in good faith? If Jesus made a point to say that there are 12 hours in a day, and The Bible also indicates that before the day of the Lord the sun will go dark, and the gospels explicitly highlight 9 hours of darkness- if each record is considered separately- then this leaves 3 hours of darkness remaining, 3 hours of darkness which stand out all the more as being missing from the record in John.

So if the sun did not actually go dark in John (rather than going dark but being inexplicably omitted), and the sun going dark was the sign of The Day of The Lord and- because Jesus desires mercy, not sacrifice, and seems to have set aside his day of wrath, being willing to die instead so that the sun going dark then became a sign of his death rather than a sign of great judgement- why then would the sun not stop shining in John?

I am getting an impression, stronger and stronger as I reread, that the gospels are records of iterative events (like Groundhog Day), rather than parallel accounts of the same events. If this is the case then The Day of the Lord is split into (at least) 4 parts, 3 of which have already resulted in Jesus' death (Matthew, Mark, Luke- each representing 3 hours of the 12 total hours), but the end of this day of darkness preceding the Day of The Lord has not yet happened, because in John Jesus did not die.

So the question remains: if my interpretation of this story, which centers around extremely unlikely grace, is to be considered at all, how would Jesus not have died in John? After all, it is written:

John 19:33-35

But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water. The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe.

This blood and water effect is included as a clear sign that the one pierced is dead, clear enough that the centurions would see no need to take further action against Jesus. This not only seems cut and dry, but the verse also places a significant emphasis (to a degree that seems almost out of place) on it being true. So, how could Jesus still be alive if this proof is provided of death? I believe that the answer to this lies in reality crafting, specifically in the changing of size that I believe is demonstrated in the river in Ezekiel 47 (the river seems to grow as they get farther from the temple, but could the witnesses instead be shrinking?), and is the effect seen when Jesus feeds the masses with so few fish/pieces of bread (a clue here is that in each instance Jesus stands and lifts the food to heaven as everyone else sits, potentially shifting the scale/size of everything and everyone involved along vertical gradients, allowing the food to be comparatively much bigger when passed down to the crowd). It seems like Jesus also provides a clue that this effect is important for what is what is being done in this iteration, again in John.

John 2:19

Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”

This is largely taken as strictly analogy, but I feel like analogy is a much more real and tangible thing when interacting with entities literally formed, at least in part, from The Word. What if Jesus was specifically indicating that in this version of events Jesus is actually tiny and inside a temple which is the body that everyone sees, essentially piloting it from inside? 

1 Corinthians 3:16

Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?

In my version of the story it is not that Jesus did not die and was then resurrected for us, it is that in one unlikely but statistically significant instance mercy was slipped in beneath the scenes to replace sacrifice, and in this instance Jesus did not die. This admittedly convoluted interpretation is parallel to a verse in the same gospel where Jesus indicates that one believing in him would never die, rather than would die and be resurrected.

John 11:26

"and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

Personally I do not place limits on what I believe God and Jesus can do. We see Jesus heal, walk on water, resurrect, feed many with little- therefore I believe that it is not outside of Jesus' abilities to do as I describe here, and it feels like the iteration in John is specifically crafted such that this can happen, so that when this temple of Jesus' body is destroyed Jesus remains safe and alive inside, and Jesus rebuilds this temple while it is in the tomb. I have long imagined some kind of solution where Jesus does not die, where mercy wins, but I could only picture this being done at the cost of Jesus' sacrifice for us, effectively cheapening Jesus' walk, and presumably making the sacrifice or willingness to sacrifice invalid. By picturing instead that each gospel happens separately, we see that Jesus does die for us, repeatedly in fact, but Jesus also lives in one iteration, the iteration of John. In never seeing death in this case, rather than dying and and being resurrected, it feels like there is the potential for so much more to unfold, in a way I feel insufficient to describe in full, though John does end by indicating this exact thing;

John 21:25

Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.

I am a big Doctor Who fan. Somewhere along the way I got the impression that the show, specifically The Doctor, was a kind of representation of Jesus. While it is still unclear to me if this is intentional, what I can say for sure is that The Doctor is perpetually seeking the most merciful choice in each scenario, which I feel is something Jesus would do so, whether intentional or not, my assuming this connection has been a useful tool for me to examine mercy deeply in fantastical and varied scenarios that I would not have otherwise considered in relation to Jesus.

