New JC v. His Big 3

[Ch. 7 of ongoing text...]

Now when the handsome and wealthy Jesus broke out of the lab, his first instinct was to find a string of women to woo and to court. So he broke into a string of churches and found many damsels, both single and married, whose schedules were free this evening. And he took them out to eat at various restaurants, all high-end. And they also went dancing — tho not at disco clubs: it was all ballrooms, and a couple very slow jazz clubs. 

Then Jesus broke into the U.S. marketplace and used his great riches to invest in stocks and bonds. He also broke down the doors of a string of dealerships and coerced their salesforce to let him purchase the following items: a private jet, a yacht, an island, and a double-decker bus. 

But the three churches that Jesus had broken into when he seduced all those damsels to escape from their boyfriends, lovers, fiancés, and husbands, so as to join his holy harem, were each from a separate sect or denomination: so there were Catholic women who left their significant others to follow Jesus; and there were also Protestant and Baptist women who did likewise. 

Thus, in the aftermath of that “Theft of the Eves” (as it came to be known by the left-behind males), representatives from each of the three big churches came chasing after Jesus, to lecture him about mankind’s tradition of property law. And their names were Peter the Catholic; Luther the Protestant; and John the Baptist.

“Significant segments of the string of women that you beguiled away from our flock for your heavenly harem,” sez Peter the Catholic, “happen to be the private property of our Churchmen.” And he waves a sheaf of papyri to prove this.

“I’m sorry,” answers a fashionably suited and well-groomed Jesus from behind his mahogany office-desk in the topmost floor of the skyscraper, whose walls are all glass, “do you have an appointment?” (He sips his martini.)

“No,” sez Peter.

Jesus lifts his arm and points at the exit. “You need an appointment to talk with me. Go and set one up with my secretary. I’m not inflexible, but things must proceed according to order; and if I make an exception for you, then your two scruffy friends will expect me to do the same for them.” (He nods toward Luther and John, who are waiting in the wings.)

“OK,” sez Peter. And he shuts the door politely as he leaves the office.

Now Luther and John ask Peter about the confrontation: “How did it go? What did he say?” impatiently they tug at his tunic.

“He was nice,” sez Peter; “he explained that he will listen to our prayers, but that first we each need to set up an official meeting by way of his secretary.” (Peter nods toward the stern beauty at the front desk, who pauses briefly to glance up over her spectacles without lifting her head and then resumes her task of typing a legal document.) “He’s a busy man; that’s understandable.”

Hearing this, Luther and John lift their eyes afar off, raise their voices and begin to mourn. Each physically rends his many-colored tunic, to signify that he is in sore distress about this technicality that requires them to schedule a visit if they want to access their Lord. 

Now Peter, observing this reaction in his rivals, looks both ways furtively and begins to feign grief as well, and undoes the belt of his tunic and lets it fall open. And they all three sprinkle dust on their heads toward heaven.

“Guys,” the aforesaid secretary has approached and is now standing over the churchmen who are weeping and gnashing on the floor of the lobby, “you can’t do this here. I must ask you to leave.”

So they take the elevator down to the ground level, and they sit for seven days and seven nights in one of the guest spots of the parking lot. None of them speaks a word, they are all so distraught. For they cannot banish this horrible realization from their head: Jesus Christ is now rich and handsome.

§

It has been a full week after all the above. Jesus enters the office looking magnificent. Each female employee greets him with a full kiss on the mouth. (There are no male employees, because they’re all afraid of him.) When Jesus reclines in his executive chair behind the mahogany desk, he kicks open one of its drawers, retrieves a spring knife, switches the blade and admires its steel, turning it slowly in his hand; then he replaces it in the drawer and turns on the monitors for the skyscraper’s security system: 

Jesus hits a couple keys on the control board and an image appears on the screen, representing the view of one of the outdoor cameras. Then he taps the joystick that controls the angle of the shot until its frame is centered upon our recent acquaintances: the trio of churchmen who are mourning in the parking lot. Jesus presses the button labeled “Cam 1 Ground Level Intercom” and then speaks into the control panel’s microphone:

“How are you guys doing? Do you need anything? — I can have one of my damsels bring you a taco bowl. We have a place that makes them fresh, right here in the building. C’mon, it’s Cinco de Mayo; you should be celebrating.”

Peter the Catholic now turns to face the security cam; then opens his mouth and curses the booming voice of the loudspeaker: “Let the day perish wherein I was promised the very first papacy; when you said: ‘Thy name is Peter, but henceforth let thy codename be Rock Man, for I hereby grant you your very own popeship, and I predict that there will be a Japanese sci-fi video game christened after you,’ and you slapped me on the back of my colorful tunic (which I later discovered that you ALSO gifted to each of my rivals here as well; so it’s not even that special); and you ruffled my hair and slapped my cheek and then draped your arm around me and proclaimed in an unctuous way: ‘Upon this ROCK I will build my CHURCH; these keys to the popeship also fit my kingdom’s bolt lock: thus, whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.’ — What a fib! Let the day perish in which you tricked me with that false advertising. May the gates of hell prevail against it.”

Jesus is holding the “Mute” button on his security control panel’s microphone because he cannot stop laughing. Finally, after composing himself, he lets up and uses the intercom again:

“Pete, what’s wrong? When you left my office last week, you seemed calm and level-headed. You showed no signs of this pent-up resentment. I told you that I’d gladly hear your prayer, if only you’d make an appointment. Why didn’t you speak to my secretary, like I told you to do? She sez that you guys just flopped down onto the carpet and began to blubber.”

