30 Day Jesus Challenge - Day 22 The Cross

"Except of course that a cross is always something more."  Diana Gabaldon, Fiery Cross Book 5 in the Outlander Series.

Yes indeed, a cross is always something more.  Paul writes in Galatians 5:11 that the cross is an offense.  The cross is the ultimate test of the man, the one who chose to hang on it, and the one who must decide if he accepts it.  There is no room for compromise at the cross, no wiggle room, no gray area.

The Cross

Brutal, violent, excruciating: we recoil in horror - in the reading, in the writing, in the listening, in the watching - no one is untouched by the Cross.  To the believer it is where we start the journey and ultimately where we end it, at the foot of the Cross.  Dr. Billy Graham, in this 3 minute video says it best.

Pray - Today, Lord I find myself at the foot of the cross.  I believe in you, I believe in your sacrifice.  Thank you for the cross.

30 Day Jesus Challenge - Day 21 The Blood

All religions have a blood element to them, some deep down, but there none the less.  Modern Western people are removed from blood.  Our food comes in plastic from the grocery store, modern medicine sterilizes and staunches blood, and we have virtually no concept of sacrifice.  The Blood of Jesus was always very confusing for me until I began to see and understand, the key was the Garden of Eden.

The First Covering of Sin

To set the stage, Adam and Eve have fallen and are about to be expelled from the garden: Genesis 3:21 "Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them."  This is the first sacrifice, the first shedding of blood to cover sin. The Lord himself made the clothing to cover the nakedness and the sin of man.  This sacrifice to cover sin continues through the Old Testament law.  God is orderly, He set up laws and rules, He abides by them.

The imperfect animal sacrifices had to be performed over and over again, until Jesus.  A loving God knew that only a perfect sinless sacrifice would pay the debt, would fulfill the law, would meet the requirement.  Only He could redeem us, only He could shed his blood and save us, once and for all eternity.

Pray - Lord, the blood has always confused me.  Please help me understand your sacrifice and the power of the blood.

(Interesting Legend - It is said the clothing that the Lord made for Adam and Eve was the finest clothing the Ancient World had ever known.  Legend holds that it was made of leopard skins and was worn by Adam and Eve until their deaths 900 years after the fall.  The mythical clothing was said to be a price of war and won by the mighty man Nimrod who was a great hunter.  The tradition of leopard skins in worship can still be seen in Africa.  The Shembe consider the leopard skin integral in their worship of God.  As CS Lewis was fond of saying, there is truth that survives as legend.)

Tragic Death or Blood Sacrifice - Stuart Sutcliffe

All religions require blood.  The religion of fame is no different.  In "The Night the Devil Came for John Lennon" we looked a the words of John Lennon to give compelling evidence that he made a pact with Satan.  Through thorough research into the occult, we find evidence that such deals are sealed in blood.  Their adherents are directed to do unspeakable things, from eating fecal matter, to bestiality, to bizarre and painful sexual rituals, to blood sacrifices. (source)  Was John's best friend part of the pact?  Was Stuart Sutcliffe the sacrifice or was he merely a casualty by association?  Perhaps he was just a life cut short.

(Author's note:  This piece is a bit different than other works I've done.  It deals with tales, innuendo, and circumstances rather than a cold presentation and examination of facts.  I'll leave it to the reader to make up their minds about whether or not the tragic death of the "fifth Beatle" Stuart Sutcliffe was anything other than a young life cut short.  I'm not convinced either way.)

Lennnon's Anti-Christian Sentiments - the Beginning:

Lennon Biographer, Joseph Niezgoda observers that Lennon became a virulent Anti-Christian after December 27, 1960 (source).  This date marks the first day the girls stormed the stage and Beatlemania began.  The story goes that in early December 1960, Lennon went down to the "Devil's Bridge of Rose Lane" and made a 20 year pact with the devil.  (source)

Hamburg:

This hatred of Christianity became pronounced during the two years the Beatles spent in the seedy red light district of Hamburg Germany (Source).  They lived in squalor behind the screen of a pornography movie theater.

Philip Norman writes, "While in Hamburg, John, each Sunday would stand on the balcony, taunting the churchgoers as they walked to St. Joseph's. He attached a water-filled contraceptive to an effigy of Jesus and hung it out for the churchgoers to see. Once he urinated on the heads of three nuns."(Philip Norman, Shout! The Beatles in Their Generation, p. 152).

