The Last Testament: A Memoir (29 page)

⁴
And Jesus was even more vexing, for he was weak; a dreamer; an “artist”; he showed no interest in judging, or smiting, or vengeance, or any other aspect of the family business, but preferred to spend his days brooding, sighing, and wandering around blessing the angels for no reason.

⁵
Meanwhile yet another epidemic of idolatry and wickedness had beset Israel.

⁶
The Jews had become Hellenized, then Romanized; the Temple was overrun with moneylenders; Pharisees were emphasizing gnostic Mosaicism and halakhic teaching at the expense of a more traditional reading of the Pentateuch . . .

⁷
It was bad.

⁸
With no Abraham or Moses or David to ease my wrath, I had finally and irrevocably run out of patience with the Jews; and so one day as I sat on my throne, I summoned to my side Gabuthelon and Azazel.

⁹
I have not mentioned these two angels’ names before, but they were my “wetwork” specialists; it was they who had overseen the total destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah; so I knew them to be dedicated professionals.

¹⁰
I now gave them orders to rain fire and brimstone upon the house of every Jew in Judea, leaving none alive; in this way finally ridding myself forever of their intractable faithlessness and chutzpah, that I might start again with another tribe more worthy of me;

¹¹
I was still thinking the Mayans; I still liked their passion.

¹²
But just as I was giving them their final smiting orders, Jesus approached; bearing on his face, for the first of what was to be many, many times, the Look.

¹³
And I think thou knowest what I mean, by “the Look.”

¹⁴
For with that Look he gazed upon Gabuthelon with a tenderness that caressed and enveloped his soul like a swaddling band around an infant;

¹⁵
And with that Look he gazed upon Azazel so gently his heart glowed with a clear white light radiant with the unity of all things;

¹⁶
And with that Look he gazed upon me with a love deeper than any well-spring, and purer than any water that could ever floweth therefrom;

¹⁷
And he said, “Father, I have an idea that’s so crazy, it just might work.”

CHAPTER 5

¹
Y
ea, it was crazy all right.

²
“Virgin birth”; “raising the dead”; “self-resurrection to redeem the world”; today those phrases make perfect sense, but at the time they sounded absurd.

³
First of all, there were the practical considerations: Jesus was proposing to become the Word made flesh, a transmutation of extraordinary difficulty.

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The conversion of pure spiritual essence into living organic matter had never before been attempted, or even considered; for though religious, I have always been a strong believer in the separation of Word and flesh.

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Of course, I am omnipotent; I can do anything; but some tasks require more effort than others, and changing Word to flesh would be a logistical nightmare, that much was given.

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But my strongest reservations concerned the
wisdom
of Jesus’s plan; for to me it seemed not only insane, but spoke to some perverse desire for self-degradation.

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“My son, a person?” I screamed at him.

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“A being of the same eternal substance as I, demeaning himself in the shameful guise of a two-legged skinbag?

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Hast thou any knowledge of what it is truly like to be flesh? To be a physical human being?

¹⁰
Human beings thirst, and hunger; sicken, and injure; tire, and age.

¹¹
Human beings sweat until a stink of great piquancy wafts from the pits of their arms like rotten frankincense.

¹²
Human beings get bits of food caught in their teeth; and others see the bits, and laugh inwardly, but inform them not, so that others may see the bits and laugh inwardly.

¹³
Human beings accumulate mucus and earwax and plaque and eyegunk as if their faceholes housed the permanent collection of the Ick Museum.

¹⁴
Human beings urinate and defecate several times a day, which, I mean, right there, Jesus, come on.

¹⁵
And all this is to say nothing of the changes that would be wrought in thy body near the time of thy bar mitzvah;

¹⁶
When thy voice would break; and thou wouldst notice hair where there was none before; and thou wouldst begin to . . . to feel certain . . . urges ...um...

¹⁷
Thou seest, Jesus, sometimes when a bird loveth a bee very much...

¹⁸
I wish not to have this talk with thee right now, my son.

¹⁹
Now, I have indeed listened to thee, Jesus; I have heard thy words; I know thou desirest to redeem the world; and that is a lovely thought.

²⁰
I do not doubt thy good intentions, son; but the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

²¹
(Well, actually it is mostly paved with human skulls; but the good intentions serve as a thickening agent.)

²²
This plan of thine is not the answer, Jesus; in fact, this plan is the exact opposite of what thou needest; for what thou needest, Jesus, is to toughen up.

²³
Dost thou hear me, boy?

²⁴
Thou needest to drop this sensitive brooding pose of thine, and work, and smite, and steel thyself, and be a man!

²⁵
No; do
not
be a man; sorry; that is in no way what I want thee to be.

²⁶
Anyway, that is where I stand, Jesus; I forbid thee from acting on this plan, as the L
ORD
thy Dad; and we shall not discuss this any further.

²⁷
And stop giving me that Look!”

CHAPTER 6

¹
A
ll that day I was most troubled.

²
I had no appetite for my oxen; several fornicators went unpunished; at dusk I even almost sent the sun back
up
by mistake, which would have been uncomfortable to say the least.

³
Yea, it was a very awkward day at the office, and by quitting time the angels’ mood had dropped precipitously from blissful to joyous.

⁴
That night Ruth told me that Jesus had spoken to her of our conversation; and that before, during, and afterward—surprise, surprise!—

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Jesus wept.

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She approached me later, after I lit up the stars.

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“Jehovie, honey.

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I know you and Jesus haven’t always gotten along.

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I know that in a lot of ways, you’re two very different Godheads.

¹⁰
But he is your son, and right now he is trying to find himself, and make his own way in the world; and you owe it to him to support him on that journey.

¹¹
Don’t forget, I was once a human being, too, so I know what it’s like; and it actually has its moments.

¹²
Now, I know the idea of God’s son descending to earth, assuming the form of a human being, performing miracles, then being crucified and rising from the dead to redeem all mankind, might sound a little strange.

¹³
But you know what? It might just be the best thing that’s ever happened to our little Jeez.

¹⁴
Would you think about it, dear?

¹⁵
For
me
?”

¹⁶
And I
did
think about it; I contemplated it all night, as deeply as I used to contemplate my own glory back in the day, before there were days.

¹⁷
And by the time I cued the sun to rise, I had softened somewhat;

¹⁸
At least insofar as accepting that Jesus
was
my son; and that as his father it was my duty to support him in whatever career path he chose to follow; even one as patently silly, as dying for thy sins.

¹⁹
So for his sake, and Ruth’s, I swallowed my fury; and told him that whatever help he needed, I would provide; and whatever trials and tribulations he would face on his mission, I would help see him through;

²⁰
So that when it was all over, if Jesus’s time on earth ended (as I was sure it would) in some kind of nightmarish ordeal,

²¹
At least he could not accuse me of forsaking him, or leaving him hanging.

CHAPTER 7

¹
T
he planning for Operation Enduring Salvation required years of intricate coordination among not only my archangels, but dozens of my top seraphim, cherubim, and support staffim.

²
I deployed many of them across the Holy Land to gather polling data about the mood of the people, and the results were mostly encouraging.

³
For example, 77 percent of Judeans said they were at least “open to the idea” of a Messiah, including a whopping 93 percent of the urban leprous.

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The effort and dedication put forth by my team during this period was extraordinary; their skill and tirelessness were wondrous to behold.

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I must particularly single out Raphael’s assistant, Jerahmeel, whose grace under pressure made even the great Shamsiel look like a regular Zebuleon; and I do not say that lightly.

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Our first task was finding the right set of foster parents.