Easter 2018
/For my friend Lola White who is sick (and tired) on Easter.
Once upon a time, in a medium-sized city called Jerusalem that seemed to be constantly occupied by people who wanted to oppress its residents, the government killed a local prophet who had been spreading some really radical anti-capitalist, pacifist, feminist messages that scared the shit out of them.
After he was buried in a make-shift mausoleum and his male followers ran for the hills, the women who clearly loved him the most came to honor him and clean up his body. When they got there, the stone had been rolled away, and an angel was chilling in the cave.
“Where’s Jesus’ body?” they asked him.
“It’s cool that you came to see him, but homie took off. Remember how he could make all those predictions about the future that kept coming true? Well, when he came back from the dead, he looked two thousand years into the future and got super-pissed. So he called up his pops and said, ‘Beam me up, Scotty,’ which is a reference y’all won’t get for a couple millenia, and then God sent him to a country on the other side of the world.”
Mary Magdalene made her hand flat, stared at it, and then flipped it over. “The other side?”
“Nah. The world is round. Like a ball. The Greeks have already proved that. But some of y’all are still going to be saying it’s flat in two thousand years. That was one of the things Jesus was pissed about, now that you mention it. Be glad he took off. He really was resurrected on the wrong side of the bed this morning. Consider yourselves lucky that he split.”
Jesus teleported into a crowd coming out of a megachurch on Easter morning in 2018. They had just been singing a bunch of happy songs, so they were exceptionally patient with the clearly mentally disturbed man wearing a sheet with blood all over it.
“Okay, dipshits, I have some things to say, and then I’m ascending to heaven to chill with my dad. So listen up!”
“I see y'all are the majority now. Congratulations. Quit pretending you're an oppressed minority. Not only is it embarrassing to you and to me, but it makes you do stupid things out of fear. On second thought, go ahead. Vote for the racist sexual predator who promises to build a wall to keep out people who need protection. Wreck your own country. I don't give a shit. You assholes just killed me.
“In fact, why don’t you just pretend I was totally kidding about that ‘Blessed are the poor’ line. And that ‘Take all you have and give it to the poor.’ Fuck those guys, am-I-right? I can tell from the way you’re all dressed that you have worked very hard and earned everything that you’ve got, so you’re morally superior to the poor people who didn’t bother to show up today because they are at their third jobs, those lazy bastards. Go full Smaug to your greedy little heart’s content. You dickholes crucified me, so taking foodstamps from children will be small potatoes to you pricks.
“While you’re at it, why don’t you keep on throwing more people in prison than anybody has ever. And applaud the idea of killing more criminals. Old Testament justice, right?” He pointed at the cross on top of their church. “It’s not like killing criminals should give you all pause or anything. Idiots.
“You know what, why don’t you just destroy the whole world. Dad considered it once and then changed his mind. But you can do it if you feel like it. Put the CEOs of the most rapacious oil companies in charge of everything and make the whole planet Dad gave you into an unlivable Venus-Earth hell-hole. Natural consequences, bitches.”
Just then, two police cruisers rolled up. They didn’t have their sirens on, and the officer climbed out slowly, clearly not very concerned. “We got a call from your pastor about a person disturbing the congregation,” one began. Then they saw Jesus.
“Holy shit! Get down on the ground, motherfucker!” they shouted.
Jesus started to raise his hands.
“Gun!” one yelled.
Then they shot him twenty times because he had brown skin.
As he fell, he just had time to say, “Not again.”