There were five of them, John, Paul, George, Pete Best, (the band's first drummer) and Lennon's college roommate, bassist Stuart Sutcliffe.  

Stuart Sutcliffe

Lennon's Relationship with Stuart:

Stuart was Lennon's first muse, followed by McCartney, and then Yoko Ono.  Stuart and John shared a room at Liverpool Art College.  Their relationship was deep and passionate by Lennon's own account.  Many suspected there was more than friendship going on between them.  Given what we know about the occult, it is not outside of the realm of possibility that the young Lennon was forced to show his loyalty by experimenting with homosexual sex.  Later in life, John allegedly admitted to a relationship with Stuart Sutcliffe (source).

The Violence of John Lennon:

In 2003, Sutcliffe's sister, Pauline Sutcliffe, said "I believe that the cerebral hemorrhage that cost Stuart his life was caused by an injury inflicted by John in a jealous rage. A postmortem revealed Stuart had a dent in his skull, as though from a blow or kick. And a few months earlier, John had viciously kicked my brother in the head in a sustained, unprovoked attack." (source)

The alleged attack on Stuart Sutcliffe was not the last time John Lennon would go into a murderous rage and almost kill someone.  After returning to Liverpool from Germany, Lennon was teased about being gay by DJ and friend of the band, Bob Wooler.  Lennon flew into a "blind rage, John proceeded to beat the stuffing out of a very surprised Bob Wooler, literally kicking him repeatedly in the ribs as he lay on the ground in a bloody heap.

According to John, the only reason he actually stopped the savage beating was because, “I realized I was actually going to kill him…  I just saw it like a screen. If I hit him once more, that’s really going to be it. I really got shocked and for the first time thought: ‘I can kill this guy.'” (source).

Sutcliffe's Documented Deterioration:

Pauline Sutcliffe auctioned off several sketchbooks that show the rapid deterioration of the gifted artist after the fight.  This work, compared to earlier pre-fight sketches demonstrate a traumatic brain injury. His sketch book after the alleged incident contained radically different scrawls and expressions of pain.  Witnesses tell of a rapid decline in the months leading up to his death.  (Source)

Stuart Sutcliffe's Art Before the Fight

Stuart Sutcliffe's Art After the Attack

Sometime after the alleged altercation, Stuart Sutcliffe left the Beatles to pursue his art, earning a scholarship in Germany which was very rare for a non-German in those days.  His health deteriorated rapidly and he was often bedridden with excruciating head aches.  He died in an ambulance on his way to the hospital on April 10, 1962. (Source)

The Price to be Paid:

So what was the price of Lennon's deal with the devil?  Was Stuart Sutcliffe the blood sacrifice that was needed to seal the pact?  When John learned of Stuarts death, it is said he began laughing hysterically.  (source)  What exactly was going through his mind at the news of the death of his friend, could it have been that the power that promised fame and fortune also demanded a price be paid?  Was Lennon recognizing the truth?  Was he remorseful over the injury that started the brain bleed that killed Stuart?  Was it a simple response to the grief he did not know how to process?  We do see the devastation in Lennon's face later that day when he asked to go to the studio where his friend lived and painted.  The grief over his friend is captured hauntingly by Stuart Sutcliffe's fiance, Astrid Kirchherr.  

Lennon in "Stuart's Attic"

Interestingly, George Harrison moves behind Lennon in an act of comfort that foreshadowed their dual descent into the occult.

George Harrison Joins Lennon in the Dark

The day after on Wednesday April 11, 1962. John told the audience in Hamburg: “Stuart Sutcliffe was a very special human being and a remarkable man. He once told me that he had the ability to see into the future and I for one now believe that Stu was telling the truth.”

What had happened to convince Lennon that Sutcliffe had the gift of precognition? There were rumors that Sutcliffe had told John Lennon the Beatles would be bigger than anyone – even Elvis. Sutcliffe had, however, possibly predicted that he would never see that success himself for he tragically died at age 21 from bleeding in the right ventricle of his brain. (source)"

In the end, the tragic life and death of Stuart Sutcliffe is surrounded in mystery but given what we know about how the enemy works, it is a distinct possibility that he was indeed the first sacrifice on the altar of The Beatles.

