by God
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
1Yea, 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.
4 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.
5 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.
6 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.
7 “My son, a person?” I screamed at him.
8 “A being of the same eternal substance as I, demeaning himself in the shameful guise of a two-legged skinbag?
9 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 LORD thy Dad; and we shall not discuss this any further.
27 And stop giving me that Look!”
CHAPTER 6
1All 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!—
5 Jesus wept.
6 She approached me later, after I lit up the stars.
7 “Jehovie, honey.
8 I know you and Jesus haven’t always gotten along.
9 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
1The 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.
4 The effort and dedication put forth by my team during this period was extraordinary; their skill and tirelessness were wondrous to behold.
5 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.
6 Our first task was finding the right set of foster parents.
7 We all agreed we needed a Judean couple of unblemished reputation; and that the woman needed the sufficient obstetrical vigor to withstand the pressure of bearing a world-redemptive fetus in utero for nine months.
8 But there was much contention regarding what place in society these people should occupy.
9 Some argued that the son of God should enter the world as a highborn prince, as befitting his true nature;
10 While others argued that if he was going to descend, he should descend to the very bottom; and be born the son of a sewer-cleaner, or prostitute, or slave, or musician.
11 I remember Uriel mirthing, that the question before us was like unto one thou might hear at an earthly limbo competition: “How lowly can ye go? How lowly can ye go?”
12 (Though I would add somewhat less mirthfully, that my version of limbo is much less festive than thine.)
13 Finally, a familiar voice rang out.
14 “Let us split the difference,” H. G. said, “and find for my brother a qualified couple from a moderate socioeconomic background;
15 Decent, hard-working people with strong family values that embody the Judean Dream.
16 And let them dwell in a virtuous, blue-tunic community; Nazareth comes to mind, maybe, or—
17 No; I was going to say East Nazareth, but it’s gotten too gentrified.”
18 We all saw the wisdom of H. G.’s words of hard-headed soft-heartedness; and I was glad to find him getting into the spirit of things by finally channeling his vast intelligence into something irrational.
19 We sent ten of our top operatives to Nazareth; they soon returned with intel that the best candidates by far were a betrothed couple named Mary and Joseph.
20 Mary’s dossier showed her to be kind, intelligent, and confident; the type of woman who could raise God’s son with such grace and equanimity that other women would see her pass by and wonder, “How does she do it?”
21 And Joseph’s dossier revealed him to be quiet and sturdy; someone endowed with the mental fortitude to cope with what was sure to be a somewhat awkward family dynamic, especially once Jesus hit his teens; but we were satisfied he had the groundedness to handle the how-doyou-tell-the-son-of-God-he’s-grounded-ness.
22 And, of course, Mary was a virgin, and this was the crucial factor; for by introducing Jesus through a miraculous act of asexual reproduction, we would be showing the world from the start that he was both Word and flesh; Man and God; a subtle concept we knew would be difficult of comprehension;
23 Indeed, I myself have never really figured it out.
24 There was only one other woman remotely in contention, a maiden who lived a few streets away; virtuous and virginal, but prone to rapid swings of temperament; engaged to a blacksmith who was good-hearted, but given to drink; their relationship was querulous;
25 And worst of all, her name was Tabitha.
26 Verily: I do not know if I could ever grant eternal life in the Kingdom of Heaven to anyone who believed in the “Virgin Tabitha.”
27 Mary seemed the clear winner, but we left the final word to Jesus; for he was the one who would be spending nine months inside her reproductive tract, so it was important he feel comfortable.
28 But after long contemplation he looked up, and smiled, and said, “Yea; Mary.”
29 Thus did Jesus become the only child ever born who got to choose its mother.
CHAPTER 8
1Other than the one thing, it was a fairly routine pregnancy.
2 Morning sickness; backaches; frequent urination; as usual the second trimester was the most pleasant, but then came the third: the fatigue, the sore breasts, the vaginal discharge; and of course, the cravings.
3 Mary screamed incessantly for dates and honey, and poor Joseph had to keep running out in the middle of the night to raid the palm grove, or throw pebbles at the windows of Ephesam the beekeeper.
