Staying put - not

You know, it’s funny, but a lot of people used to tell me that I looked quite like him. People mistook us for one another much more while he was alive, obviously, but it continued for a little while after he was executed… which is odd, to be honest.

       Sorry, I’ve got ahead of myself already. I’ll try to tell my story in the right order.

       It was a right old rum do right from the start. Here’s me, earning an honest crust looking after the flowerbeds and mowing the lawns for Jerusalem Parks & Public Recreation Spaces Department. Official title: Horticultural Environment Operative. That’s ‘gardener’ to you and me, guv.

       Anyway, I used to weed and mow and plant and prune and mulch and muck-spread and trim and cultivate, and then they gave me another job, because Tim Hayers, the bloke that used to be in charge, moved to Damascus after his son was healed of blindness. No-one else wanted the job, so I took it. It was worth a bit more money, which is always handy, isn’t it? But I didn’t think it would be too difficult.

       So that’s how I became Senior Executive Administrator (Graves & Tombs). It was down to me to keep the tombs tidy and free from squatters and such-like, and to make sure the rents were paid up and that the private ones were looked after properly.

Well, one Friday (just before Pentecost, actually) this chap who signed himself J O Arimathea strolls in and says his private tomb is going to be occupied from that evening onwards. He looked well, but then I realised he meant it was going to be some other poor blighter that would be occupying the tomb! Silly me!

       So I helped him fill out the form and he said he’d be along on Monday with the payment and to settle every-thing. No problem; that’s how it was usually done. Get the body installed (interred, they call it) as quickly as possible. But they’re not going anywhere – that’s what I always say – although some of them are definitely going off, due to the hot climate. But this one was very different. Weird.

       See, I went away for the holiday weekend, and when I came back on the Monday, the place was deserted. And when I say deserted, I mean that the corpse they’d put in J O Arimathea’s cave was gone! Vamoose!

       The body, which had been put into the tomb and sealed up on the Friday afternoon was a freshly crucified man originally from Nazareth, named Jesus. The Romans knew how to execute people, and yet this bloke had been seriously beaten as well before being put on the cross, so he was never going to survive the ordeal.

       I can only describe it as rum that people started saying they had seen the man alive again, which was impossible. Wasn’t it?

       One of the rumours was that he hadn’t really died in the first place. Yes, some slightly unrealistic folks actually thought he had just stopped breathing for a while on the cross, and hoodwinked the experienced executioners into thinking he was dead. I can’t buy that. If you stop breathing for even a very short while when you are being crucified, you tend to die. On a cross it’s far too painful to pretend anything. And these soldiers would have certainly had some way of making sure their victims were dead – they used to break their legs or do some sort of blood test, as I understand it. Anyway, let’s concede that for a moment. The rest of the theory says that in the cool atmosphere of the tomb, this not-dead preacher revived, and got out.

       Now, consider: this is a man in need of several weeks in intensive care, yet somehow he manages to roll away a ton or more of Palestinian granite, single-handedly, run through the streets of the Capital (on his crucified feet, don’t forget), appear to his followers and convince them that he’s the risen Lord of Life... Yes, it sounds unlikely. But when you’re faced with a dead man alive again, you look for alternative explanations, no matter how implausible.

       It looked bad for JP&PRS. We really ought to be sure that the bodies we bury are actually dead ones, right?

       One of the most-weird stories (spread by people who have never met me, that’s for sure) goes like this: a look-alike (perhaps me, perhaps someone else) was paid off to stand in his place, and that somehow a switch was made between the trial and the execution, and the stunt double was crucified instead. Their story says the real chap was whisked way to safety and is laying low for a while, keeping his mouth shut and his miracles to himself.

       That’s such a wild idea! I mean, how much cash would someone have to be offered to go through that sort of ordeal? How could he ever spend it, if he ends up dead? Perhaps the money went to the surviving relatives? No, no, come on, it’s an extreme suggestion. All the right people would have to be in all the right places at the right time, and all of the wrong people would have to not notice that it was someone else… It’s too much of a stretch.

       And then again, the very ones who cooked up the idea would be the people who are right now making the claims about resurrection, Messiahhood, miracles, and are currently getting it in the neck (and hands and feet) for their trouble. No-one dies horribly with a noble look on his face for the sake of a lie of his own invention, does he?

       Oh yes, and I’d be dead, in my own tomb just now, and I’m not, obviously, so it couldn’t be, they shouldn’t and I’m unlikely to have done so, right? Stands to reason.

       Then a story went around for a while that graverobbers had nicked the corpse, but that was just as unlikely (especially with a squadron of guards) – and we could do without that reputation, either. Look, if the authorities had stolen it, they would have publicly displayed the corpse as soon as the rumours about the preacher coming back to life started. That wasn’t what they wanted at all!

       And I can’t swallow that his followers stole the body. It’s the same problem as when they were supposed to do a switch and get a body-double crucified… it’s a lie and they know it is and no-one goes to their death to defend a complete fabrication.

       So I don’t know what really happened. It’s too complicated for the likes of me. I’ll just get on with the weeding and pruning and mowing and customer liaison.

       How am I going to sort out all the paperwork? There’s Tomb Occupation Form 201 which has to be rescinded by a Raised from the Dead (Surprise Contingency) Emergency Memo J11:25. One of my colleagues had to create that form after incidents in Nain, Bethany and near Galilee, thanks to this Jesus of Nazareth himself.

       There’s the matter of rental of the tomb from Friday evening to Sunday morning, since someone’s got to pay.

       Three days @ D12 per month (3/31sts)       D1.16

       plus tax                                                                D0.16

       plus admin fees                                                  D0.40

       total                                                                       D1.72

       Call it D1.50 for cash.

       And our Grave Clothes Wrapping Service, the provision of Spicy Aromatic Gum and 100% Cotton Freshly Laundered Linen Shroud (with Head-dress) for the Recently Deceased, plus, Tomb Sealing Fee, Flowers, Unexpected Extras, and several other sundries we always factor in to the final bill. And don’t forget the visitors entrance tariff: two denarii per visitor, so that’s three women, two men who ran in and out again, plus the so-called ‘angels’ – I haven’t seen a penny of that, of course. It’s a paperwork nightmare, I can tell you.

       What may or may not become public knowledge is the much bigger problem that befell us on the Friday afternoon of that same weekend. Now, don’t spread this around, or even more of the relatives will be claiming all sots of fees back again – some have started to kick off, as you can probably guess from the way I’m saying this. You see, there was what some describe as a tiny little earthquake, and a number of our tombs were… well, compromised, and one or two (several hundred, to be exact) corpses have – er – gone missing. That’s all I’ll say. No names, no pack drill. Shtum. You didn’t hear it from me, right?

       Anyway, as I said, some people still occasionally mistake me for Jesus, but that’s petered out a bit over the last few months. They seem to think I can make their poorly little children better or stop their sons from foaming at the mouth or improve the weather or recover their brothers from the palsy, or provide a never-ending buffet with vintage Merlot for their impending nuptials, starting with only a big jar of water.

       But the rumours of Jesus of Nazareth being raised from the dead haven’t died down at all.

       Neither has he. Rum, indeed.

A look-alike gardener tries to balance the books

Which Bible stories can you identify in this chapter?

What explanations for the resurrection of Jesus truly fit the evidence?

Why do you think people asked the gardener to come to their weddings or do other miracles?