The Night the Devil Came for John Lennon

Irreverent and rebellious, the Beatles arrived at a tipping point in world history.  The massive Baby Boomer generation, having been raised by their Depression Era and WWII parents (who just wanted peace and quiet), were the first generation of Americans to not pray in public High School, and fell under the spell of the four lads from Liverpool.  There was a spiritual aspect to Beatlemania; a worshipful frenzy that does not correspond with the beauty of the music.

It did not take long for the youth to embrace the Magical Mystery Tour and go on a drug induced journey into Eastern Mysticism.  Repeating mantras over and over again calls upon spiritual beings that are not who they pretend to be.  Yoko Ono said, "It was more the Four people, it was like they were mediums.  They weren't conscience of all they were saying and all that was coming through them." (Source, The Playboy Interviews, 1980.)

"Do what thou wilt" John Lennon famously quoted the Satanist Alastair Crowley, who also appeared on the Sargent Pepper album cover.  He admitted that, "I've sold my soul to the Devil."   Yoko Ono admits that right before John Lennon died, "It was finally time to consummate all of these spells by making a living sacrifice and signing a pact with the devil." (Source and Albert Goldman, The Lives of John Lennon, pg. 586)

John Lennon Sold His Soul to the Devil

John Lennon famously stated that they had more power, popularity, and influence than Jesus Christ. After the backlash, he doubled down, "Christianity will go, it will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about that. I'm right and will be proved right. . . .We're more popular than Jesus now." (San Francisco Chronicle, April 13, 1966, p.26).   He held Christians and Jesus in contempt and blasphemed the Lord by saying, "Jesus El Pifico, a garlic-eating, stinking little yellow, greasy fascist bastard catholic Spaniard." (A Spaniard in the Works, p.14).

Lennon admitted to the Beatles official biographer that he was often possessed by spirits who would take control of his body.  (Source).  Perhaps, these creatures even wrote "Imagine", which is a thinly disguised Atheist Anthem.  (For a detailed breakdown of the song, watch this great video.)  A classic act of obedience to Satan is infanticide, below the Beatles show their true colors:

Infanticide Imagery on the Beatles Album Cover

The last interview Lennon gave he admitted to the spiritual fugue of demon possession and affirmed he'd "been possessed by this the rock and roll devil".  Through the interview of normal life and parenting he says, "I would like to be a happy contented person. I don’t want to have to sell my soul again – as it were – to have a hit record."  Yoko Ono fully owned their New Age philosophy when she said, "And, if each person, all of us, would really be centered, you know, and really start thinking for ourselves then they don’t have a chance. Because we’re really like very powerful Gods and Goddesses, you know?" and then "We are fully aware of our power – whatever that is – and we nurture it and we try to be very careful about our own life because of that. And also try to communicate and, you know, communicate as much as we can with that power, you know?"  

In the end, John confirmed his rebellion, "I was always wanting something, even though I always wanted to be the rebel on the outside, part of me always wanted to be a part of it. And it… it’s an insecurity. I’m not sayin’ that anybody who’s become a born-again Christian or a born-again whatever the other groups are… but, in general, to me it looks like a sign of insecurity because I recognize it in meself." (Source) 

The last words of the interview are haunting, "Oh, it’s a pleasure… I… I’m a fan of people, too, you know? I like people to sign their books when they give ’em to me and all that… "

Lennon's life was claimed suddenly and violently by a demonically possessed "fan"on December 8th, 1980.  Mark Chapman had battled with demons his whole life and was heard by his wife screaming that Lennon was a "phony fool he doesn’t even realize that soon he’s going to be dead. Just imagine that.” (Source)  In the records of the police investigation, it was reported that the killer had heard an interior voice of the Devil telling him to end Lennon’s life. The voice said: “Kill Lennon, he is mine and I want him.” (source)  Revolution 9, Lennon's song on the White Album, has eerily prophetic connotations.  Lennon is heard moaning and mumbling while back masking plays "Deadman". (Further reading, see here.)

I was just a kid but remember the time after.  I was confused and mildly repulsed by the mourning and adoration of people.  The tributes went on for weeks, the radio played Imagine over and over and over again until I wanted to pull my hair out.  It was disturbing and now I understand why.