First, there was a Friday night of black rain as if God had forgotten his promise to Noah.

Next, there was a century of a Saturday, a day that never saw him smile.

Finally, near the end of the longest night before a stone the size of twelve men around a fire that gave off cold three hooded forms stood watch.

There is no fat on the face and hands of the first to speak.

His mouth is a black hold and each word echoes like it traveled a great hollow tunnel to arrive at his lips.

“Goals rule mean. Ends mock middles. Graves rock cradles. Irrefutable. I, Death, stand at the end but my shadow darkens the start. In the bridal bed I whisper how the old use covers for warmth and in the muscle days of youth I remind them how the aged fumble with the cap on the aspirin bottle. I am wearied by this argument. It is my power that is uparalleled. It is a question of the largest mouth. The rabbit eats the grass. The fox eats the rabbit. Man eats the fox. And I eat man. He who eats last dines forever. So if passers-by would ask who rules this life, point them to this stone and tell them I am insidedisassembling the handiwork of God”

“Eloquently pleaded, Death”

The lounging by the fire raises a palm of protestation.

“But falsely asserted. It is true you are as inescapable as skin. But that makes you a mere fact, painful perhaps but insignificant. Now with myself it is different. I, Sin, parade as possibility I manure the dreams of the young and wait for a harvest of betrayal. When their first kiss turns to bite or they torch a reputation or mix a motive or watch a belly bloat to the size of an empty bowl or add a column so the bottom figures tumble effortlessly into their pockets, then I say,

“Buy silk suits and ties of gold so no one will know the electricity of your mind is greed and the seventy beats of your pulse are lust and the movement of your muscles mere envy. I reign from the inside, severing the nerve, marshmallowing the mind, bronzing the heart.

So if passers-by would ask who rules this life, point them to this stone and tell them I am inside claiming the failed dreamer. No sooner had Sin stopped that Fate was on his feet.

“Fact or possibility, please! The rain shines and the sun falls, tomorrow is today and today yesterday. I write and the scribbled lines of men are written. I do not rattle bones like you, Death. Or wait for clouds to gather in the blue eyes of innocence like you, Sin. I tell them bones and flesh are the same and blue always turns to grey. I have twin straws dipped deep into their hope and freedom and I drain the empty of struggle, their faces whitening into resignation. My message swims in their ears like a rock concert:

‘Kiss the earth! Throw no dust into the wind! Marionettes are not masters!’

So if passers-by would ask who rules this life, point them to this stone and tell them I am inside overseeing what was meant to be.

Now then sun, which Ecclesiates says always rises, broke the night of fierce debate but no rooster greeted it. Instead a stone the size of twelve men moved like a mountain on its way to the sea and on the fresh wind of morning came the Son of Man, his shroud a wedding garment,  his feet between earth and air in dance.

Death, Sin, and Fate poured rhetoric into the stirring air about them but the silent Son of God only danced to music beyond their words.

He whirled around Death and with each turn Death himself grew old till with a last, unbelievable look he saw no more. Then wordless

Christ spun around the words of Sin til a stammer started, sound choked, and finally there was only a mouth without a voice.

Next Fate heard the risen footsteps and frost formed on his tongue. As Christ leapt before him, he froze in mid-syllable, iced by the warmth of God.

Now there was only the morning and the dancing man of the broken tomb.

The story says he dances still.

That is whydown to this day we lean over the beds of our babies and in the seconds before sleep tell the story of the dying dancing manso the dream of Jesus will carry them to dawn.

credit: “Following Love Into Mystery” by John Shae (LTP, Collegeville, MN)