4 To avoid scandal they had gotten married very early on, but Joseph did not consummate the marriage until after the birth; he said it was for reasons of sanctity, although the image of fetal Jesus floating inches from his penis must have been a bit of a mood-killer.
5 My son was going deep, deep undercover; he told me before implantation he wanted the truth of his identity to remain hidden from everyone, including himself, for 30 years, so that he might have the authentic experience of being “embedded”; and I swore to him it would be so.
6 But my principal feelings at this time were trepidation, anger, and indignity; and inwardly I continued to seethe over the bitter reflection, that no son of mine should ever be a son of thine.
7 The months wore on, and the day thou knowest as Christmas Eve crept up on us stealthily; for recall there was as yet not only no Christmas, but no “Christmas season” to helpfully remind thee of the joyous day’s arrival within two weeks; or four weeks; or 25 weeks, as I believe is now the standard duration of the Yuletide mall-Muzak tape-loop.
8 Mary and Joseph had traveled to Bethlehem to register for the census; an event the Romans held periodically for tax purposes, to determine that a particular province had, say, MMMMMDCCLXVII inhabitants, each of whom therefore bore the burden of paying I/MMMMMMDCCLXVIITH of the taxes.
9 They arrived, and as per the plan made their way to the Bethlehem Bed & Breakfast; but, wouldst thou not know it, no one had made a reservation!
10 The fault was not theirs; for I had come to them both in a dream— I was a talking tornado—and explicitly told them they would be giving birth in Room 423 of the BB&B.
11 No, it was a classic case of an assignment falling through the bureaucratic cracks; for Uriel thought Michael was handling it; and Michael thought Raphael was on top of it; and Raphael thought Uriel was on the case.
12 So when the couple arrived there was no reservation; and no vacancy; and no rooms to be had anywhere in Bethlehem; for it also just so happened that that was the very weekend the Roman Society of Aqueduct Salesmen was holding its annual convention in . . .
13 Thou guessedst it.
14 Looking back and knowing it all worked out for the best, it is easy to regard such bungles as trivial, but at the time they were potentially catastrophic, for the birth was imminent; Mary’s contractions were accelerating, and her cervix was already dilated .09 cubits.
15 Who knows what would have happened, had Gabriel not chanced to catch lucky sight of that unlocked manger with its crateful of rudimentary medical and incubatory equipment across the street.
16 As it was, the comedy of errors was still not over; for as Joseph argued with the clerk at the BB&B, he (and he alone) saw the word “MANGER” appear in dazzling fire behind him;
17 But he misread it, and took it as my insistence that he speak with the manager; which he did for several minutes, to no avail;
18 Until finally I was obliged to resort to something deeply embarrassing, akin to an admission of failure:
19 I froze the universe, picked up Joseph and Mary, and plunked them down in the manger, cushioning their landing atop a pile of horse dung.
20 Yea, faith is a sausage best not seen made.
CHAPTER 9
1The Nativity; the Star of Bethlehem; the Annunciation to the Shepherds; the Adoration of the Magi . . . each unfolded in rapid succession, each so momentous its name was immediately capitalized.
2 The events of that night have been the subject of more art and music and contemplation and wonder than any before or since; but I assure thee, on that first Christmas no one on my team had the slightest inclination to paint a fresco, or sing a carol, or buy an iPhone, or claymate a snowman.
3 No; for my hardworking angels that night in Bethlehem, the “true meaning of Christmas” was getting to sleep in until 4 PM.
4 Even I was weary; this is yet another misconception
about me, that I am tireless; I am not tireless; stress and strain can fatigue me to the core.
5 But I cannot afford the luxury of slumber, so I use my omnipotence to keep myself awake; in this way I have gone 6,000 years without sleeping;
6 Behold the state of the world; I think it may be catching up with me.
7 And so began Jesus’s time on earth; it would last 33 years.
8 And excepting one brief passage recounting his visit to the Temple in Jerusalem at age 12, thou knowest nothing of his whereabouts and activities for the first 30 of them.