Beauty for Cremains

When the stone rolled away, Jesus of Nazareth wasn’t there.

“You’re goddamn right he’s not there,” said Thomas. “Someone obviously stole the body!”

“Now, now,” said Peter. “We don’t know what happened to our Lord.”

“I still say someone took him.”

The disciples then noticed a smoke hanging in the air.

“You smell that, right?”

“I do,” Peter replied.

The two men went down by the river and saw a great pyre in full flame mode. The smoke rose in great black and gray fumes from the orange and red fire.

“What is this?” Thomas asked a man standing beside the fire.

“It’s what you would call Jesus.”

“So, you’re just cremating Him without permission or anything?” Thomas questioned.

“Yeah,” the man said.

“What’s your name?” Peter asked.

“You’ll find it in the Book of Life,” the man said.

“Are you sure about that?” Thomas questioned.

“Of course.”

“So on that pyre is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?” Peter asked.

“It is.”

The three men just stood there for a moment letting that skin in a bit.

“So you stole Him out of the tomb….” wondered Peter.

“Yes.”

“So, he’s not going to be like the figure he was on earth?”

“No.”

“This is ridiculous. He was supposed to show us that he was forever living. He had scars from the cross. He had the marks to prove that he was crucified and that he resurrected from the grave,” Peter posited.

“I guess that’s not going to happen, now,” the man said.

“I cast a bit of doubt here and there myself,” Thomas explained. “This just seems to be out of the way of understanding. I just can’t imagine Jesus as a pile of ashes.”

“It’s beauty for ashes, isn’t it?” the man said.

Thomas and Peter looked at each other.

“You can keep the scriptures, fellows. I’m doing what needs to be done. The world is better off without Him. Any trace that he existed ought to be extinguished for all time. If you want to see Him, I made sketches of him and there was a shroud, too.”

“Did you say we can see this?”

“He pointed a finger a few feet away from the pyre. Peter and Thomas journeyed down to find it. They marched back to the mystery man.

“We found no sketches, no shroud,” Thomas said.

“Why don’t you believe it?”

“I don’t believe in anything I can’t conceptualize based on reality.”

“Oh.”

Peter looked at Thomas, then the man. “We need you to douse this fire. It is in violation of the ordinance handed down by the Lord our God. It is especially a desecration against the Messiah.”

“I may cast shadows on most matters, but Jesus was supposed to show me his scars so I could believe. It was supposed to happen. Now it’s not happening.”

“That’s right.”

Peter spoke up. “Goddamnit! Why did you do this? You’re supposed to be a caretaker of the grave.”

“Who said that?”

“If you’re not a robber of bodies, then you are a cruel individual,” Thomas leveled.

The man shrugged.

“Are you Satan?”

“The ‘enemy’ is not my boss. I work alone.”

Peter started to rush the man. Thomas stopped him short.

“Assaulting me will not undo this. It is finished, it is done. Jesus of Nazareth was a man. He had terrible ideas and hated all of existence. He was the one who will forever be remembered as the ugliest person and the best in poetry. That’s all he was. Everything he’d done was to cripple the mind. He furthered the sickness in the world. He will lay the groundwork for evil men to come.”