WARNING: Okay, you might have guessed that there is Christian content in this…maybe. Just in case you haven't, I'll let you know now that there is.

Chapter 33: The Easter Pageant

"So…do you want to come along?" Tina asked Terrance.

"Sure. It's been forever and a half since I've had a holiday, and this will be better than looking all over town for control spires in the sleet."

Tina nodded. "They haven't really put me on control-spire seek patrol…that's probably my mom's doing. But, anyhow, it starts tomorrow night."

"Great. That will give me time to get ready."

"'Get ready?'" Tina chuckled. "This isn't exactly a formal occasion."

Terrance shrugged. "By the way, I know a few things about the Easter story…doesn't the tomb get sealed?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"Oh, it's because I happen to have something that could pass as a sealing wax for the pageant."

"I see. That will fit right into the plot. Thanks."

"Don't mention it. You said that Matt was supposed to be Jesus?"

"Yep."

"Hmm…just checking." After Tina left, Terrance sneered. This fits into my plans even better than this base, he thought to himself. If I seal Matt in that catacomb, he'll smother…and with him out of the way, they won't be able to trans-mega digivolve and make that digimon that defeated Obelimn! And I'll trash everything with Rainmyotismon on my side!

******

"Could you remind me again what this is for?"

"You'll be supervising the orphans during the Easter egg hunt," Tina answered, laying another strip of neon-colored duct tape on top of Rika's poncho.

"And…why the poncho?"

"The kids have been taught to recognize the green duct tape, and it's easier to get the duct tape on plastic than it is on fabric. Oh, and you'll want to carry this," Tina added, handing Rika a book bag. "There's a first aid kit in there, along with extra candy in case you find a kid who hasn't found any eggs. And there's one other thing." Tina handed Rika a large umbrella. "The most likely emergency that'll happen is that it starts raining."

"But…this umbrella looks like a giant carrot!" Rika wasn't lying: the umbrella had orange, contoured fabric and a green handle.

"It's supposed to look like a carrot."

"But....why??"

"I dunno. We found it in the warehouse for some dot-com company: vegetableaccesories.com."

Rika let out a sigh. "I know I don't want to get mad again, but…you know I hate cute with a passion."

Tina thought for a moment, and then said, "Then we'll switch umbrellas," Tina answered.

"Thanks…" Rika's mouth dropped open as she saw that Tina's folding umbrella was designed to look like a stick of celery.

But Tina reassured her, "This one is smaller. You can keep it in the bag until it rains, and then it won't look like a vegetable when it's open."

Rika sighed again.

"Rika, you seem too gloomy, now. It's like you've traded being mad for being miserable. You're getting bad for bad. You need to learn to enjoy things."

"I guess you're right."

"Relax," Tina said, hugging Rika, "This might just be your type of humor."

"Humor? You already told me the Easter story; there wasn't anything in it that was funny."

"I tweaked it."

******

Ingrid had never felt more contented in her life: she was snuggled between the two people that she loved and trusted the most: Tina and Natasha. It was too bad that Ingrid didn't know more words: she had to express her extreme joy, and she had very little to work with. So, she invented a new word: "Tinatasha!" Natasha and Tina were both giving Ingrid a lot of attention, which was the thing she prized the most…especially coming from those two.

It was bitterly cold, so the three of them were sharing a blanket for warmth. This only pulled the three of them closer, physically, and that made Ingrid all the more energized. As great as it was that she felt this way, they would have to calm her down for the pageant, so that she wouldn't be a disruption.

They were sitting with a big crowd on a hillside that overlooked a larger, walk-in grave. This grave was covered with cardboard and construction paper that made it look like it was made of dirt and grass rather than carved granite. It was going to be the stage for the pageant.

Hare walked on stage wearing the Sunday vest Tina had given him. He said, in a confident and slightly self-centered tone, "Good evening, ladies and gentlemon! I'm all glad you could come here, today, and that it's such greeeeaaaattt weather!" (To be sure, it was great weather; the sky was overcast and a dark grayish-black, which meant that the luftwaffles were powerless. Also, a cloudy sky meant nothing; it could rain out of clear and cloudy skies alike.) Hare set an absolutely huge hat on a podium in front of him and said, "For my first trick, I will pull a human being out of my hat!" He reached into the hat and pulled out Cody's head.

"What do you think you're doing?!" Cody asked.

"What do you mean?"

"This holiday isn't about you! Get out of here!"

Hare sighed heavily, shook his head, and stormed off stage.

