The atheists of 250 A.D.
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The year is 250 A.D. It’s Good Friday. Although, technically, there is no “Good Friday.” Not for another hundred years.
Tonight, all people who follow “The Way” meet underground. They have to.
Followers of The Way are being martyred left and right. They can’t afford to expose themselves and get beheaded. They have families.
Tonight, they meet in a barn. They all gather among farm implements and bleating sheep. No candles.
The children sit in the center of the barn. The adults, on the periphery. They sing a few songs. The lambs and ewes join in.
Theirs has always been a singing tradition.
They sing to honor the fallen. They have many loved ones who were captured and killed for following The Way.
Everyone in this barn knows that it’s probably just a matter of time before they themselves are arrested. They have prepped their kids for this.
“If Mommy and Daddy go missing, run to Aunt So-And-So’s house. She’ll know what to do.”
They are all fasting tonight. Not just from food, but water, too. They will fast for 40 hours to remember the death of the Nazarene. It’s just what they do on this particular Friday.
Someone gets up in front of the group. Brother Andrew. He explains why they are meeting in darkness tonight.
Because they are remembering the Jewish Carpenter’s sacrifice. Also, they remember the lives of martyred brothers. Last week, two teenage girls were beheaded in the square for refusing to light incense to Caesar.
Romans have all sorts of interesting ways of killing these followers of The Way. They dress their prisoners in fresh animal carcasses, then turn wild dogs loose. They place them in barrels with spikes then roll them down hills. They dip them in tar, light them on fire, and suspend them as torches.
Ironically, Romans call them “atheists.” Or worse, “Little Christs,” or “Little Messiahs.” This is because they have no gods. They think that the only God is Love.
If you can just imagine.
Love? That’s it? Give us a break. That’s the basis for their whole religion. Their “Messiah” gave them two rules only. Love God; love your neighbor.
No creeds. No parades. No sacrifices of pigs or bulls. They don’t even CALL themselves anything except followers of The Way. Just two rules.
What a bunch of freaks.
Well, the freaks are silent tonight, in memory of the Nazarene who was nailed to a tree. They are also silent for Perpetua and Felicity, two women thrown to wild beasts long ago. They were grandmothers of the faith.
They are silent for Brother Pionius, who was nailed to a wooden pile and burned alive because he refused to say that “Caesar was Lord.”
They are silent for those boys in Ephesus who refused to join the army, who were sent to the salt mines.
Tonight, they meet in somber silence on this dark Friday they call “Paraskeve,” their version of a Jewish holy day, “Pesach,” or “Passover.” This holiday will become Good Friday someday in the future. But they don’t know this.
All they know is that they are celebrating something. What are they celebrating? A crucifixion? Not really, for how could you celebrate murder? Is it the resurrection? Not yet. Are they celebrating their martyred loved ones? No.
So what is it? What do these “Little Christs” celebrate tonight in secret? It’s simple, really.
They celebrate those two rules.
