The Rev. Shegog's Easter sermon is an abbreviated account of the birth and death of Jesus, the sacrificial "lamb" in the phrase he repeats about having "de blood en de ricklicksun of de Lamb" (297). Shegog "sees" "de little Jesus" on Mary's lap and the crucified "least of these" on the cross (296).
In his Easter sermon Rev. Shegog refers to the two men who were crucified alongside Jesus as "de thief and de murderer" (296). By the "murderer" he presumably means the thief who killed the men he robbed. In the Gospels this man taunts Jesus even as they are crucified, which may explain Shegog's "I hears de boastin en de braggin" (296).
In his Easter sermon Rev. Shegog mentions the two men who were crucified on either side of Jesus. He refers to "de thief and de murderer" (296). The "thief" is presumably the man mentioned in the Gospels who rebukes the other criminal for mocking Jesus and asks Jesus to remember him when he reaches heaven.
When Rev. Shegog mentions Mary in his Easter sermon, he emphasizes her sufferings as a mother, "de pangs" of childbirth, her "weeping en lamentation" as she fears for the life of her newborn child and her grief at the scene of the crucifixion (296).
In the Negro church on Easter Sunday, the Reverend Shegog transports the congregation back to the world described in the Bible: Egypt, where the Israelites were held as slaves; Bethlehem, where the Roman soldiers came to kill Mary's infant; Jerusalem, with the hill at Calvary and "de sacred trees" (the three crosses, 296) and the tomb that was the site of "de resurrection" (297).
Although Faulkner's own religious beliefs are a vexed subject, there is no question that the world he created in his fictions is peopled with Christians - particularly Protestants - who think of the Bible as "the Book" (Go Down, Moses, 243). That's what Ike McCaslin calls it when he tries to explain to his skeptical cousin why he feels compelled to renounce his McCaslin inheritance.
