The Last Testament: A Memoir (35 page)

CHAPTER 19

¹
T
he next 24 hours would change everything; for humanity, to be sure, but more importantly for me.

²
After the meal, Jesus and the apostles walked to the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives.

³
Now this Olive Garden had long been a popular gathering place for them, for it served a variety of Roman food in a convivial atmosphere, and at a minimum of payment; and when they were there, they felt like family.

⁴
But soon the Roman soldiers came to arrest him; and thou-knowest-who approached him, and kissed him;

⁵
Kissed him, to add insult to injury, with tongue.

⁶
Everyone knows what happened next: the arrest; the mortifying perp walk in front of the Temple; and the imprisonment on charges of treason against the government, charges trumped up by the Jewish high priests.

⁷
(For many were so falsely charged and imprisoned during the hysteria of the War on Torah.)

⁸
Then he was brought before Pontius Pilate; as is recorded in the Gospels, Pilate had the power to pardon one prisoner, either Jesus or Barabbas, and he decided to let the crowd choose.

⁹
But what is
not
recorded in the Gospels, is that Barabbas was in prison for being a gentleman jewel thief.

¹⁰
He stole diamonds and rubies from the very wealthy; he was dapper and suave; he bedded Judea’s most beautiful women; he was a Clooneyesque roustabout.

¹¹
Jesus never had a chance.

¹²
And now his suffering began in earnest: the punching and spitting and striking and kicking; to say nothing of the mockery;

¹³
Mockery which, unlike the good-spirited japery of the previous night’s roast, came not from a good place.

¹⁴
For Jesus was derided, insulted, and humiliated; taunted as “King of the Jews”; even the size of his most intimate parts was ridiculed, invariably by those who themselves had something to hide.

¹⁵
But the cruelest of all the torments was the unified chanting of the Jewish throngs and the Roman soldiers: “Jeeeeee-sus! Jeeeeee-sus!”

¹⁶
Lo, it was exactly the same form of derision as that heaped by fans, almost 2,000 years later, upon slugger Darryl Strawberry;

¹⁷
And almost as vicious.

¹⁸
Every instinct in me longed to go Old Testament on all of them; my brain reeled with comforting thoughts of brimstone and boils; but I forebore.

¹⁹
Because as I watched my son suffer the abuse he had been dreaming of his whole life, I realized something:

²⁰
Jesus was no pussy.

²¹
Jesus was one tough son of a bitch.

CHAPTER 20

¹
F
or my son did not complain when they sentenced him to death.

²
My son did not wince as they placed upon him the crown of thorns.

³
My son did not grimace as they scourged him with whips.

⁴
My son did not flinch as they placed the cross on his back.

⁵
No; because my son ... was a
man.

⁶
Yea, Ruth was right; he and I were truly two very different Godheads.

⁷
I was a self-made Being who had risen from nothing to become Master of the Universe; to get what I wanted I smote anyone who got in the way, along with many who were merely close to the way, and untold millions who were a great deal of distance away from the way.

⁸
But my son was of a different breed; he sought to become Master of the Universe by
returning
to nothing; by being not smiter, but smitee.

⁹
And now, as he took his last un-scenic stroll through downtown Jerusalem; now, at last, I understood.

¹⁰
What I had once viewed as his weakness was in fact strength: his suffering
was
power; his humanity
was
divine.

¹¹
He knew I was watching; he could have summoned me to his assistance; he could have called in the cavalry to Calvary anytime.

¹²
I had watched Abraham and Job suffer, and my reaction had made me wonder what was wrong with me; watching Jesus suffer I felt the same way, but for entirely different reasons.

¹³
For as my son staggered through the Via Dolorosa carrying the means of his own death, I smiled and thought, “That’s my boy!”

¹⁴
And when he reached Golgotha, and they held him down and bade him drink vinegar mixed with gall, I thought, “Way to take one for the team, son!”;

¹⁵
And as I watched the centurions hammering into his ankles and wrists, and my son’s face tremble in excruciating pain, I thought, “Thou art tough as nails, kid!”;

¹⁶
And as I watched them mount his cross upon the hillside I thought, “Hang in there, buddy!”

¹⁷
And as the crowd mocked and threw stones at his crucified body, my heart well-nigh burst with pride.

¹⁸
And as he looked up at me and with his final breath murmured, “It is finished,” I said, “Thou didst it! Thou didst it, kiddo!

¹⁹
Behold, world! Behold the Man! For my son is . . . is human!

²⁰
Yea! My son is human, and I care not who knows it!

²¹
I love my dead human son!

²²
I love thee, son!”

²³
(For he had died and was now standing next to me.)

CHAPTER 21

¹
T
hat night Jesus, H. G., and I convened in the transdimensional Godplane for the first time in 33 years.

²
We quickly attended to business, and lo, there was much of it to attend; for Jesus’s resurrection was less than 48 hours away, and we still had some kinks to work out.

³
H. G. wanted to schedule a meeting during the return where Jesus could formally instruct his Apostles to spread the gospel.

⁴
I proposed making that the very last item on Jesus’s return agenda, in accordance with a long-held theory of mine that motivational speeches are more impactful when they end with the speaker’s ascension to heaven.

⁵
All this was fine with Jesus; he insisted only that Mary Magdalene be the first one to see him risen, for he wished to provide her with at least one unforgettable romantic memory.

⁶
He greatly pitied her; he knew how much she loved him, but she was one of those unfortunate women for whom all the good ones proved to be either married, gay, or Jesus Christ.

⁷
As we talked I chattily shared with my own prodigal son my opinions and thoughts on the details of his mission: his miracles, and his anointings, and his unimaginable physical ordeal.

⁸
When I told him how proud I was of the way he had handled his crucifixion, he was characteristically modest.

⁹
“Oh, Father,” he said, “we are talking about the Roman Empire.

¹⁰
Crucifixion is probably the
least
painful means of death I could have suffered at its hands.

¹¹
Verily, they have this new device, the cubinatium. It slices the body into dice-sized cubes over the course of a month, all while impaling thee through the innards with a spiked bronze javelin.

¹²
Now
that
sounds painful!”

¹³
We laughed until we cried.

¹⁴
All through the night we reminisced; all of us, H. G. included, for he, too, had grown in my esteem.

¹⁵
We had grown very close; the way we had bonded was uncanny, almost mystical; as if the three of us were of the same substance, merely in a different figuration; a mutually indwelling trinity existing in reciprocal immanence as per the doctrine of perichoresis;

¹⁶
It is hard to explain; the point is, we had grown very close.

¹⁷
As we floated back to see Ruth and Kathy, I pulled Jesus aside.

¹⁸
“Son,” I said, “I know thou hast at times wondered if I truly believed in thee.

¹⁹
Verily, I do. I believe in thee.

²⁰
I believe in thee; thy Apostles believe in thee; and soon many more people will believe in thee.

²¹
Thou knowest, I have never told thee this, but all my existence I have struggled with wrath-management issues; yet watching thee down there hath given me a whole new outlook.

²²
Thou hast inspired me to change my ways; to create a kinder, more compassionate world by following the noble precepts thou hast explicitly laid forth.

²³
Yea; as soon as mankind starts following them, I will, too.

²⁴
And one more thing: I have a surprise for thee.

²⁵
When thou first hatched this plan to come to earth, thy goal was merely to redeem the Jews; to bring them back to the path of righteousness, that they might be spared my wrath; and this thou hast accomplished; the Jews are spared; I will not obliterate them from the world.

²⁶
I promise not that henceforward their lives will be rainbows and honeycomb; but I will not obliterate them.