Easter Extra

Author Alison Lloyd's newsletter #39

Hi! Here are some thoughts for your Easter, and a poem. This is a short extra email, in addition to my usual monthly one.

Welcome if you signed up recently to get my book Candlelight. If you haven’t got it, and you’d like it, click this link.

Something isn’t right…

I recently turned up to a breakfast event, with my spouse, a few minutes late.

In the carpark, gentle early sun gleamed on empty concrete. No other cars. Something wasn’t right. The front door of the venue was locked. Uh oh. My first guilty thought was that I’d stuffed up the date. I checked my phone – the date was correct. Yet nobody else was there. I had the weird feeling that the world had ended and somehow we’d missed it.

After more fiddling on my phone in the empty carpark, it turned out we were in a time warp of our own making. We’d assumed the breakfast would be at the same time as previous events. No, this one wasn’t at 8am but at 9am. We weren’t late, but early. We’d got it wrong. We went off for coffee while we waited, which, on our empty stomachs, didn’t do much to help the feeling of oddness!

What does this have to do with Easter?

I imagine that when the women disciples turned up at Jesus’ tomb after his crucifixion, they must have had a similar feeling to mine, only amplified. How the heck could Jesus’ body not be there? This was the right tomb, yes. But unlike our locked door, the tomb’s door was wide open. As the dawn light slanted in on the rock cave, the women saw Jesus’ corpse was gone.

They had come in a last act of love and respect, in agonising grief, and probably at some risk to themselves. It was a brave act. But with the body gone, the moment of mourning was denied them. What they saw in that dawn, made no sense and probably worsened their pain. Like my assumptions, their assumptions were wrong. Their reasonable certainties had evaporated into thin air.

Jesus’ resurrection was a surprise that unsettled the world, for ever. You may be sceptical. But if you allow even the remotest possibility of God existing, you can see that it is His prerogative to turn the tables. His ability to do something so profound, to disturb our expectations, shows Him to be somehow… more God. More dynamic, and more real.

An Easter BBQ poem

One of Australia’s Prime Ministers used to refer to a very hot topic as ‘a barbeque stopper’. He meant a current affair issue that got talked about by ordinary people as the sausages sizzled. Easter’s weather is often perfect for barbeques. So I had a bit of fun re-imagining the first Easter as a Jerusalem barbeque stopper. A 1st century barbeque in which the blokes cook the meat is historically dubious, but that’s beside the point…

BBQ after the first Easter

I didn’t see it coming, he’s telling me.

-        Death and taxes, I tell him,
My accountant’s good, but he can’t get a man completely off the hook.
Or off a cross.

Not off the cross – he shakes his head – the grave.
I got there and the door was open
Don’t know how - he says –
I didn’t touch that body but it was gone.
Got the shock of my life.

-        Corpses don’t get up and walk away, I say.
I scoff into my cup, slosh the wine.

Corpses don’t, but he did.

-        Look, I tell him, miracles can’t happen.
The world would fall apart. Like your old jalopy.

Yeah, yeah, we’re not talking about my cart.

-        You can’t break the laws of the universe.

We’re talking about an outside force, he says, bigger than the laws of the universe.
You can’t break ‘em, but he can.

-        Then I’ll be damned.
I’m being sarcastic.
The wine has dripped down my front.
I dab, but it spreads.
Don’t know about God,
but the wife’ll have words.

You don’t get it? He’s the way out. Off the hook.

-        Off what hook?
I poke the chops, which sizzle.

The laws of the universe.
Death and debt.

I shut up.
He wants me to eat my words.
I prefer steak.
-        Think this meat is done?

I stick in the fork
And the lamb bleeds onto the points.

Done for sure. Better believe it, buddy.

Wishing you a safe and wonder-full Easter holiday. I’ll be back in your inbox in a couple of weeks with more regular history. I’ve got some fiction for you in the making too. :)