Since Jesus is
still alive, the day after we celebrated His resurrection, I want to post for you (with the author's permission) the essay he read at our Easter service yesterday.
Hour 36
by
Jeremy Bear
It's
4:00 PM on what we can reasonably assume to be April 3rd. A blood-red lunar eclipse hangs in the
afternoon sky, rare for Passover season in Jerusalem. We're on a grim little plot of land the
locals call "The Head". Or,
more specifically, "Golgotha".
Or "Calvary". Or
"Cranium".
Or
"Skull".
If
you're the Roman government, it's the perfect sort of spot for
crucifixions. Located near the Northwest
entrance of the city, it lets visitors and new arrivals know: Jerusalem takes
capital offenses seriously. Cliffside
crags and outcroppings throw unfortunate shadows in the shapes of angry eye
sockets and a malformed nasal cavity, giving the place its name.
Thieves,
malcontents and other reprobates hang from crosses, their arms hyperextended,
lungs asphyxiating. Dead or not, their wounds are already drawing flies and
chances are, if you're just happening upon this little tableau, you smelled it
before you saw it.
The
year: AD 33. And everyone knows the name of the still-warm corpse being peeled
off his cross and wrapped in linens by two members of the Sanhedrin: that’s
Jesus of Nazareth. Or, to some, “Jesus,
bastard son of Mary”.
Within
a couple of hours, the body of Christ is taken to a fairly impressive tomb
purchased by Joseph of Arimathea. And
there’s no doubt whatsoever: the Son of Man is dead.
It
isn’t a coma and it isn’t even “mortally wounded”. All vital signs are negative. Blood pressure: zero-over-zero. Jesus is done.
7:00
PM, Friday, April 3 - Hour #3
What’s
left of the now-buried Christ’s blood reserves has begun draining from his
capillaries and gravity is causing it to pool at the bottom of his muscles and
internal organs. His face and chest are
growing pale, losing more color by the minute, while the backs of his legs,
torso, arms and head are purpling and swelling.
Brain
activity ceased entirely within 10 minutes of his final breath, but now the
cells of his gray matter are already beginning to decompose.
His
muscles slowly cure, hungry for warmth and oxygen that just isn’t coming. The
linens were treated with perfumes and that helps with the odor, but it won’t
keep out bacteria. It won’t keep it in,
either.
Christ’s
body is quickly losing heat.
4:00
AM, Saturday, April 4 - Hour #12
His
pH has shifted and his cells begin to respond accordingly: they rupture,
leaking enzymes. The bacteria in his
intestinal tract that once aided digestion now begins feeding on the intestinal
walls themselves, gobbling proteins and excreting methane.
1:00
PM, Saturday, April 4 - Hour #21
Gas
collects in Christ’s stomach and large intestine. His belly and bladder shifts, swells and
occasionally ejects a foul mix of ammonia, methane and hydrogen sulphide.
A
thin layer of liquid enzymes floats underneath his endoderm, causing his skin
to slip.
9:00
PM, Saturday, April 4 - Hour #29
The
Hydrogen Sulphide/CO2/Methane mix has reached critical mass and bloats the
entirety of Jesus’ corpse, distending his torso, pushing ruptured skin
outward.
Organs
soften and froth, hair follicles loosen.
His respiratory system’s a self-sustaining, anaerobic community.
Christ
is beginning to putrefy.
3:00
AM, Sunday, April 5 - Hour #35
The
linens brown as Jesus’ seething blisters empty into the fabric. He’s black and marbled, sulfhemoglobin
collecting in his settled blood.
He’s
stone cold. And his body is eating
itself.
And
that’s all.
...
4:00
AM, Sunday, April 5 - Hour #36
It
happens.
Suddenly
and strangely, something that can’t possibly be... is.
Something
goes wrong.
Backward.
Something
shifts.
Something
that can only be described as subatomic takes hold and keeps holding.
Algor
mortis reverses into rigor mortis reverses into no mortis whatsoever.
Core
temperature rises: 65 degrees. 70. 75.
Enzymes
separate and collect proteins, carbohydrates and lipids, blossoming into
healthy, functioning cells. Liquefied
tissue layers and solidifies.
Core
temperature: 80. 85.
Blood
rehydrates and begins absorbing oxygen molecules by the billions. Skin reconnects with soft fat and tissue. Lungs deflate, expelling methane, then
inflate, now with oxygen-rich air. His
heart swells and, for the first time in 36 hours, beats.
90. 95.
Muscles
dilute lactic acids with fresh, pure blood.
Pecs and glutes, delts and quads expand and contract. Capillaries open. Veins and arteries pulse.
96.
Electricity
sparks through his cerebral cortex, reopening synaptic passages, firing signals
and lighting up nerve endings.
Maggots
and infection explode from every orifice and dissolve immediately. Lesions stitch themselves back together.
97.
Kidneys
begin filtering. Lymph snakes from tonsils to thymus to spleen and back again.
Christ
opens his mouth.
98.
He
opens his eyes.
He
takes a breath.
And
maybe it took hours. Or maybe it was
instantaneous.
But
somehow, for some reason, Jesus of Nazareth... The Son of Man. The Christ.
The Messiah.
Jesus-who-was-dead...
Isn’t.
It’s
not a healing or a medical marvel. It’s not chemistry-gone-haywire.
It’s
something impossible: a refurbished, reconstituted Jesus. Head to foot, cell to cell.
Resurrection.
And
this God-power... this subatomic, resurrecting influence... this Authority...
Rather
than continuing to radiate out from the tomb, the planet, the galaxy, reversing
physics and correcting every death, every wrong... it stops. It leaves Christ to complete Christ’s work.
What’s
more, it leaves the scars: in the hands, the feet, the side.
It
knows Christ, clearly, cell to cell. But
it also knows us.
It
understands why we needed him to keep his scars. And why we need our own.
And
those 36 hours, from Friday afternoon, April 3, AD 33 to Sunday morning, April
5, AD 33...
There’s
been nothing more bewildering, nothing more triumphant.
