by James Lark
‘Jesus came to serve,’ he said. ‘Now, as an example of the Lord’s love for his people – his love for you – I ask you to allow me to wash your feet.’
Recalling the recent conversation in which Bishop Slocombe had insisted that being a priest was all about ‘standing at the front and looking fabulous’, Milne took a rather unfabulous towel and knelt down in front of the bowl of water which had been prepared for him earlier. His congregation began lining up.
A shadow fell over the bowl of water. Milne put his hands into it, ready to begin washing feet. Then he heard a man’s voice speaking to him. ‘Let me wash your feet,’ it said.
‘That’s very kind, but I can’t …’ began Milne, looking up. His voice trailed off uncertainly.
‘Time to let somebody else love you,’ said Jesus gently, taking the towel from Milne and kneeling down at the bowl of water.
Milne began to wish that he’d had the presence of mind to put on a clean pair of socks.
Good Friday
As usual, there were those who had predicted the end. And as usual they were wrong (though only some of them saw that what they should have predicted was the beginning). As usual, there were those who clung to a belief that nothing would happen. They were wrong as well, but all the same many of them continued to cling to their belief.
But there were those who didn’t know what to believe, except that they had been offered an invitation that it would be foolish to turn down. Those were the people who were ready and they knew when the time had come.
In the end, it wasn’t a long journey – merely a step, leaving behind the things that had been. And those who took it saw a new earth altogether, and the things that had been were no longer worth remembering.
All that Bishop Slocombe saw was an empty street. Unusually empty, in fact. This was London, but where were all the people?
The various assembled Bishops waiting with him milled around impatiently and Bishop Slocombe squinted, straining his eyes to peer as far down Fleet Street as he could see, his hope fading with the light of the unusually grey afternoon. He couldn’t believe that Jesus was going to let him down like this. He now felt foolish for putting so much trust in him, for organising all this. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t had enough to do in Holy Week.
‘Can’t we just get on with it?’ complained the Bishop of Maidstone, shivering in the cold morning air. ‘It’s not as if we need Jesus to do the service.’ Some of the other Bishops muttered their approval at this suggestion.
‘What do you reckon, Findlay?’ bellowed the Bishop of London, heavily slapping Slocombe’s back. Slocombe winced, both at the back-slapping and the use of his first name.
‘Well … I don’t know. I rather thought he might make his own way here,’ Slocombe slowly said.
‘What, so there’s no actual guarantee that he was coming in the first place?’ asked the Bishop of Rochester, joining the group inquisitively.
‘You should have arranged transport for him,’ the Bishop of Ely wisely informed Slocombe.
‘I did arrange transport for him,’ spat Slocombe. ‘He didn’t use it.’
‘Maybe he wanted to walk it. Across the water,’ giggled the Bishop of Durham.
‘I didn’t know there was water between Collyweston and London,’ said the Bishop of Ely, frowning.
‘No, no, it was a joke,’ the Bishop of Durham clarified hastily.
‘I can’t believe I came all the way from Maidstone for a no-show.’
‘Oh, do shut up!’ roared the Bishop of London. ‘Let’s get in and start the service, there’s no point in standing around out here any longer.’
The Bishops nodded and made their way into the cathedral as Slocombe gave a last, longing look down Fleet Street.
‘Never mind, Slocombe,’ the Bishop of London loudly reassured him, giving him another slap on the back, ‘we’ll carry on and do it without him.’
Slocombe wasn’t sure that a dramatised passion was going to be quite the same with an empty cross, but he nodded, anyway. The Bishop of London was right – they didn’t need Jesus, they could jolly well do it themselves. That was the Anglican way.
Holy Saturday
‘Andy!’ If it wasn’t Gerard Feehan! How relaxed, how happy he looked now – and so much more adult, as if he’d grown into his body at last.
‘Hello, Gerard! How’s your mother?’
