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.
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?
