An Easter Story

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 a Jewish girl 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 man God did it. In those day Gods often came down and had sex with women. They don’t do that so much anymore.

Anyhow, the old man 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 three wise men and a star in the East and sheep and goats and cows and camels and angels and stuff starring in minor roles.

What really interests me here, is that the young mother taught her first-born his daddy was God. I can just hear her, “See that old man? He’s not your father. God is your real Daddy.” Well this kid was a precocious kid and raised a lot of hell in the community. I picture him as a kind of first century Dennis the Menace as far as the town was concerned.

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 sex and stuff-and doesn’t show up in the story again until he’s in his late twenties and, when he does, he shows up barefoot, in  a brown robe, riding on a donkey. Now his mother, delighted to see him again, rushes about Jerusalem telling everyone whose ear she could bend, that her son, the son of God, was back and he was the Messiah. These were not very healthy ideas to be spreading around in those days. Made worse because the aged Dennis the Menace-the itinerate Jewish rabbi, barefoot and on a donkey, was hanging out 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 burst in the door. “Oh son, show them you’re God. Turn the water to wine,” she cries. At which time he says, so it says in the Book, “Get that woman out of here.”

A mystery of the Book: he never calls his mother ‘mother’. Maybe he got fed up with the silly woman. Remember, in those days, it was believed the Jewish Messiah-the King of the Jews-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 puts himself barefoot on a donkey, brown robe, bare feet, gets his hippy friends to run out ahead of him strewing palm leaves and rides triumphant into the city…

That’s when I fell in love with him. What a put on. I mean he really did have a keen sense of humor. Too bad most people don’t get it. The story ends badly

Tune in tomorrow.

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