Holy Week 2012

Easter Vigil

Another Passover gone; well, the main event anyway. Back to work to pay off the debts. The prices they charged at festivals were ridiculous; and it wasn't much of a lamb. But they had you where they wanted you. He kicked the ground petulantly but then remembered it was his friend, it was  what gave him his living. It wasn't much of a job but burial sites provided steady work.

He put his lantern down. He didn't need it any more. It was still dark but he knew every rock and every bush. He had thought of keeping the light because there was a new body in that new tomb but he wasn't going to allow it to worry him. Graveyards were his business. He didn't know what it was all about, the Temple and the Romans were always squabbling and that poor innocent man had somehow got himself mixed up in it. He went towards the place, slowly, almost creeping, saying a garbled prayer as he went. The Pharisees said that we would all be raised up at the end of time but all he could think of was Sheol, the end of everything, the body in its new linen sheets already rotting.

The thin layer of grey on the horizon showed a tinge of pink and it warmed him. He never ceased to wonder at the way the light changed, the way that the sun seemed suddenly to spring from nowhere. His mind began to wander, as he looked Eastwards, watching the light. He saw two figures, white, sharp against the red-brown rock. He took a step towards them to ask what they were doing on private land but their assurance daunted him. He stood, rooted, not knowing whether to advance or retreat. Out of tranquillity there was a roaring sound, like a storm out of nowhere. The ground shook. It was an earthquake. He knew he was in open ground so there was no immediate danger. He crouched down for fear of falling. There was a flash of intense light, bigger and  softer than lightning. He closed his eyes.

It stopped as suddenly as it had started and he opened his eyes. All was calm as it had been moments before. He must have been dreaming. Everything was as it had been. Everything was as it had been. No it wasn't. He looked again. The tomb had been torn open so violently that there was a vivid contrast between new, bright rock and the dull weathered rock around the roseate wound with its bloody streaks.

He crept on his hands and knees across the sparse new grass as if he was hiding from someone until he could support himself against the entrance. He moved his head ever so slightly so that he could look into the gaping hole. The  two men were sitting stone still on the low stone shelf with neatly folded sheets between them. No body! He had never seen anything like them. He must have been dreaming after all. And then one of them moved as if to speak.

For  a moment he was paralysed; and then something gave in him and he turned sharply, grazing his hand;  and then he ran and ran and ran.