the road to calvary

 when i got high i decided to take a trip to a town called nazareth and see what my good friend jesus was up to. he sure had a lot on his hands. he was getting ready for the crucifixion. “ it’s not much fun.” he said. we were perched up on the hills of golgotha. “ they all want me dead so that they could live. what a load of crap.” jesus was a nice guy. he let himself be used by all and sundry including his father. i remember the first meeting. i must have been sixteen or so. they said i could find jesus in the bible. but he wasn’t there.  i looked under the stone. i cleft the wood. he wasn’t there. i went down to the bar. the man there said, he was here, but he left early. i went down to a house where two or three were gathered around in his name, but he wasn’t there either. they said, if you do see him, tell him we are waiting for his second coming. i went looking for him in the church and the pastor threw the good book at me. listen son, he said, you got to buy the whole shebang, go whole hog. be washed in the blood of the lamb. jesus is on the cross and it’s all right with the world.  i sang with the choir. halleluiah’s rent the air. i asked the altar boy. he winked at me. i went and sat at the feet of scholars. they said, he is a myth, a figment of the imagination. i looked for him in the bible. i found sin and guilt. rape and pillage. great doubt and great faith. i found inspiration. i found hope and love. i found a divine plan. it would all have been nice if i was a jew.  i found a vengeful god. i found a god who said, if you ain’t a jew, i got no tuck with you. they are my chosen people. screw around with them and i’ll send down fire and brimstone and knock off your first born for good measure. get thee out of my sight goyim! so much for the old testament. i looked in the gospels. and saw a lonely man there. a lamb among ravenous wolves, fattened for slaughter. a chip of the old block programmed to self destruct. he was part of a plan. a part player in a divine drama directed by cecil de mille. vintage hollywood. with a twist in the plot. in the end, jesus says, i’ll be back! and doesn’t wait for the sequel to make his appearance. believe in the power of jesus says paul the pharisee. i put him on the cross and i raised him up from the dead. my will, my way of life has finally triumphed and jesus will always stay on the cross of his own undoing. confused, i went down to the street and met a bum dressed in rags with a bottle of whiskey in his hands. have you seen jesus? i asked him. he took a swig from the bottle and looked me in the eye. “ i am jesus” he said simply. i am not god.” he said. “ don’t take away everything from me. don’t take way my humanity. don’t take away in one stroke the pain and the suffering. you find it hard to accept someone like me. it goes against the grain of all that you are. i ask you difficult questions. i question all your pet notions and i break with impunity all that rules that you abide by. i have no patience with pharisees and sadducees of the world. i am an embarrassment. an aberration. people don’t understand me. but when they see me as god, things sure becomes easy.” he looked me in the eye and held out his hands. “i am god because i am completely human.”  “ look at the cross” he said once, when i met him on the road to damascus. “ it could have been a noose, a knife, hemlock, cyanide or a silver bullet. people could have been walking around with a golden noose around their necks inlayed with diamonds.  you could have kept a vial of cyanide in your pocket, just in case.”  i look at the cross and wonder. two thousand years. jesus on the cross. dead as a dodo. i tell you, there is no credence in the cross. this crude stanchion of his brute passion. nothing but a prop consecrated for form and ritual, flaunted without in dark admonition. crave his resurrection in your heart.