Specifically I feel this examination into a tightrope walk through recorded events in order to picture Jesus not being sacrificed (similar to the ram that was provided to rescue Isaac, Abraham's only son, in Genesis 22) is similar to the Doctor Who episode "The Wedding of River Song" (6.13). In this episode, at the moment of marriage, The Doctor has River look into his eye. She, and the audience, can see clearly that The Doctor is inside, waving to her from inside the eye. In this episode River refuses to kill The Doctor, despite the event already having occurred. By doing this she forces reality into a chaotic state not unlike The Chaos Storm which I have described (having both imagined and dreamed of this place)- time does not proceed and instead is happening all at once, because a fixed event was removed from reality (forcing what appeared to be an inescapable paradox). In this episode everyone seems to have some idea that something is wrong, and there is a tormented feel to the whole place, but it seems like only The Doctor and River have some real understanding of what is happening and why. River will not kill the one she loves, and while The Doctor tries multiple times to force time to restart (an event that will occur when they touch), willing to sacrifice himself and seeing no other way out of this storm, River still staunchly refuses to kill him, and also now refuses to touch him so that time will continue. So instead The Doctor eventually rethreads events, such that he was inside a Teselecta (a vehicle already established in the show in a prior episode that can carry a whole miniaturized crew inside, the vehicle itself being a perfect replication of a specific person's body, in this case The Doctor, carrying The actual Doctor). They kiss, time continues, River fires the shots exactly as had been seen and must occur for there to be no paradox, but she now knows that she is not killing The Doctor by firing, for events have been reshaped just enough to satisfy what must be, while still allowing The Doctor to live through the event.

I have long been the type to look for inspiration in a variety of sources if the result is mercy, or hope, or kindness, or love. While I do not claim certainty that this episode is meant to illustrate a possible alternative to Jesus' death being an outcome in every realm, instead proposing a scenario where Jesus lives and persists, it does not mean that I cannot draw inspiration from this show to help me with this puzzle which is critical in my opinion. As long as prophecy is satisfied, and the events that must occur actually happen, why would such an merciful and downright wonderful ending then not be considered? Again, I do not believe such things are outside of Jesus' power to do, and I would much rather have my story be considered nonsense than end in an unnecessary sacrifice just because this seems like the intended and foregone conclusion. There is a hardening that occurs, it feels like, in the hearts of mankind, a hardening that fools one into mistaking their expectations for how events ought to occur with the specific details of what is written that must in fact occur. I ask that the reader consider where their heart has become hard, where mercy has been chained somewhere along the way and instead replaced by wrath or a even by a false sense of justice enforced (for justice enforced will mean death). Remember that Jesus is focused on mercy and love and frankly doing incredible things in order to avoid terrible outcomes in the story of mankind that was meant to end in death from the the fall in Eden. While I believe Jesus took the stage as a sacrifice possibly without the expectation that this same mercy would or perhaps even could be returned, does that mean we cannot still seek to return the favor? In retrospect, it is no surprise that I call my thought process, as it pertains to finding unlikely solutions, "RAM" (similar to the term used in computers and the name of the animal sacrificed in place of Isaac) for it is along these lines that I have been willing to sacrifice a piece of myself and my place in this world so that God's only begotten son might not be sacrificed. I have wrestled with and torn at myself, becoming crazy in this world's eyes (and truly feeling crazy on many occasions), that I might find some path to this end, some way to intercede, and it honestly feels as of late that God is saying in so many ways that these efforts are seen, I am loved, and that I am not alone on this journey.

It feels like the timing for this post being laid so directly upon my heart right now is critical; I literally could not focus on anything else today, but as soon as I dove into this my mind was crystal clear, like an overwhelming signal within my mind- static for everything else, but perfectly tuned for writing this post. If each gospel is taken as a unique iteration, then it could be that every Easter since the first has represented a unique iteration as well. It is possible that every year Jesus reconfirms his sacrifice for mankind (a process which I have long since pictured becoming painless, mind you), in much the same way as the Passover lamb is traditionally sacrificed each year. This year Easter and Passover align, which feels significant as well. If I am to be judged for every word, let these be taken in the spirit they are intended: mercy and grace returned and bloomed beyond measure or perhaps even comprehension. If each iteration of "Good Friday" is unique, then let this story be one that is available to be agreed with just in time for this clock to be reset in an absurd and wonderful way, a true ending that might have some critics in a huff, but will lead immediately to a new age, such that the hardness of hearts in terms of sacrificial expectations is removed and in a moment love changes the world. Let the sun go dark again for 3 more hours, to finish the day of darkness begun so many years ago and graciously stayed so that its ending might bea wonderful one. Let these remaining hours of darkness finally signify the beginning of The Day of The Lord, a day scooched by love from dreadful to glorious.