Cody climbed the rest of the way out of the hat and said to the audience, "I'm not sure how many of you know anything about Easter, but the rabbit has nothing to do with the Easter story. The companies of Earth capitalized on the Easter traditions and turned a religious holiday into a 50%-off sale.(1)

"The story of Easter involves our God, Jesus Christ. You might think that this is crazy, but He died two days before Easter, and He rose from the dead on Easter. You may be wondering how He died: if He's a God, isn't He immortal? Well, He chose to make Himself mortal, but somehow He could be both God and Human at the same time. Somehow, the way celestial politics were set up at the time, He had to die so that human beings wouldn't be estranged from God, because human beings are evil, and God is good.

"Even though He was an innocent Man, He died a criminal's death. He died one of the worst possible deaths in the history of the world. For nearly a day before He died, He was deprived of sleep and food, and He was beaten a great deal. But the execution itself was a device invented by the Roman Empire: it was called a crux. The crux was a collection of boards that the prisoner was nailed to by the wrists and hung upon. On the crux, the criminal had to go through a lot of exhaustive effort just to breathe, and eventually the criminal would run out of strength and smother. After starving and being beaten and whipped, Jesus was hung on the crux and He died more quickly than most criminals.

"On the day after He died, someone who had followed Jesus' religious teaching asked the judge who had given Jesus' sentence if he could have Jesus' body. The judge gave permission, and they took Jesus' body, cleaned Him off, and took him to a tomb to give Him a proper burial."

As Cody spoke, Davis and Tai were carrying Matt on a stretcher, into the open grave. Matt's entire body was covered with a heavy blanket, except for his arm, which bore the scars of crucifixion for the audience to see.

Davis asked Tai, "Are you sure you want to do this, Joseph? I mean, you had this grave dug out for your family! This Man wasn't related to you at all."

"Hey, He deserves the best! In fact, this Man deserved to die of old age…I take that back: He didn't deserve to die at all."

Davis sighed. "I'll admit that much: He was innocent. But…well…" Davis seemed to run out of words. He just plain stopped talking and continued the burial preparations.

Sora, Kari, and Misty were all dressed in black and looking on at the burial with worry in their eyes. Cody explained, "They were the mourners, and they knew that Jesus' burial preparations were incomplete unless they could apply spices to His body. But none of them had any spices at the time, and it was late---too late to buy any, so they had to go home.

"The following day was another religious holiday, one that happened once a week. It was called The Sabbath, and the people were not supposed to work or buy anything on that day. But the Roman government didn't necessarily follow this Jewish law, so a few of Jesus' enemies went to the judge with another request."

As Cody was speaking, Izzy came on stage right with a large pruning shears over his shoulder. But at the same time, Terrance, Veemon, and Gabumon came in stage left.

Izzy was the gardener of this cemetery in the pageant, so he asked, "Excuse me, but this is my boss's property. Might I inquire the reason for your presence?"

"We're here to seal the tomb and watch it," Gabumon answered.

"What for?"

"To make sure body snatchers don't take the body. The person buried here said that He would rise from the dead tomorrow, and we want to make sure that His followers don't steal the body."

Terrance cut in, with a hint of malicious intent in his voice, "Nobody is going in or out of that grave."

"But…no one has put burial spices on the body! Tomorrow, my boss, Joseph, is going to---"

"This tomb is to be guarded and sealed; you need to get out of the way!"

"My master has permission from Judge Pilate to have the body! It's not your place to---"

"There's a new order from Judge Pilate," Veemon cut in. He handed Izzy a scroll, which he took and read. He gave it back to Veemon in disgust. "All right. I'll tell my boss. But he's going to get the preparations complete; knowing him, he won't let Jesus go un-honored."

As Izzy stormed off stage, Veemon and Gabumon rolled a huge stone in front of the tomb, and Terrance took out a vial of some strange liquid. (Nobody knew it, but the liquid was filled with nanobots, and he was going to use it to vacuum-seal the tomb.) He poured the liquid over the entire edge of the stone, and then left Veemon and Gabumon with their plastic spears to guard the tomb.

Cody went on, "The guards stood there for hours, all day and all night, making sure that Jesus' disciples didn't try to steal His body to make it look like He'd risen from the dead. But no one came…no one that was human, that is…"

T.K. whispered from behind the stage, "Are you ready, Patamon?"

"Let's get this show on the road! Patamon, digivolve to…Angemon!"

