Apocalypse of Jude

Evelin emerges from her kitchen with a tray in her hands.

“Come guys, sit down. Dinner’s ready.”

Two women follow her, each bearing a dish in their hands that they place on the table, stream rising off them.

“Okay, let’s see, Stuart, you’re over there and Susan there. Caul, you’re next to Susan. Audrey, you’re on my right.”

They take their places as Geoff moves around the table with a bottle of red wine, filling each glass before taking his seat at the head of the table. Evelin rises from her seat, adjacent to him, glass in her hand.

“Okay, the food’s quite hot, so it can do with a few moments cooling.”

She looks to Stuart and Susan.

“I’d like to give thanks to the Lord for His graciousness this Christmas Eve in bringing old friends back together. May you enjoy the food and wine that He has provided, and may you enjoy communion with His Spirit as He moves through us in His wisdom and knowledge.”

Stuart, Susan and Geoff exert their agreements in a banter of thanks.

“And,” She quietens them down.

“I’d like to thank the Lord for bringing Audrey and Caul into our fellowship tonight. Audrey, may your heart be blessed by the Spirit’s movement tonight, and Caul, may you know that Christ is really among us.”

She raises her glass to Audrey and Caul, who raise theirs in soft graciousness and circumspection, respectively, quickly followed by the others’ amens. Clinking glasses then seal the table before they settle to the first mouthfuls of lamb.

Susan looks up from her plate. “This roast lamb tastes heavenly Evelin.”

“My grandmother’s recipe.”

Caul looks at Evelin perplexed. “Why a lamb and not turkey or chicken?”

She pauses for a moment, then shakes her head.

“I don’t know. Just a family tradition.”

Evelin smiles as they continue their eating, chewing, savouring, the four friends soon falling into a graceful rhythm of conversation. Audrey casts a glance around the table, watching their faces, coming to the realisation that a song is being sung in the hearts of the four friends that she cannot hear nor understand yet, but desires to hear.

Caul too, watches the four friends, their conversation striking him as being like the sound of harps. DA! Outside, a large peal of thunder rolls like rushing water across the sky. Caul looks to the still smiling face of Evelin, who becomes suddenly filled with an incredible beauty of intense compassionate purity.

She sits back as if she is being overwhelmed.

“I know why grandmother always cooked lamb at Christmas.”

Everyone else looks up at her.

“When God told the Israelites in Egypt to prepare a roast lamb, and paint its blood on the door frames before the Angel of Death came, He did so because He wanted His people to know that being under the blood of the lamb is the sign that He will use to distinguish them from those that belong to Egypt.

“As it turned out, the lambs’ blood foreshadowed Jesus’ own blood sacrifice, whose blood it is under which we are to wait, so that when Christ comes again, the Angel of Death might pass us over. And it just struck me that Christmas Eve, which is the night before Christ’s coming into the world, is not only a celebration of Christ’s birth, but also a rejoicing of His imminent return. Roasting Lamb on Christmas Eve was my grandmother’s way of saying, I’m under your blood and I’m ready to go.”

Wasteland Mix: Fragment 107