by Howard Ayno
00.00.00
ME: It is not every night that an interviewer can say he has God as his guest, and this may not be that night. You decide for yourself whether this—er—gentleman to my right fits your conception of what God is, or at least what God ought to be if there WAS a God. I take it that You have no doubt as to Your existence?
GOD: As little as you have of yours.
ME: I’m not given to doubting myself, but let me tell you, in case you don’t know, many doubt God exists. What do you say to them?
GOD: I say this to them: In three days not one scrap of this building will be left standing, and even the chair you are sitting in will be torn to shreds and distributed all over the world. By this you will know there is indeed a God.
ME: Why? Do you intend to blow the place up?
GOD: This building will be ripped to pieces by human hands, by a power no force on earth can stop.
ME: Not even God?
GOD: My will isn’t done on Earth as it is in Heaven. Within three days much of what you see here will be high in the sky then spread to every country on Earth.
ME: No point in asking Why? I suppose.
GOD: Because people are incurably superstitious. They want good luck charms. What I want with them is a personal relationship. What they want from me is endless good fortune and clear skies with never a drop of rain.
ME: Then why don’t you give them what they want?
GOD: Because no rain creates a desert.
ME: So this is your ridiculous ludicrous claim, and we only have to wait three days to see you proved an utter total fraud? Or are you simply mad?
GOD: I’m often called worse.
ME: Of course you are. And with good reason. In my opinion we don’t have to wait three days. Why are you in such a crazy get-out? I suppose this is the way you think God should dress, in sackcloth and sandals and covered in dust?
GOD: When he is in first century Israel and walking the dusty road to Jerusalem—yes.
ME: But you’re not in first century Israel. If you were God you would know this is 21st century New Zealand—
GOD: That’s where YOU are, but it’s not where I am.
ME: You mean if I reach out and touch you, you won’t be here?
GOD: Of course I’m here. God is everywhere. There is nowhere where I am not at every Moment of any time, including Israel and New Zealand—
ME: Then that should save you a dusty walk to Jerusalem since you’re already there.
GOD: But at that time in Israel I am restricted to all the limitations of being a man. Except that it is impossible to restrict God, which of course is why I am here today. You seem to have some problem with this.
ME: All the world has a problem with what you just said.
GOD: Your Einstein didn’t. He understood that all things immaterial are eternal. Time and place can’t control them. I am immaterial. I am spirit. This human body you see me clothed in is temporary and will die. But I will raise it into a transformed body that will never die.
ME: God throws Einstein at me! Incredible.
GOD: And a hundred years after Relativity you humans still don’t understand him. You are incredible.
ME: So you are wearing two thousand year old clothes?
GOD: Of course not. This was woven for me only last year. This is normal in Galilee for artisans of my kind.
ME: I think you are going to tell me you are a carpenter.
GOD: You knew that? Excellent. Though for the last three years—
ME: You are claiming to be Jesus Christ. That is blasphemy. Aren’t you afraid of thunderbolts from Heaven—?
GOD: From Heaven, no. From men, yes. In my hands and my feet.
ME: It has already happened. You don’t need to fear it. It’s already been and gone two thousand years ago!
GOD: To me it will soon become present enough—
ME: Why don’t you turn and run from it? Stay in this century in this country. We need good actors like you—
GOD: Even if I could, I wouldn’t. I must return to Jerusalem to die for sinners like you.
ME: In my case, a waste of time and pain—
GOD: I would not say that.
ME: Who are you really?
GOD: I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives his life for his sheep. I am the first and the last, the beginning and the end, I am the door. I am the bread of life—
ME: You’ve learned your lines well. You’re very good at this, aren’t you.
GOD: I am not good, I am perfect.
ME: Perfect? Come now, You’re not THAT good.
GOD: I am.
ME: You’re quick.
GOD: Soon to be dead. You too are in danger here. You have one security guard but you need more. Ring now. At least ten. Six to the front door and four to the back. And this building isn’t safe—
ME: Because you are in it?—
GOD: Believe me, even the dust the building sits on will be lifted up and will fly all over the world—
ME: Another nice testable piece of false prophecy—
GOD: And you: you don’t realise your life has already utterly changed. Your life will never be the same—
ME: Because I met you? Aren’t you overestimating—?
GOD: Don’t wait. Get security in place before time runs out on you—
ME: Not my decision. Maybe my manager—
GOD: It is always and only your decision. Take my words very seriously—
ME: If you were God, I would. But you can’t be more than 35. I would have expected the Creator of the Universe to be at least as old as his creation—
GOD: In human years I was still in my 30s when I died—
ME: You died? This IS news! God dead! For a dead God your answers seem quite lively—
GOD: Where have you been? The whole world knows that I died—
ME: My advisors have failed me I’m afraid, not that I blame them. I thought it was only Nietzsche who thought God was dead—
GOD: And Nietzsche was right. For three days he was right. But then he overlooked my resurrection.
ME: Your resurrection? After three days? Then once again you claim to be Jesus Christ, and maybe not God at all—
GOD: I am the only God your world will ever see. To see me is to see God. No man can ever see God, but I, the only begotten God, I continually reveal him. But surely you know this?
ME: And that’s you? The only-begotten God? Aren’t you being just a tad blasphemous?
GOD: My Father has children by creation and children by adoption, but I am his only child by generation.
ME: What generation? This generation?
GOD: I am all that he is. In terms your generation might understand: I am the only photocopy of God the Father, so infinitely perfect there is no way of telling the copy from the original—
ME: Except that a father must precede a son—
GOD: Only to your limited earthly understanding. In earth terms we both sprang into being at the same moment. In eternal terms, there never was a time when we both were not.
ME: Now you have your audience utterly confused. Time for a commercial break, and when we come back, more wisdom from the mouth of Almighty God...
And the cameras show I lean forward in the break and say, “You’re doing quite well. Keep it up. Unexpectedly well—”
“You think so?” And he throws back his head and laughs.
00.09.22
ME: Welcome back. I am talking to a very dusty individual who claims he is Jesus Christ, which I realised in the break is an enormous gaff on your part. Do you claim that Jesus Christ has been walking around Palestine dressed in a First Century carpenter’s costume for the last two thousand years—?
GOD: Whatever made you think so?
ME: Then why are you dressed in clothes that are two millenia out-of-date—?
GOD: Because I AM two millenia out-of-date. I have simply paused time over 1st century Israel to fast forward to this studio to be interviewed by 21st century you. But in reality I am act
ually in Israel right now walking towards Jerusalem and crucifixion, and to those around about me it will seem I never went away, not even for an instant, but I’ve already—
ME: Oh come now! If you’ve frozen time in one part of the world, even supposing you had the power to do that, then wouldn’t time be frozen everywhere, including here—?
GOD: Maybe it is. Maybe you are just dreaming all this.
ME: No, I just pinched myself and I’m not.
GOD: Maybe you just dreamed you pinched yourself—
ME: If you’re Jesus Christ and you’re really in First Century Israel, then I challenge you to do this: I’ve grabbed some nail scissors. Let me snip a piece off the hem of your garment and subject it to scientific carbon dating. Then we will know if you are two thousand years old as you claim—
GOD: But I’m not. I am 33 years old and this robe is, right now, at this precise moment, some fourteen months old. That’s what any scientific dating would find—
ME: Which proves you’re a fraud. Because if you were the real Jesus you would be two thousand years old and so would your clothes, if you and they were authentic—
GOD: How few of you humans understand eternity! Why don’t you read and believe your Einstein, who said there was no such thing as the future and the past but only the eternal present, a fact that only followers