Sunday, April 12, 2009

Surrexit Christus Hodie

Today, Easter Sunday, we celebrate the resurrection of Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Some two thousand years ago, His followers (accounts vary as to who was actually there, depending on whose Gospel you trust) went to Jesus' tomb in order to marinade Him in unguents, or whatever, as one apparently did with Jewish dead bodies back then. Unfortunately, it was pretty much a wasted journey, as they arrived to find that the stone had been rolled away from the tomb's entrance and Jesus had pissed off. Or, as an angel who happened to be around at the time rather unhelpfully put it, "He is not here. He has risen."

All well and good. But was He risen enough, I wonder?

The reason I ponder this question is because, when Jesus was resurrected, it was clearly something of a half-arsed job. That's to say, although He was up and about, as you'd expect of someone restored to life, He still had bloody great holes in His hands, feet, and side from the crucifixion, as later witnessed by Apostle, Thomas, who put his finger through one. So to my mind, Jesus was, to use a cookery terminology, "underdone." Perhaps, then, He ought to have been left in the tomb a bit longer. I don't think three days were enough.

The thing is, if you microwave food, it says on the back of the packet exactly how long it should be left in. Timings depend on such variables as the weight of the item and the power setting of the microwave oven itself. Presumably, resurrecting someone in a Jerusalem tomb works on much the same principle. But the problem with Jesus is that He didn't have a message tattooed on his arse to the effect, "For 750 Watt tombs, inter for 72 hours. Check Saviour is piping hot before exhuming." Or maybe He once did have one, but it had been scourged off by the Romans a few days previously. Whatever, this meant that the angels (or whoever did the job) pretty much had to guess. And the procedure was made even more problematical because, in those days, tombs had no power rating, and the stones rolled across their entrances didn't have digital LEDs on them, either, to give an accurate timing. Therefore, I imagine that the angels kept rolling the stone back and forth, having exchanges along the lines of "Is He done yet?" - "No, I'd give Him another five minutes if I were you", and so on and so forth, unto ultimate resurrection. Or, as previously stated, given that they did have to guess at it, a semi-resurrection, leastways.

That said, it's possible, I suppose, that the holes in Jesus were actually there for a good, practical reason. Going back to the microwave oven analogy again, when you use one of those, you have to prick holes in the plastic packaging of things like lasagnes and currys before they're irradiated. If you don't, they often explode mid-way through the cooking process. So perhaps Jesus might have exploded, too, if those holes hadn't been left in Him. Then the angels would have had to have scraped Him off the tomb walls before they could let Him outside. If so, He'd probably have looked like one of those chicken and prawn biriani dishes that you often see puked up on pavements after closing time on Friday evenings. Hardly the sort of image to inspire a Piero della Francesca Renaissance painting. And certainly not a new religion.

That's how I hope it all panned out, anyway. Because, if it didn't and Jesus was underdone, anyone receiving a Communion Host today at Mass - a "Body of Christ" - could well risk getting a dose of botulism or e-Coli from it, too. Then they'd be the ones hoping to be resurrected in three days' time.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Two things.Firstly,was he cruxified?The Umma believe not.Secondly."Joe cooked a ragout,the ingredients of which were never identified.Behavioural sciences at Langley sent Clarice Starling to investigate".Body parts found in Hertfordshire.Joe,do you need to tell us something?Dr Slavko...Dr Slavko...Clarice echoes.Joe puts hat on."I'm having an old friend for dinner".

Joe Slavko said...

1) The Umma are incorrect. But what can you expect from adherents of what's basically a rip-off religion?

2) I categorically deny having anything to do with those body parts. I do not litter.

Anonymous said...

Yesterday, when preparing a gastonomic masterpiece I decided to accompany the culinary delight with some yorkshire puddings. These, as always, were not simply michelin approved, but made me and others present climx with sheer gourmet joy.

Nonetheless, this wholesome episode allowed me to recognise, that if Jesus had heralded from the land of white roses, he too would of perhaps faired a bit better in his biblical plight and saved himself and others a whole heap of pain.

The preparation and subsequent eating of flat bread, around Jesus's neck of the woods is well reputed. The reason being, he and others were shit at cooking. Had he been able to make his bread rise aloft, Judus and others may have thought, ' Blimey, this man knows his shit _ best not sell him down the fucking river or else he'll have me'. Unfortunately, as we all well know - this, alas, wasnt to be.
Judus, instead maintained, "Fuck that - if he cant even get his bread to rise how can he expect to convert an entire world to his doctrine and then return from the fucking dead. He's having a laugh. I'll the money please Bob'.

And we all know what happened next.

Joe Slavko said...

Just making his bread rise in the culinary sense might have been enough. During Passover, yeast-free "unleaven" bread is eaten, which can't rise. However, if Jesus had simply done His stuff and made the Last Supper breads turn out like a Warburton's Milk Loaf, as you say, that could easily have influenced waverers, such as Judas.