Veemon and Gabumon looked at Angemon with faked terror, and then both fainted. Angemon then began the process of trying to move the stone at the entrance to the tomb. Thanks to Terrance, this was no easy job: Angemon tried pushing the stone with both hands, and the stone didn't budge. He put his back into the job, trying to push with his legs. The stone still didn't move. Finally, he tried prying the stone out of the way with his staff. His eyes were squeezed shut with effort as he pressed on the staff with all his might, and he felt something give. His staff was slowly but surely moving forward, but he didn't hear the rock moving…he looked, and he saw that he had just bent his staff. A bead of sweat trickled down the back of his neck.

Seeing that this was an opportunity to help out, Gatomon nudged Cody. "There were two angels!" she whispered.

Cody relayed to the audience, "Two angels appeared, and together, they moved the stone out of the way."

"Gatomon, digivolve to…Angewomon!" Angewomon set one hand on the stone, and, after about two seconds of pushing, there was a loud crackling noise, and the stone came loose.

Terrance snarled. So much for killing Matt! I'll have to do that the old-fashioned way, he thought to himself.

As he was thinking this, something odd happened: Hare, still dressed in his Sunday best as the Easter Bunny, staggered out of the tomb, gasping for oxygen. "Wouldn't ya know it? I walk in there for fifteen seconds to fix my wedgie, and that's the exact time they have to pick to shut me in and smother me! And I---" Hare looked at Angemon and Angewomon, swooned, and joined Gabumon and Veemon on the ground.

"That's what you get for trying to elbow in on the real story!" Angemon shot back.

Cody explained, "The tomb wasn't opened so that Jesus could come out. In fact, He was freed from some of the physical limits that we are bound to: after this happened, He often kind of teleported around. But the real reason that the tomb was opened so that the mourners could see that Jesus was no longer inside.

"Now, the only ones who knew about this were the guards…and they aren't in any condition to tell anyone. So the mourners still thought that Jesus was dead, and that his burial preparations weren't over. So, early in the morning on the first day of the week, they bought perfumes and spices for Jesus' body."

Sora, Kari, and Misty were walking on stage, and Kari said, "Hold on, a minute," to Misty and Sora.

"Salome, what is it?"

"How are we going to get into the tomb? I mean, we know that they had a huge stone for a door to the tomb… How can we put these spices on His body if we can't get in? I don't know if even all of us together have enough strength to move the stone."

Sora looked down at the ground. "You're right…maybe there will be someone around the grave that can help us…there probably won't be, but…" A tear rolled down Sora's face and made a wet dot on the makeshift, cardboard stage.

Kari set her hand on Sora's shoulder. "Mary…we've come this far. There is a way around that stone; we just have to find somebody to help us. Joseph was one of Jesus' followers; he'd let us in if we asked."

Sora nodded and sniffed back the tears. "Let's get this over with, already. I feel like I can't go on, knowing He's gone…"

"That's enough, So---Mary!" Kari spat. "We have a job to do. Let's get to it, already!" Kari half-led and half-dragged Sora to the tomb, and, when she saw it was open, she gasped. Sora looked up at the empty tomb, and she dropped the glass bottle of perfume that was in her hands as she covered her open mouth. The bottle shattered on the ground.

"B…b-body snatchers!" Sora cried. She covered her face and ran off stage, sobbing.

Misty and Kari didn't follow her lead. Instead, they looked into the tomb---and leapt back as they saw Angemon and Angewomon come out. They let out screams of faked fear, but Angemon motioned for them to calm down. "Don't be afraid. We know that you're here looking for Jesus, but He's not here!" Angemon said with an overjoyed chuckle. "See for yourself! He has risen from the dead!"

Kari and Misty were a little hesitant to move at all, let alone enter a tomb.

"There's nothing to be afraid of," Angewomon added.

Kari and Misty swallowed hard, and looked into the tomb…and, just as the two angel digimon had said, there was no one inside. The burial shroud that had covered Jesus' face was neatly folded, and the blanket that had been over His body was undisturbed…as if Jesus' body had dissolved into the air.

"But…if the burial clothes were undisturbed, then it couldn't have been grave robbers!" Misty said.

"But then if---" Kari looked back at the angels, and they were gone…vanished.

Misty and Kari looked at each other with terrified, but happy expressions.

Cody said, "Even though they had half a mind to join the guards and the Easter Bunny in being unconscious on the ground, they instead went back and told everyone. The problem was that they were so much in shock that what they were saying was barely coherent, so nobody understood much, except that something strange and earthshaking had happened at Jesus' tomb. There was another problem, too: Mary Magdalene got there first, and she hadn't seen the two angels. She still thought that grave robbers had taken Jesus' body. Half of Jesus' followers thought that Mary and Salome might have gone nuts, but two of them decided to go and see for themselves what had happened. They ran, because they were eager to see this, and they remembered that Jesus had said that He would rise from the dead after the Sabbath."

