Jesus! Man, Myth, or Son of God? Excerpt Chapter 4

Let’s envision one more hypothetical. What if Jesus (finally) decided to return to earth and let’s say he happened to pop in (invisible for now) behind the podium at the Crystal Cathedral one fine Sunday morning.

First he adjusts the wedgie he got from the transport, then looks left, looks right, pans over to Shular, checks out the pipe organ, the entertainers, the orchestra, and the incredible cathedral.

He listens to the sermon a bit and makes note of the plea's for money while he scans the rest of the town with his long-range x-ray vision looking for poor and despondent souls. Then, in a blinding flash of light, standing right next to the good reverend, he becomes visible to all.

Seriously, think about it. What would he think? What would he say? What would he do? I don’t think he’d be very happy at all, do you? What has all that regalia got to do with God anyway? Absolutely nothing, that’s what. It’s all been created just for you my friends, you and your money that is. On the contrary, these magnificent displays of wealth, prosperity, and idolatry, are in direct conflict with the basic laws of Christianity and everything that Jesus made explicitly clear in his days here on earth according to my understanding over the many years I’ve been kicking around.

OK, let’s buzz back to the Crystal Cathedral for a bit and in our minds, bring back the big guy. If Jesus really did appear on stage like I suggested, he probably wouldn’t say a word. I can see him summon up a starving, raggedy, little girl from town at his side. He would walk her over to the stage prop table, pick up a golden chalice and transform it into a bowl of warm soup. He might then materialize a shoeless, destitute, old man too poor to even think about getting into this spectacular church of gold and glass. Gently, he would guide him down into the audience where he would remove a diamond necklace from a fat ladies breast and miraculously crush it into a humble pair of shoes that he helps the old man slip into for the first time in three years. Next he would extend his right arm to fifty feet and with a giant hand at the end, grab a huge chunk out of the side of the building and rip off half the pipe organ on the way back to his body.

With both hands he kneads and rolls the tons of debris into a fine dust which he scatters over the heads of the petrified parishioners with a giant flailing arm and a deafening, mournful wail as every piece of glass left in the cathedral shatters into a million tiny pieces.

When the parishioners finally open their eyes and work themselves out from under their seats, he’s gone! Boy, would I love to see that!

I don’t mean to upstage Jesus but there’s one thing he forgot to do. If it was me, before I disappeared, I would slowly make my way back to the podium, looking from side to side surveying my handiwork as I approached the good, and surely soiled by now, reverend. I would go eyeball to eyeball with him for a good five seconds (deliberately waiting for the remainder of his bodily fluids to drain), then I would raise both my hands like I was about to wrench his head from his shoulders, and I would thoroughly muss up his hundred-dollar hairdo. With a thumbs-up for the old man and a wink to the little girl, I would then, disappear. Wow! That’s heavy stuff. I gotta call Charlton and see what he thinks.