‘She’s very well, very well indeed.’ Gerard smiled, his eyes gleaming. ‘She’s discovered ballroom dancing.’
‘Really!’ chuckled Biddle. ‘And yourself?’
It was such a bright, clear day. The blue sky stretched ahead of them with the green grass and the fresh smell of spring and Biddle felt that he’d never been so contented. In the distance, a steady stream people discovered with joy the glorious new world that lay before them. Gerard continued to smile serenely and a giant pincer reached out and stroked his knee. He laughed carelessly, glancing lovingly at the giant lobster next to him.
This nautical theme was certainly a little bit strange. Biddle himself had assumed that it would be smart–casual – but never mind, there seemed to be quite a few people milling around in black tie as well.
He had expected there to be more people he knew here; it wasn’t that it bothered him, and he couldn’t really remember why, but originally he’d imagined it was going to be more of a party for priests than anyone else.
‘You know, I wonder if I make a better shellfish than I do a vicar,’ mused Alex Milne, crawling out from under a large crab’s shell with a bottle of rosé and two glasses.
A threadfin rainbowfish was trying to get his attention. ‘Of course,’ remarked Vernon Tait, walking past in a sailor suit, ‘the rainbowfish is technically a freshwater fish, so I’m not entirely convinced that it’s appropriate at a nautical party.’
‘What are you doing here?’ asked Biddle, strangely pleased to see the dentist at the gathering.
‘Oh, I know,’ cooed Vernon with a hand gesture of mutual astonishment. ‘It’s like they say, I suppose; I do every priest in the area so maybe an invitation was inevitable.’ He raised a knowing eyebrow and moved on.
‘I’ll tell you what, Andy,’ Milne enthused, ‘you have to try a glass of this rosé, it’s … it’s not the acidic, sickly stuff we used to have. Whoever bought drinks for this party really knew what they were doing.’
‘I’m not sure I should – it does give me a terrible hangover,’ Biddle said.
‘But listen, Andy, it won’t! In fact, with this wine, the more you drink the clearer everything gets.’
The rainbowfish was still trying to get his attention, but by-golly that rosé did look good. Perhaps if he dealt with that first … Biddle walked towards Alex, who started to pour, the bottle clinking against the glass with no noise, nor silence—
The rainbowfish was gesturing more emphatically. ‘Come and have breakfast!’ it was shouting. ‘Andy, come on, it’s divine,’ Alex was saying, holding out the glass of pink, glistening nectar.
‘Is there room for another crab here?’ A second crustacean had arrived and the shell opened to reveal a beautiful, smiling young woman.
‘Annalie?’ mouthed Alex.
‘Andy!’ The rainbowfish took off its head and Biddle met the pleading, sad eyes of the man inside with a missing heartbeat. ‘Are you coming?’ Jesus was asking, beseechingly.
Biddle took the glass. He could smell the rosé now and it was irresistible, a sweet but fresh scent and oh, so enticing, but even as he put the glass to his lips he could feel it slip away from him, in the same way as it always did, but this time – no, this time he would taste it before it went away, and he tipped the contents desperately into his mouth but he could feel the glass slipping from his hand.
Biddle jolted awake with a start.
He breathed out, slowly. That dream again – the silly one about the party. Every detail was so vivid, every night, and it always took him a moment to pull himself back into reality. He supposed it was Jesus’ fault,
really, for putting the ideas in his head.
He sat up. When he put his hand on his pillow, he was surprised to find that it was damp with sweat. Why on earth was such a trivial, silly dream bothering him so much? There were so many other things to think about, to look forward to. There was the Easter Vigil in the evening to get ready for, and all the exciting Easter services the next day. He had sermons to write and orders of service to finalise. Once all of that was out of the way, then he could worry about the meaning of this stupid dream.
