The devil’s look pierced thin smoke-ribbons and fell on his underling, Fireball. “How are things shaping up this Easter?” he asked.
Fireball shrugged. “Normal. Lots of nice outfits being assembled. Florists doing a big business. Choirs tuning up on the old hymns about victory over the grave.”
“Anything serious to our cause?”
“No more than usual. Some of them are always a problem. They mean that creed they repeat. But millions of them probably never dig this Easter thing.”
Satan winced. “I suppose it would avail me nothing to protest your use of this earth-patois.”
“Your pardon, Majesty. But everybody seems to be doing it, especially in America, where I am assigned. Not that I’m ungrateful for the assignment. It’s a great place for doing your thing. Particularly around Christmas or Easter. They really lay it on you then!”
The devil glowered. “In ‘doing your thing,’ as you insist on putting it, you made out a report?”
“Affirmative, Majesty. For one thing, the Greeks seem to be ahead.”
“The Greeks?”
“The Greeks, sir. They had this thing about immortality, remember? Lots of Christians appear to like their ideas better than those in the New Testament. Many of them seem to be taking less and less to the Resurrection.”
“Hmmm. Very interesting. Immortality is fine. Let them talk about it. But muddy the theme as much as possible.”
Fireball nodded. “I know. Play down the centrality of the Resurrection. Shoo them from the fact of how that event motivated the evangelism of the first Christians.”
“That, and much more. Try to keep the word justification out of their minds. They are not to realize why He arose from the dead. And keep them from studying Paul too much, especially where he insists that if Christ did not rise from the dead, then mankind cannot be saved.”
“Noted, Majesty.”
“They must be kept from grasping what the Resurrection has to do with the believer’s personal spiritual power; they must be refrained from associating their religious lives too closely with that open grave!”
“Check, sir.”
“Deflect them from connecting the Resurrection with stewardship also.”
Fireball beamed. “You mean like when Paul comes up with that poetry about the Resurrection, then winds up referring to the passing of the collection plate for the needy?”
“Put it your way. Also, as much as possible keep the Resurrection dissociated from man’s grief over the loss of loved ones. Steer them away from Paul when he tells believers not to mourn over the dead hopelessly—because Someone has ‘defeated’ death.”
“Will do,” said Fireball.
“What really matters, little brother, is that we make immortality becloud the issue. Hide from them that awesome blow to our cause when He quit that grave. The Church today must not feel the force of this thing! Never forget how the young Church felt it—they overrode all our philosophical arguments with their very glow! Easter shone out of them. You can’t stop people who actually believe that death has been done in. Remember how those early Christians kept shouting about the grave being conquered? They could scarcely open their mouths without singing about it. And we didn’t stop them, either.”
“People like that can be dangerous,” agreed Fireball.
“Easter, you understand, isn’t only something that happened in history, but because it did happen in history it causes things to happen yet. Easter is something Christians carry about in the world with them. We have to keep the Resurrection out of history so we can keep it out of human personalities. Ethics is involved, spirituality, stewardship, evangelism—everything!”
“Unquestionably.”
“Think of all the people in the world. Think of all their death-fears, their agonies over loved ones that die. What if they ever really got gripped by this thing—this living faith that death has been done in by Him? How could you hold back that rising tide of joy? How would you kill all that hope?”
“The very thought shakes me,” Fireball said with a shudder.
“Attend me, little brother. Easter is a big date on our calendar. Attack Christianity at its very heart—the Resurrection! Bring that bastion down! Let them sing about immortality, let them preach about it—but let them forget how it is barely a Christian word. It is the Resurrection that must be blotted from their thinking. Keep a blanket over that open grave! Never let them peek in and see that it’s empty. Let the clergymen copy one of their famous and fluent preachers who said that His body lies in a nameless Syrian tomb but His deathless spirit goes marching on. That sort of thing! Only outside that tomb does He have the keys of death and hell! Understand?”
“Understand, Majesty. My assignment is quite clear. I have to steal Easter.”
“Go steal it, then. Swallow up the Resurrection in undefined immortality! Keep Him locked in that tomb and you can keep Christianity locked up there with Him!” Smoke floated about Satan’s grimace. “If the theologians ever really let Him out of that tomb—hell help us! All heaven might break loose!”—LON WOODRUM, evangelist, Hastings, Michigan.
