11:58, Sunday 15 Apr., 2001 Link

We seem to have compressed Christ's life into a single year. Born, blah blah miracles, parables blah, murdered - then, 72 hours - resurrected, and who knows what for the rest of the year but as John said right at the end: "Jesus did many other things as well".

But we only mark the transition points. Why? For two whole days out the year we are without the Son of God on Earth; what about those? And at what point did humanity, en masse, become absolved of Original Sin? From December 27th (we'll give the poor boy a day to stop mewling and another to get baptised) to the day before Good Friday, that being the Thursday before the Sunday nearest the first full moon after the 21st of March - or something -, the great magician wraps up all of mankind's badness in a silk 'kerchief and stuffs it in his fist.

My question: Does he open his fist and show Sin gone at the point of death, or the point of sitting up and going, Oh just a bump on the head after all? And in either case, why is Lent a time to be pious, rather than a time to cut loose, enjoy it all, knowing it's all going to be Forgiven in four weeks, or less? Pancakes aren't that evil that we need to spent a month feeling guilty, no matter how much sugar and lemon.

That aside, why aren't we celebrating this? This is the the real date of Halloween. Why aren't we really making something out of these rare days of freedom, the Triumph of Man over Creator, these sinful times, these lone two days without the man-who-isn't-a-man and the god-who-isn't-a-god peering over our shoulders?

Ding dong, the witch is dead. Happy Easter.