Easter: A Short Story

Dark­ness is all around me like a deep sleep; sud­denly a light­ning bolt strikes my chest and with a sharp in­hale I am jolted up­right. I be­gin to cough and look around in dark­ness; I feel for some­thing, any­thing around. My hand meets with cold, damp stone and I see a crack on what seems to be an­other wall. Dis­ori­ented, I stand and walk to­ward the faint hint of light. I reach out to touch it and the stone be­gins to crum­ble; I claw at the stone and it quickly gives way. I step out­side and look around; I am sur­rounded by tombs. I look down at my­self and no­tice white linen gar­ments like bur­ial clothes.  

I hear a noise a lit­tle way away, the voice of a man and of a vast army ap­proach­ing. I move to­ward to the sound, to­ward the gar­den of Geth­se­mane. As I ap­proach, I see the crowd of men ap­proach­ing, hold­ing clubs and swords. I con­ceal my­self be­hind a tree. I see a man speak­ing to a group of three more. The man who was speak­ing to the oth­ers turns and one of the men from the crowd ap­proaches. I watch as the man from the crowd kisses the one who had been speak­ing, the crowd seizes the one who was kissed. I watch as one of the three reaches for his sword, I run to­wards the con­fronta­tion in at­tempt to dis­tract the crowd and stop the man from draw­ing his sword. The eleven will be over­pow­ered. Just as I ap­proach, the man draws his sword and slices off the ear of one man from the crowd.  

The man who had spo­ken to the three speaks up, “Re­turn your sword to its place,” he says. I watch as he reaches down to re­trieve the sev­ered ear. He grabs it and re­turns it to the man’s bleed­ing head; I can­not tell that it was ever sev­ered. I rec­og­nize the man that was seized by the crowd; he was the one who had called Lazarus from his tomb. This man, Je­sus, who they call Teacher, is not a vi­o­lent man. He is known for heal­ing the sick. A man again cap­tures Je­sus and the crowd draws their swords. The orig­i­nal three men scat­ter. I watch as the crowd be­gins to drag him off.  

I re­treat from my hid­ing spot and yell to dis­tract them.  A few men from the crowd quickly drag Je­sus away and the rest from the crowd am­bush me. One of the men man­ages to get a hold on me but I elude them. The man keeps hold of my gar­ment and I re­treat to­ward my fam­ily home dis­robed.  

The fol­low­ing morn­ing, af­ter re­count­ing the story to my fam­ily, I was in­formed of my death, and we con­cluded that I was res­ur­rected. Those in my house­hold had also seen Lazarus called from his tomb. Af­ter the shock had worn off, I set out to find Je­sus. If this man is pow­er­ful enough to heal the sick, and call Lazarus from his tomb, he must be the rea­son for my res­ur­rec­tion. I must know what crime he has com­mit­ted.  

On my way to the town, I saw a large crowd of peo­ple fol­low­ing Ro­man sol­diers. It seemed they were fol­low­ing some­one on the way to cru­ci­fix­ion. I ap­proached and pushed through the crowd; there was Je­sus, bloody and beaten, strug­gling to carry his cross. One of the sol­diers called a man from the crowd to help Je­sus carry the cross. I stayed with the crowd and fol­lowed him to Skull, where he was hung on the cross in the mid­dle of two crim­i­nals. The charge against him was writ­ten above his head “Je­sus of Nazareth: King of the Jews.” I cried as I watched his suf­fer­ing, know­ing he had done no wrong. The crowd dis­persed slowly, and Je­sus called for some­thing to drink and the guard of­fered him vine­gar. Af­ter, Je­sus cried out and died. Af­ter this hap­pened, there was an earth­quake; it shook the ground vi­o­lently. I turned to­wards home and wept; this man who had brought me back to my fam­ily has been wrong­fully cru­ci­fied.  

A while later, I was by the Sea of Galilee. I saw a man stand­ing by the shore, and out in the wa­ter fish­er­man were cast­ing their nets, but they were un­suc­cess­ful at catch­ing any­thing. The man on the shore called to the fish­er­man and told them to cast to the other side of the boat. I watched as they did what they were in­structed and were un­able to pull in the vast num­ber of fish they caught. One of the men in the boat called out, “It is the Lord,” as he jumped out of the boat and swam to­wards shore. I look back to the man who had been stand­ing on the shore, and I re­al­ize the man is Je­sus. He has risen! 

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Based on Mark 14:51-52 “A young man, wear­ing noth­ing but a linen gar­ment, was fol­low­ing Je­sus. When they seized him, he fled naked, leav­ing his gar­ment be­hind.” Some the­ol­o­gists be­lieve the linen gar­ments were grave clothes and that the young man had been re­sid­ing in a tomb nearby the gar­den of Geth­se­mane, and be­cause of Je­sus’ pres­ence near the tomb, the young man was res­ur­rected.