Peter the Catholic dries his eyes. “It’s true — I was indeed calm when I left your office. But then I saw Luther and John here tearing their tunics and caterwauling, so I followed suit. I guess I buckled to peer pressure. But when I began to think about how you treated me, and the way that all your promises failed to come true (except the one about the video-game franchise; tho even that is pretty much a wash, cuz the hero who shares my ‘Rock’ title barely resembles me; moreover, in America they changed his name to ‘Mega Man’), dear Christ, I tell you, when I considered this avalanche of letdowns, a feeling of acrimony began to swell in my chest. Plus it bugs me to no end that you are so rich and handsome now. I liked you better when you were just a plain, impoverished figure nailed to a cross.”

“Ah, thanks for the explanation, Pete. Here’s my verdict: you dissatisfy me. So I’m done with you.” Jesus now addresses John the Baptist: “John, wake up, look up — hey, let’s get this over with; I need you guys to clear out, for I have important visitors coming to meet me from the Far East this afternoon. What’s your beef?”

John answers: “I have no beef with you; I was just crying because it saddens me to see you living like a playboy and hustler inside a penthouse. I remember you back when you were so humble, ugly, and poor that you thought you needed ME to cleanse your sins. I’m really only in this religion business for the dipping — I just love submerging my colleagues. You know that proverb by William Blake: ‘Dip him in the river who loves water.’ — I take that to heart: I enjoy spreading my passion for wetness, thus I can’t and won’t ever resist baptising new converts. There’s something twisted and intimate about being barely clad in a pond with fellow believers and forcing them under.”

Jesus tries to steer John back to the point: “Alright, little dipper; so, if you have no beef with me, then why are you here? And what’s your excuse for not scheduling an official prayer meeting?”

John looks confused for a moment, as if he can’t remember why he ended up at Christ’s skyscraper; then he takes a deep breath and sez: “I think I just wanted to tattle on my two friends here, Peter the Catholic and Luther the Protestant, because they’re not being very faithful servants to our original teachings.”

“What do you mean ‘our’ original teachings?” the intercom crackles.

“I mean all the spiritual ideas that I invented and taught to you,” sez John the Baptist. “I was your forerunner, after all.”

The new-improved Rich and Handsome Jesus takes his finger off the “Loudspeaker” button and moves it to the button labeled “Trap Door”, which he presses, causing a hinged panel to open under John the Baptist. (John’s scream decrescendos as he falls till we hear a splash; then we hear some alligators eating him.) 

“Now that’s what I call skinnydipping,” the intercom quips.

Jesus now holds the “Zoom In” button so that the security camera presents a close-up shot of Luther the Protestant.

“Hey, Mart,” Jesus addresses the portly reformer, “want some beer?”

Martin Luther perks up, “I’d love some beer!”

Jesus now presses the “Zoom Out” button to get a medium-long shot of Luther; and then Christ lifts his own arm above the control panel before him, so that his hand is hovering over the buttons labeled “Beer Delivery: Air Drop” and “Beer Delivery: Land Haul”, which are situated right next to each other on the console. Jesus then uses the index finger and middle finger of his hand to press alternately in rapid succession each of these two buttons, over and over, so that it looks like his fingers are running in place upon the keyboard. — What this triggers is delivery after delivery of beer to Martin Luther: 

From the sky, storks come flying and drop cases of beer equipped with miniature parachutes which float gently to the earth and land at Luther’s feet. Also from the ground come galloping the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and each is pulling a sled that is stacked with beer cans in the shape of a pyramid, which they leave before Martin Luther as well. 

These delivery services, both land-based and airborne, continue returning and dropping off more and more shipments of beer, until the Handsome Jesus grows tired of watching the cans and cases accumulate. 

So what happens is that Luther keeps drinking the beer until he explodes.

Now the only churchman remaining is Peter the Catholic, alias ‘The Rock’, who is the very first pope — altho Jesus already contended with him, Pete did not die; whereas both of his companions died. (For John the Baptist fell into crocodile-infested waters, and we just watched Luther the Protestant drink himself to death.) Peter now slowly turns his head to face the security cam, while the security cam is slowly rotating upon its axis to aim at Peter.

“Well,” sez Peter the Catholic to the handsome, wealthy Jesus, “it looks like I alone have been left alive to please thee.” (He bows low like a dog that supposes it has just done something bad but it knows not what.)

Jesus almost presses the button labeled “Transform Parking Lot Cam into Gun and Fire Bullet”, but he decides against doing so and instead opens the nearest window of his skyscraper… Then, from his place at the topmost floor, he thrusts his right arm out of the window and aims a whaling harpoon down at the spot where Pete stands driveling. After a pause, Jesus darts the harpoon: The stricken pope falls backward.

“Miserable followers are ye all,” Jesus mutters while still at the window. Then he returns to the control board and presses the intercom button and exclaims this line again, just to save it for the record.

§ 

And it comes to pass, after the Lord Jesus Christ, now handsome and wealthy, excommunicates his top three Church Founders, that he turns the tables and prays for new cults to spring up like mushrooms in the land of North America, specifically the United States, where he himself has never visited (and never will): thus the God of this World blesses Jesus with more than twice as many religions as he previously owned — because, heretofore, Christ the Lord had possessed only Catholics, Protestants, and Baptists; whereas henceforward he merges with all of these new types of sects: in an unprecedented acquisition, he now conglomerates everything from Mormons to Seventh Day Adventists to Christian Scientists to Jehovah’s Witnesses to Pentecostals and much, much more! — Even the relatively conservative New Age Cult of Bloody Mary takes its place upon his bandwagon and presents Jesus Christ with a permanent Magdalene, free of charge.