Dispatch From the Afterlife: Jesus Finally Breaks His Silence!

Jesus:

I’m so tired of people talking to me. And wearing crosses. Don’t they know what happened to me on that thing?

Don’t people understand that I’m a Jew? I even talk like Woody Allen. Really, I do. Every dead Jew eventually does.

I wish people would stop bothering me. Like it wasn’t bad enough that I got crucified? Now I have to hear from all these schmucks? Have you ever been crucified? It’s the worst! The worst!

Nailed to a piece of wood, left out to die in the desert ... Then, to add insult to injury, I have to hear these complaints and prayers every day...

Knock it off already! Leave me alone ... Your thoughts and prayers, yeesh...

Like crucifixion wasn’t painful enough, with the nails being hammered into my hands and feet. The pain was unbearable!

To further illustrate, think of it like this, have you ever gotten a splinter? It hurts, right? Now imagine, instead, a big metal nail driven, purposely, forcefully, through your skin. Does that sound fun? Does that make you want to wear a crucifix? Huh? And it’s a fashion statement to people? Oy vey! Quit wearing those things on your necklaces! Have some respect, would you!

But ... that crucifixion ... even worse than the pain ... was the waiting ... The waiting to die. That was insufferable. That was the torture. That and the obnoxious people strolling by, throwing rocks and food at me. Like it isn’t bad enough, I’m up here, nailed to a wooden stake! Now you throw an apple at me! An apple? Really? The nerve of you people!

It was humiliating!

I felt like such a disappointment to my followers too. This wasn’t how I was supposed to go out! I thought God was my Father and everything and He leaves me out there to rot on a stick! A stick?! Come on!

Ah, it was terrible up there. I was naked! Naked as my birthday! That’s right! There was no loincloth, like in the paintings. I was naked! And my skin was sizzling in the hot, dry desert sun. I was burning, roasting up there ... And I was thirsty as anything, my mouth parched, full of sand. And what do the Romans give me? They bring me vinegar to drink! Vinegar! The audacity!

My followers, my wife was down there, crying at my feet, and I’m dangling from planks of wood like a common criminal. And I’m like, hey, what gives? What’s going on?! I’m the Son of God over here! It’s not right! It’s not fair!

It wasn’t right! I was yelling out, “Why have you forsaken me?!” And I was serious too. I’m like, dammit, get my Jew ass off of this stick, end this already, take me! That would have been the perfect time for God to show up, bring the apocalypse. Nailed to that stick, I’m thinking any minute it’s coming, the horsemen riding in, gray swirls in the sky, the clouds darken, the horn sounds, thunder booms and the floods surge in.

But nope!

I don’t remember dying. It was impossible to sleep up there, on the stick. At least they provided a footrest. But I couldn’t sleep a wink. Could you? If you were nailed to a tree or something? Probably not!

I was wide awake the whole time but eventually I blacked out and it was over. Nature was far more merciful than Man...

Although, when I think of my crucifixion, I shouldn’t complain too much because a lot of people got crucified upside down. For shame! Hanging upside down, crucified, your excrement sloshing down at your face. The horror, the pain, a dizzying, humiliating death. Now THAT is truly blasphemous.

Thinking back on it, I’m not sure why I was even so concerned with saving human beings anyway, the ways they’ve treated each other...

Just look at these people, look at the Romans, the Europeans. They murder me, then blame it on the Jews! My people! They murder me then call MY people: “Christ Killers.” They murder me, then they sack Jerusalem, destroy the Temple, slaughter us like livestock.

Oh, then what do they do? They start a new religion. In MY name! Me! A Jew! A Jew they killed!

Then they steal money from the poor. In my name! Didn’t they hear what I said about taking money in the Temple? Don’t even start me on the child molesters, either...

I tell you, sometimes I think I should have just stuck to being a carpenter...