Dear diary,
It’s a soothing day. No giant robots lurching around shooting lasers at people; no birds outside my window pitching movie ideas to me in their own private language…
Well, admittedly I do see one or two giant robots out there; but the day is still soothing.
What if Jesus actually does return? No matter how hard I try to stop thinking about this, it plagues my mind, now that we employees of the Central Intelligence Agency are required to register ourselves as Apocalyptic Christians.
By the way, if that label “Apocalyptic Christian” already has its own meaning in academia, or in general society, please discard it: I assumed that I was coining the phrase, just now, and I meant for it to refer to the type of person who believes that the biblical book of Revelation is prophecy rather than history.
I firmly hold the latter opinion, which is why this type of belief bugs the heck out of me. I hate that I’m required to pay lip-service to it, in order to keep my job. For, like I said, it makes much more sense to say that Revelation is a coded history, which describes events that already happened in old Rome and thereabouts, albeit in a style that mimics the prophetic idioms of…
I don’t want to explain anything boring, so I’ll switch back to the earlier question, cuz that’s where I wanted to go with this report. If memory serves, I started out by asking: What if Jesus actually does return? And I could reply: When did Jesus first appear? Because you can’t return without first leaving your house. (“Your house”, in this parable, equals this world, minus Saturn of course.) And one can’t leave one’s house without first being born to a virgin — it’s just common sense. So here are the answers:
Jesus initially came home on the 1st of August 1626, and he left again on 17 September 1676.
Those are the givens. So let’s say it follows that he returns, once and for all, on this day in April, in the lucky year 2021: What exactly would happen?
Well, 1st, everyone would expect him to pull them all up into heaven. But that wouldn’t work. Not because we agents don’t deserve a raise — on the contrary: we all should inherit planets of our own, because we’re fair and just in our dealings. Yet Jesus has a different plan:
He shouts as follows, to all the people who are whining and begging him to hurry up and rapture them: “Hold your horsemen. I’m not hauling anybody into the sky, just yet. My intention is to try a few experiments here on Earth, first, and if they’re successful…”
I can’t think of anything else to make Jesus say, so I’ll let him stop there. So he’s apparently gonna do an experiment. What shall it be? That’s not up to us to decide:
Jesus informs us, by way of an editorial in the newspaper, that he’s going to remove all the borders of all the countries, because his big brother Jehovah told him that if he does that, all hell will break loose; and he’s hoping that humankind will help prove Jehovah half-correct, yet again.
Which is to say: Jesus is banking on the fact that, after removing the borders of all countries, the people of Earth will actually get along with each other, and cooperate and treat each other with love, instead of descending into murderous mayhem.
So the initial, obvious reaction is just what you’d expect. The President of the United States at the time, Mr. Trump, addresses his savior in a televised speech “Dear Jesus, I believe in you; but look: I just finished building my Big Beautiful Wall; so right now is not a convenient time to dismantle it: we should instead let it stand for a moment, to make China seethe — for their Wall is not as Great as our Wall. Therefore, please push back the start date of your little experiment, so that we can prove the worth of having such a strong southern border. Amen.”
Should we have Jesus answer this plea by writing another op ed? No, let’s have him publish a book this time. So Jesus 2.0 (pronounced “JEE-zuz TOO Poynt OH”—the name stems from the fact that he returned to the world he was born in) dashes off a bestseller titled Mr. President, Tear Down this Wall! (2021, Macmillan Publishers), subtitled “a case for annihilating all earthly borders, including a proposed solution to the age-old conflict between water and fire”.
So the Son of God wrote a book. I guess there’s a first time for everything. But the book doesn’t sell well. I know that I described it above as a “bestseller”, but that’s cuz I was lying. Macmillan moved only 14 copies. So look for it in the remainder bin, at your favorite online bookstore. Or if you’re into demolishing brick-and-mortar enterprises, then purchase a physical building, stuff it with classics (including this latest one by Christ), and let it burn like the Reichstag.
Alright we gotta keep this plot moving, otherwise the film critics will give us a bad review. So one of Trump’s advisors discovers a copy of Jesus’ book among the ashes, and he comes running into the office and breathlessly announces “You gotta heed this…” and he reads a key passage from Chapter X, which is the only part of the book to survive the flames (“That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of etc…” as 1 Peter 1:7 always sez), and Trump is immediately convinced of the merit of the argument, so he instructs the Chicago Symphony to nix the wall. (For he had appointed the members of the Chicago Symphony to supervise all construction work in the United States.)
And it came to pass on the start of the next fiscal quarter, that they rose early about the dawning of the day, and stood in a single file line before the wall of the border. And when the Chicago Symphony Orchestra blew with its trumpets, the wall fell down flat.
And not only that single wall dividing the U.S. from Mexico, but all borders everywhere fell flat, so that the earthlings went out of their cities and freely lurked around neighboring cities, and trespassed thru many foreign cities faraway — every individual was able to travel to and fro in the earth, and walk up and down in it, and set up shop in any zone she pleased. (Joshua 6:15-20; Job 1:7)
And all the airlines became good, rather than evil. For they rebuilt their planes to be larger, and to allow for greater leg-room; and the seats reclined further, and had softer cushions. For in a borderless world, luxury air-travel is a plus. Because Jesus isn’t about making things harder for mankind: he’s about making life enjoyable. He wants us to relax and recline, kick back and repose. Have a smoke (there’s no more cancer!) — the world is perfect. Even partake in casual sex, if you like.
So for about the next weekend, the people of Earth utterly destroyed all that was in the planet, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword. But, thereafter, they all grew accustomed to their freedom and stopped mistreating one another: All pay-gaps vanished; and everyone figured out how to administer universal healthcare. (Literally universal, as even the folks on Saturn now received coverage.) It wasn’t as hard as had been imagined, especially since thenceforth nobody could ever again get sick or die. That really helped to bring down the insurance costs.
Thus the birth-rate increased, and unemployment became virtually nonexistent. Robots whose prospects for retirement were previously null were able to purchase summer homes in northwest Florida. And these giant machines began to take up hobbies in their old age. They learned how to shoot lasers, and they scoured the landscape hunting bloggers. So everyone lived happily ever after.
[I Bryan who wrote this epistle suggest that we play the 1976 top hit Disco Inferno over its scrolling credits, followed by the sacred hymn Burning Up by Madonna.]
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