Not that it had any meaning. This was real life, not some musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Biddle sat in bed for a while longer, somehow lacking the energy to get started on the work he had to do. Despite his having so much to get ready, everything seemed somehow empty, even purposeless. It’s a perfectly natural comedown after all the richness, the emotion and the grief of the last few days, he reasoned. This is a day of reflection, of nothingness, a time of waiting. That’s what Holy Saturday is all about. Or Black Saturday, as it’s sometimes known.
Even so, his list of jobs didn’t seem the most inspiring thing to have to get out of bed for.
He yawned. He had rather lost track of the Messiah’s comings and goings, but he would have been willing to bet that Jesus had found a more exciting way to spend the day.
Easter Sunday
Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, Reverend Biddle went up to his spare room, bringing with him the Easter egg he had bought for the King of Ages. In spite of his busy week, he had spent some time looking for a suitable egg; he had toyed with the idea of a rather flippant choice, a design aimed at children with pictures to colour in, but in the end he decided that it was safest to go for a respectable, adult brand of chocolate. Without knowing whether the Messiah even liked chocolate, it was a difficult call; all the same, he was nervously looking forward to seeing Jesus’ reaction.
But when he reached the spare room he found the door was wide open; the curtains had been pulled back, letting in the streams of bright sunlight, which lit every corner of the empty room.
Biddle quickly checked that nobody was using the upstairs bathroom, then, remembering Jesus’ habit of getting up early and making breakfast, he hurried downstairs to check the kitchen. There was no sign of either breakfast or Jesus.
Biddle checked the other rooms, but it didn’t take him long to reach an unsettling conclusion: apart from himself, the house was empty.
He stood in his living room, perplexed. He’d had every intention to make up for it after the madness was over – a nice Easter dinner, a more relaxed week after that, maybe a bit of time away from the church. He had tried to make that clear to Jesus. But maybe he hadn’t been careful enough to make sure Jesus understood him.
Jesus had definitely been at some of the services. Obviously not on Good Friday, when Biddle assumed he’d turned up to St Paul’s as arranged. And somehow, Biddle guiltily realised, he had barely thought about Jesus since then. Had Jesus been at the Vigil last night? Given the disastrous vivat fanfare the choir had performed for some reason, Biddle was inclined to hope not.
Surely Jesus hadn’t left as a result of the vivat fanfare?
Whatever the reason, he’d certainly gone.
Sadly, Biddle put the Easter egg down on his 1950s hostess trolley. There was no reason to think that Jesus had gone forever. Maybe he would turn up for the Easter-day morning communion.
But maybe he wouldn’t.
Epilogue
The sunlight streamed across an unremarkable part of England with a vigorous, beginning-of-spring energy, lighting the plain exterior of St Barnabas church – its wooden door and stained-glass windows, its noticeboard displaying the service times, an advert for the Tuesday Mothers-and-Children Group, and an orange piece of cardboard displaying the poorly-printed motto:
NO JESUS, NO HOPE – KNOW JESUS, KNOW HOPE!
Inside, Reverend Andy Biddle stood up from his chair and turned to face the congregation. Beaming at them, as was particularly appropriate on this most joyful of days, he cast his eyes over the faces looking back at him, hopefully scanning the rows further back for one face in particular. Although he hadn’t really expected to see who he was looking for, he still felt a small jolt of disappointment: Jesus was not there. He had definitely gone.
Indeed, his whole congregation seemed smaller than usual, particularly given that it was Easter. Was there a bug going round? It was most unusual not to see the Feehans in the congregation – Mrs Feehan never missed a service. But there was no sign of her or Gerard. Indeed, there was no sign of the many new people they had welcomed to the church only one week previously, something which Biddle found particularly disappointing. Of course he knew that they had primarily come to hear Jesus preach, he had simply hoped that they might show some commitment to the church once they had been to one service and seen how friendly it was.
