43: The Evening of the First Day of the Week

Prompt 43 asked what a "string of laughter" made me think of. The answer is what my friends and I know as Communion at the No Peanut Table. But I've told that story enough. Here's a story I put together while thinking about the No Peanut incident.

In the evening of that first day of the week, the disciples had met together with the doors locked for fear of the Jews. -John 20:19a (J.B. Phillips Translation)

Peter looked around at his friends. It had only been a little more than two days, since his teacher and friend and the son of the living God had died as a common criminal on a Roman cross. And he, Peter, had denied three times that he even knew the man who meant everything to him.

Philip was pacing the floor, jumping at every sound. Thaddeus sat in a corner, staring off into space. The others kept themselves busy by doing little chores or arguing. They were frightened, not the least because it seemed like someone had stolen Jesus's body. The women had found the tomb empty that morning.

Peter knew what he had to do, and he hoped that, if things didn't work out right, they'd all forgive him. Somehow.

"Thomas was right," Peter said at last.

"What do you mean?" John asked. "Where is Thomas?"

"Thomas left. He told me this morning that we were all cowards," Peter said. "He said that he felt that despite everything that happened, we should continue going out and helping people, doing the kinds of things Jesus wanted us to do."

"But you saw what they did to Jesus!" Philip said.

"How can I show my face again," Thaddeus said. "I told everyone that he was the Messiah."

Simon the Canaanite asked, "Well, do you agree with him?" 

"What did you say?" John asked.

And here it was, Peter thought. Let's hope this works.

"I denied it," Peter said. Then, after a minute, he added, "It's kind of what I do these days."

John looked at him with shock. How could he be so tasteless.

But then, Andrew caught Bartholomew's eyes, and they both started laughing.

Then the sons of Zebedee, John and James, started laughing too.

Then Matthew, and Simon the Canaanite, and the others one by one started laughing, as if a string of laughter were being pulled around the room.

By this time Andrew and Bartholomew were laughing so hard that they were raising their hands and trying to catch their breath.

Peter started laughing with them. And then, finally, John smiled, and giggled, and started laughing.

And then they were all laughing, all of them, some of them doubled over. They weren't laughing at the joke anymore, they were laughing because they wanted to laugh, because they were together and that, even despite everything that happened and everything that would happen, they had three years with Jesus and who knows how many with each other and it just felt good to laugh.

And when they had all gotten so that their cheeks were hurting and tears were streaming down their cheeks from all the guffaws and joy and then...

Jesus came and stood right in the middle of them and said, “Peace be with you!” -John 20:19b (J.B. Phillips Translation) 

If you're wondering what the apostle Thomas was doing all this time, I have written a much longer piece about that too, but I think it needs some serious editing and re-writing.

Copyright 2012. Timothy H. Ruppel. All rights reserved.

This work by Timothy H. Ruppel is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.