PALM SUNDAY

We all know the story. Some two thousand years ago a little Jewish girl was married off to an old man in another town and, when she got there, it was discovered she was pregnant.  Again, as we all know, in those days Jewish girls in such a situation could be stoned. Well, this young girl hadn’t gone to school to carry her lunch, so she told the old carpenter that god did it. In  those days gods often came down and had sex with women. They don’t do that so much anymore.

Anyhow, the old carpenter bought it and a few months later his young bride gave birth to a son who was born in a manger with great folderol and hoop de doo and wise men and stars and sheep and goats and cows and camels and angels and stuff starred in minor roles.

What’s really of interest here, it seems to me, is that the young mother taught her first-born that his father was god. I can almost hear her, “See that old carpenter? He’s not your daddy. Your daddy is god.” He was a precocious kid and raised a lot of hell in the community.

So far so good, the story hangs, but then the kid disappears. He leaves home when he’s about thirteen-about the time little boys learn about the birds and the bees- and doesn’t show up again until he’s in his late twenties and, when he does,  he shows up barefoot, in a brown robe, riding a donkey. Now his mother, delighted to see him again, rushes about telling everyone whose ear she could bend that her son, the son of god, was back and that he was the Messiah. These were not very healthy words to be spreading around Jerusalem in those days.  Made worse because this itinerant young Jewish rabbi, barefoot and on a donkey, was hanging  with a bad bunch. Poor guys. Sick guys. Fishermen. You know, peasants, hippies and the like.

We all remember the story of the wedding. Poor guys. No wine.  Momma bursts through the door.  “Oh son, show them you’re god. Turn the water to wine,” she cries. At which time he replies, so it says in the book, “Get that woman out of here.”

Odd that he never called his mother mother. Maybe he got fed up with the silliness. Remember, in those days it was believed the Jewish Messiah would ride triumphantly into Jerusalem on a white horse, over a red carpet  with trumpets blaring and worshippers tossing flowers and stuff and oust the Romans.

So what does this guy do? He gets himself barefoot on the donkey, gets his hippy friends to run out ahead of him strewing palm leaves and rides triumphantly into the city…

…that’s when I fell in love with the guy. What a put on. I mean he really did have a neat sense of humor. Too bad most people don’t get it and the story ends badly.

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