It's Easter morning, Feist-dog. Of course, I can't sleep. I'm listening for sounds of rain that might slow down my going to everything at church. It's quiet so far.
Two thousand years ago, before the sun came up, the followers of this man Jesus rolled away the stone and stole the body of their rabbi so they could tell people he was Immanuel, the Messiah, the Son of God, a lie, a scam, a fraud that lived down through the centuries--or something amazing happened.
I can't tell you which is true. No one can. I can tell you what I believe, but I'm just a man, and you're just a dog. What I can tell you is this idea, this promise that death cannot hold us, that new life from the ashes of the old is possible, even inevitable, became the foundation of our culture and has inspired millions of hopeless people around the world for two thousand years.
My people had gods of the trees and gods of stone, and gods of the sea, but the Romans came and gave us one God of the sky. It wasn't even their God. They had even more gods than my people did, but the idea, the seed planted by a people they conquered, a people they defeated so completely that they burned their city of Jerusalem and destroyed their palatial temple to the point where no stone lay atop another, they dispersed those people to the wind, they killed their practitioners and anyone who spoke the name of this Christ could die on a cross like his--that idea, that seed of an idea, that tiny bit of faith grew and grew and converted the entire empire that tried to destroy it, and that empire converted the world, and now, people on every continent, call this man Jesus, Adonai, Lord, and Master.
This idea, this Easter, this power of rebirth lives in me, Feist-dog. I went into a cave and waited for death. I stayed there for many years, but this man from Galilee, this humble rabbi who spoke a muddled form of Aramaic and barely knew a few words of Greek, wasn't done with me. I was reborn. I was as dead as a man can be while his heart still beats, but today I return to the bosom of my church to celebrate Easter.
I can tell you everything that was said of this man Jesus. I can tell you everything he said. I can talk to you for days about the generations upon generations of men, wiser than me, who discussed him. I can tell you how I feel, Feist-dog, but I cannot tell you what is true. That's something you have to work out for yourself.
I'm a terrible proselytizer. I speak with no authority, no drama, and no force. I mumble out stories and theories and books I read and men I knew, but I won't grasp you by the hand and look you in the ey and say, "This is the truth!" because I don't know the truth; I only know what I feel. I cannot make this journey for you. I'll go with you if you want me, but I cannot carry you. I can't even clear the way before you. I'm sorry, Feist-dog; I would do these things for you because I love you, but they're not within my grasp. They are, however, within yours.
It was forbidden to do this work on the Sabbath, so the women went to the tomb with oil and herbs to dress the body of the rabbi the next day, but when they got there, the stone was rolled away, and a man greeted them who said: "why do you seek the living among the dead?"
The historian Josephus said the testimony of the women was insufficient because women tend toward hysteria. I can imagine how that sat with his wife. The women went to attend the body of Jesus because the men who followed him were in hiding, fearing the same sort of prosecution Jesus suffered. As he predicted, they denied him. One betrayed him. Only the women, Mary, his mother, and Mary, his companion, were left to attend his body with four other women who were followers and the mother of followers.
The sun's coming up Feist-dog. Someone rolled away the stone. I can't tell you who. I can't tell you what became of the body. That's a walk you'll have to make, but I can tell you, do not seek the living among the dead. Do not seek rebirth unless you believe it's possible.
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