Streams of Comfort

What I have written this week is a kind of fictionalized retelling of the response of the governmental authorities to Jesus’s resurrection in the bible. It is set in a modern setting focusing on the struggle that the guards (in this story graveyard keepers) guarding Jesus’s tomb might have had. Wrestling with and choosing financial gain over the miracle Jesus has done and is doing in the life of the believer. Which is raising the dead to life. The resurrection was no accident, and I pray this week that you are reminded of God’s intentionality in your salvation.

“Please tell me this was an accident,”

I beg my coworker,

As I plunge my shovel into the earth beneath our feet.

Picking up mounds of dirt,

To toss into the open grave next to us.

The man had been buried only three days ago.

But the only trace remaining of him is this empty grave,

And the single trail of footsteps leading from the grave to the gate.

Unfortunately for us, his body disappeared during our shift.

“Maybe a wild animal dug up his body,

Or maybe it was grave robbers.”

I offer as I toss another mound of dirt into the grave,

“Your right, it was grave robbers,”

My coworker says with a pointed look,

And I eye him carefully.

I lift my right hand off the shovel,

And point toward the back pocket of his jeans where he keeps his wallet.

“They paid you, didn’t they?

The local municipality,

I saw you talking with a man in uniform this morning.

Just an hour after the body went missing.

Did you call them?”

He grimaces.

“You didn’t see anything,

And regardless, do you really think a man can come back from the dead?”

I shake my head.

“But we groundskeeping staff were the only ones here since dawn.

And the grave was undisturbed.

Which means either the body walked off on its own.

Or we are the grave robbers.”

Honestly, I do not understand how we missed the body being moved.

And why the municipality cares so much about the body.

My coworker stops shoveling and reaches for his back pocket.

I watch him in confusion as he retrieves his wallet,

Opens it, and shoves a few hundred dollar bills toward me.

” Is that what…”

” Shhhhh!” He hisses.

My mouth clamps shut.

“The story is that the man’s friends came and stole his body.

So they could hide the fact that he was just a man and nothing more.

To protect their religious uprising.

This is for the good of our country and to maintain peace.”

I lean on my shovel and look my coworker in the eye.

“And what happens to us?

What if that man was something greater like they believed?

What if he actually came back to life?”

“Then it was merely an accident.

He was buried before he actually died.

 Either way, you best keep quiet unless you want to take responsibility for the missing body.

Looks like we’re done here.”

He gestures toward the grave now completely filled as if nothing had happened.

As if the body was still there. 

And I watch him walk away.

Indeed, no one would believe that the dead has risen.

I sigh and place the hundred dollar bills in my pocket.

I take one last good look at the grave and then move on to my next task. 

Knowing deep in my heart that whatever happened here, was no accident.