Editor’s Note: Nigel Mumford has had near-death experiences and seen visions. Each has influenced his life’s work as an Episcopal priest and a healer. Here, he describes his vision of Christ on the cross.
Climbing the Cross
Greenville, South Carolina September, 2009
I was preparing to speak to a large audience at the First Presbyterian Church. In an office above the gathering, I was on my knees in prayer.
Immediately, I saw a vision of Christ on the Cross, His head lowered, His eyes fixed on me. It was as if He was telling me to pick up the ladder lying a few feet from the Cross. I told Him that the guards would stop me. He told me they would not. I did as I was asked, placing the top of the ladder just behind His left shoulder at the intersection of the two beams. Slowly, I climbed the ladder, wondering what I would experience—the flies, the smell, the blood? Here I was, worried about myself in the presence of Christ on the Cross. He was looking at me all the way up the ladder. I got level with His face. Jesus told me to put my right shoulder into His left shoulder. He told me in a whisper of gasping breath to lift him up. “I need to breathe,” He said.
Gently I pushed Him up, my face almost touching His. He then looked out from the Cross and said in my right ear, “I want you to see what I see.” I looked intently at the view from the Cross. I looked at the topography, I looked at the land.
Most paintings of the Lord on the Cross are focused on Him. I didn’t recall any painting of what the Lord would have seen.
As fast as the vision had started, it stopped. I was still on my knees in the pastor’s office. Someone came to tell me that the program was about to begin downstairs. I was escorted to a large room filled with people. The “happy-clappy” music of praise and worship began. It was beautiful.
Good worship music is so important during a healing conference. Like a large classical orchestra tuning up before a concert, we tune into God as the body of Christ. The music ended, and I was introduced. I said a prayer, walked away from the podium, and began to describe what had happened while I was praying in the pastor’s office.
When I got to the part when Jesus said, “I want you to see what I see,” I understood that He didn’t mean the landscape. He wanted me to see the raw pain of the human condition in each person. His sentence was unfinished. If I were to fill in the rest of those powerful words it would be, “I want you to see what I see in everyone I look at. I want you to see the fear, anxiety, worry, the pain, the hurt, the dis-ease, the rejection, the generational issues, the brokenness, the broken heart, the doubt, the faith, the love, the joy; I want you to see each person you look at with your soul. See the issue that person is carrying. As you see it, help them unpack it.” I stood in silence as the revelation hit me, right in front of all those people. There was a long period of silence as I looked at each person with that intent to see. To really see what He sees. The power of the presence of the Holy Spirit alighted upon us all. It was a very powerful day of healing.
Later, Kathy DeLair, an artist friend, painted what I saw. My right shoulder was under the Lord’s. She painted Christ upon the Cross as if my head were right next to His, in monochromatic stillness, with one drop of red blood falling from His forehead, His hair blowing forward in the storm, and the last vapor of the last breath coming from His mouth.
Looking back on this vision, I understood its full meaning. I saw that I/we must look at everyone through His eyes to fully understand the plight of the human condition.
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Seemingly overnight, Cornell found itself in the middle of a real Halloween mystery. One that even garnered media attention. Many offered theories explaining the pumpkin’s precarious placement. Stealth rock climbers! A secret trap door at the top of the tower! Pumpkin-wielding helicopter! But, in the end, nobody came forward to take credit for the prank.
We raise milo, corn, soybeans, wheat and hay. We also run a shop where we rebuild combines, and we use our equipment to harvest crops for other farmers. On that day, October 25, 2014, we’d been hired to cut soybeans. Our friend John Tinkler was in a tractor hitched to a grain cart, unloading the beans into a semi via a tall metal auger.
Les Ferm: I pulled up right behind Zach. My eyes went to the auger. It was pressing against a power line. “Zach! Don’t touch—” I yelled. Too late. There was snapping, crackling. Flames shot out of Zach’s head and feet.
Justin Knopf: I was harvesting when I felt my phone buzz around 3:00 p.m. It was a neighbor texting: “Zach Short’s been injured.” I live in Gypsum, about 12 miles from the Shorts. They’re the kind of folks who are always helping others. Now they needed help. I thought of the scripture “Where two or three of you are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” So I radioed the guys working with me. We climbed down from our combines and prayed together.
Lori Blake: I was the HR manager at a nonprofit. I was in a meeting with 15 coworkers, including Zach’s sister, Kelsie. Our phones buzzed at the same time. “Stop what you’re doing and pray for Zach!” Jodi had posted.
Alex Weller: Zach and I were roommates freshman year in college. I was a lot less motivated than he was. He made me go to class. I never would have passed without him. Never would have gone on to become the owner of Exit 14 Restaurant in Gypsum. As soon I heard about the spaghetti dinner and auction, I signed up to supply all the food. Helped organize everything that went into it. We served more than 700 meals and raised $70,000 for Zach. Volunteers wore T-shirts that I designed. “Nothing short of a miracle,” they read. It really felt that way. We’d all been part of something life-changing.