While Cody had been saying this, Izzy had been cleaning up the broken glass, and, as attention came back to stage, he shrugged and said to the audience, "It's a living, working here."

Willis and Michael ran on stage and looked at the tomb and the fainted guards. Willis arrived first, but he didn't go into the tomb. He stood next to it, panting and looking inside. Michael ran into the tomb, though, and looked at the burial shroud. They both looked puzzled, and stared at the vacant catacomb. After a moment of silence, Willis walked into the tomb with Michael.

Michael said, "John…John… What's going on here? Grave robbers wouldn't have gone through the trouble to fold up the cloths…so what happened…?!"

"Well, Peter…hmm…" Willis stood there with a look of vexation, but his look slowly changed into joy and understanding. "It's…true!" he whispered.

"What? Have you figured this out?"

"Yes, I have! He isn't dead, anymore!"

"What?!"

"He is risen! …He is risen! He's not dead anymore!!" Willis ran out of the tomb, laughing for joy at this discovery. His feet barely touched the ground, he was so happy.

Michael sighed in frustration. He walked out of the cave just as Sora was coming back. Her look clearly said, "What's with John?"

Michael shook his head. "As if it wasn't enough that this happened, everyone is going crazy, too! First, Salome and Mary, and then John flips his lid!"

"When is the bad news going to stop?!" Sora cried, sobbing again.

"I don't know," Michael said, taking Sora into his arms. He tried to shush her crying. "None of this makes any sense; I know…this is going to take forever to sort out." After a pause, he added, "Maybe time will help. Maybe they'll get over this mass hysteria and things can go back to normal, again."

"You mean back to the way things were before Jesus came into our lives?" Sora shook her head. "Before I met Jesus, I was demon-posessed. Those demons…you don't know what they can do to your mind. They---"

"I don't want to hear about it any more than you want to go through that, again. But we have to face reality."

Mary sobbed again. "What do we do now?!"

"I'll try talking some sense into John…and getting the other followers to do the same. We can work through this."

"I just wish I could see Him again."

"Wishing does you no good. What you wish or think doesn't change the truth. That's a hard fact, but it's true."

Sora nodded and sat down on a gravestone, crying.

As Michael exited the stage, Cody cut in, "As true as Peter's words were, his perception of the truth was…well, it was a little less than accurate. Mary was about to find this out…"

Matt crept onto the stage behind Sora. "Excuse me, miss, but why are you crying?"

Cody said, "She didn't recognize Him right away."

Sora looked up. "You're…one of Joseph's servants, aren't you? …And, if you're not worried about the open tomb, then you must've had something to do with it being empty."

"I do have something to do with it being empty---"

Sora let out a sigh of relief and stood up, drying her tears. She chuckled in embarrassment at how she had been crying over nothing. She was walking aimlessly and looking at the ground as she talked. "That explains everything. Joseph must've ordered that the body be moved to another tomb. You don't know how worried we were when we saw the tomb empty---we thought body snatchers had taken Him away. And I was so scared, I dropped the perfume I bought for Him. I guess I'll have to buy another bottle…it's too bad; that stuff was expensive. I cleaned out my whole savings to buy it. But I bet I can get a loan from a friend to get more---"

Matt interrupted her: "Mary."

Sora froze in her tracks, with her eyes as wide as saucers. She was too afraid to turn around.

After a long pause, Matt said, "Mary, It's Me."

Sora turned around, shaking like a leaf. Her mouth dropped open and tears continued to roll down her face. "J-Jesus!" she whispered. "T-Teacher? Jesus? I-is is really You?!"

"I told you It was Me."

She fell face down and grabbed Him around the ankles, sobbing for joy.

"Mary," Matt said, kneeling down to her and laying a hand on her shoulder, "Don't hold on to me. I'm not here for this. I'm going back to Heaven, body-and-all, and to my Father, God." He sighed at her misunderstanding. "Mary…you need to go and tell everyone what's happened. Tell them that I am going back to my Father and their Father, to my God and their God."

Sora looked up at Him, still shaking out of fear and crying.

"Go," Matt said, gently but firmly.

Sora dashed off stage in a mess of tears and heavy breathing. Matt watched her go, and his look was pure concern. But this wasn't Jesus' concern for Mary Magdalene: this was Matt's concern for Sora. He wondered if she wasn't faking all the panic and tears that were so apparent in her act…

(1) This is at least true of America. As for the rest of the world, I don't know. I would imagine that there are no Easter sales in Saudi Arabia, for example.