RIVER CITY JOURNAL: READY, MR. DEMILLE? YOU CAN START THE BIG STORM NOW

At least three of the Gospel writers thought it was worth mentioning that when Jesus died on the cross, the "veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom," as Matthew put it.

Matthew, Mark and Luke also mention rocks that rent, earth that quaked, graves that opened, dead saints who were resurrected and daylight that darkened.

All in all, a busy day.

John was a little more pragmatic: Jesus simply "gave up the ghost," a phrase that we still use today. And we all know what it means.

Whenever Hollywood shows the crucifixion, it appears to be storming. I suppose if you mixed rent rocks, quaked earth, bursting graves and extinguished sunlight into a movie script, you would have quite a mess on your hands.

I have a burning memory from my youth of seeing the crucifixion. It's the kind of memory an impressionable farm boy gets from watching the Saturday matinee showing of "The Robe" in my favorite hometown. It is one of those troubling memories not easily erased by a chocolate malt at Toney's Drug Store.

As with so many things, young farm boys tend to associate events from movies and books with real-life experience. In my mind, the crucifixion scene from "The Robe" had only one corollary to living on a Kelo Valley farm: a tornado.

Maybe if I had grown up in Florida, I'd have this mental picture of a hurricane on Good Friday. Or perhaps if I came from Bangladesh, I'd think of a monsoon. Some Hawaiians might be more in tune with an erupting volcano. In Turkey -- and lots of other places -- an earthquake would be the perfect sensation.

But for me, it's a tornado.

Maybe not the tornado itself, but those sinister moments before a funnel starts twirling out of a pukey green cloud.

Most of you know what I'm talking about. You've watched the sky enough to have your own idea of pre-tornado wind, the darkening of the sky, the blowing leaves ripped from nearby branches.

All of this, gentle reader, explains why I equate the arrival of Easter with the onset of tornado season in Missouri.

Fear can be irrational, but it's a good self-preservation mechanism. I am afraid of tornadoes, just like I'm afraid of snakes. Any snake. Even pictures of snakes.

I'm afraid I'll be bitten by a snake. I've seen a lot of snakes in my lifetime. Many of them were poisonous. I've never been bitten by a snake.

I'm afraid I'll be sucked up by a tornado. I've never seen a tornado, just storms that produced tornadoes. I've never been sucked up by a twister.

Keeping my own well-being in mind, I avoid snakes by not walking anywhere I think snakes might be. This means I don't walk a lot of places I'd like to, particularly during warm weather.

I avoid tornadoes by retreating to the basement whenever I think a the violent, crucifixion-scene storm outdoors is likely to demolish whatever building I'm in.

I consider seeking basement shelter from tornadoes to be a luxury of adulthood. Our farmhouse on Kelo Valley had no basement. It didn't even have a foundation. Like most houses of its era, it sat on piles of rocks strategically placed under the house.

But we had a cellar.

The cellar was away from the house, next to the smokehouse and the chicken house. It's purpose was to keep jars of vegetables and fruits cool. And to keep potatoes from freezing and rotting during the winter.

The cellar also was available as a storm shelter.

But you know what? I think I'd almost rather be sucked up by a tornado than have to go into the cellar. Why? Because tornadoes generally occur in warm weather.

After Easter.

When snakes are out and about.

Lounging, no doubt, in the cellar.

Waiting for some storm-terrorized farm boy running for his life.

Here's the crunch in which we find ourselves in real life: Our options often look equally dire.

Sucked up by a tornado? Or devoured by a ravenous copperhead?

Some choice.

I expect such a dilemma may have been what the Gospel writers were trying to convey in their descriptions of the crucifixion. Which is worse to a Jewish disciple of God made man? To see the temple veil ripped in half, or to see God-as-man give up the ghost?

To be honest, I don't have a solution to the tornado-versus-snake-infested-cellar situation.

But the Gospel writers have a magnificent resolution to the crucifixion storm.

"He is not here: for he is risen," says Matthew.

"He is risen; he is not here," says Mark.

"He is not here, but is risen," says Luke.

Leave it to John to tell it a tad differently.

He gives us a distraught Mary Magdalene who goes to the tomb and finds it empty. She's afraid Jesus' body has been stolen. What to do? What would you do?

Look at it this way: Do you want to be the one to tell the others the body is gone? Or do you want to be the one to look for the missing body?

Sucked up in a tornado? Or devoured by a snake?

Fortunately for Mary, she gets to avoid both.

Good old John. He builds the suspense, and then he gives us that great ending. What a scriptwriter he could have been.

"And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written."

The End

Or, as John put it:

Amen.

~R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.