But he couldn’t blame them if they had decided to go elsewhere. Not now that Jesus had gone. Truly, Jesus had opened up a whole new world to all of them and what could be more natural than that people would want to get out and explore it. Biddle would certainly do that himself one day, but he couldn’t just turn his back on the old one, not at the moment. There were too many things to deal with.
Biddle looked wistfully right to the back of the darkened church. Why was it that the sun never cast any light at all into the shadowy building?
He pulled his attention back to the expectant, though already bored-looking, upturned faces, and drew breath. ‘Good morning!’ he announced, smiling widely. ‘Today we celebrate the risen Christ, who died for our sins, but who has returned from the tomb and is alive! Therefore, using the responses on the sheets in the pews, let us praise his name – Christ is alive!’
‘Allelujah, allelujah,’ the congregation read. It was an Easter liturgy which Biddle had spent many hours working on, combining what he saw as the best of the Anglican and Catholic traditions with a modern language more accessible to a full congregation including children. He felt that he’d hit the mark exactly and was quite proud of the achievement. It was a pity that Jesus wouldn’t be there to hear it, but there wasn’t time to worry about that now. Though it was a thought that continued to distract him, and he found himself stumbling over words as he continued:
‘Through his resurrection he has given us life in abundance. Christ is alive!’
‘Allelujah, allelujah,’ the congregation joylessly chanted back.
Bernard Lomas, who was enjoying the ritual of Biddle’s Easter service immensely and wondering why he’d never tried out this whole religion thing before, leant over to Ted Sloper in the choir stalls. ‘Did you hear?’ he said, excitedly. ‘He said “erection” instead of “resurrection”!’
‘He is risen indeed,’ muttered Ted sardonically. Ted wasn’t in the mood to laugh. He was still feeling bruised by the mess the choir had made of his vivat fanfare the previous evening. He hadn’t expected miracles – though, what with Jesus in the congregation, a tiny one surely wouldn’t have been too much to ask – but the choir had truly excelled themselves. Even by their standards, it had been spectacularly awful.
‘Allelujah, allelujah,’ chanted the members of the choir around Ted, in response to another of Biddle’s pithy Easter soundbites. They could have been responding to anything at all, for all the awareness their glazed expressions showed.
Ted looked down, unable to bear facing them any longer. The vivat fanfare had been the last straw; he was on the verge of packing in the job of choir director altogether.
Then again, he had been on the verge of packing it in for the last seventeen years.
Lindsay Phair sat next to her husband in a pew in the middle of the church, a fixed look of disdain on her face. She could see Robert’s distant smile out of the corner of her eye and despised him for it. What was there to smile about? There was precious little to enjoy here. It was as if the whole church had forgotten what Easter was supposed to be about. She couldn’t
see much sign of joy around her.
They had decided to carry on going to St Barnabas, though, for a while at least. Since the vicar had turned out not to be gay, it would be wrong to hold it against him – not that there was any evidence that he was a particularly moral character, but until they found somewhere better, it would do. At least their children might have some education in coping with the world.
She sniffed self-pityingly. Actually, she was starting to doubt that any church was in the least bit equipped to deal with coping with the world at all. It was only a matter of time before she gave up on the whole pointless facade altogether.
Robert Phair listened to his wife sniff and continued to smile distantly. He could tell that she wasn’t happy and knew that they would probably end up arguing about it later. Insofar as they ever did argue, which was to say that Lindsay would generally do the arguing and he would gently agree with her.
Funny how she managed to sustain arguments for so long, really.
Now wasn’t the time to worry about it, he thought, keeping an eye on his daughters, who were drawing with crayons on the chairs next to him. Esther’s nose was running, but he didn’t have a tissue so there wasn’t anything he could do about it.
Sathan Petty-Saphon was not impressed with Biddle’s Easter liturgy, but she was inclined to let it pass. The modern language was inappropriate for such a major festival, but at least it was a liturgy. A quick letter to the vicar would encourage him to make his contributions a little more traditional in the future, and the signs were that he was gradually learning his lesson.