With a Rod of Iron: A Parable, page 5
Morvan felt the blood starting to drain from his face.
“Good day,” said Jesus. His words were in English, clear, baritone—matching the muscled and strong form of the man standing there. “I have returned, as I promised I would. Satan has been taken into custody and will remain in a holding cell for the next thousand years, so he won’t be bothering anyone anymore. As of this moment, I take supreme command of the nations of the world; I have abolished war, and with it all the means for making war. At the same time, I’m prohibiting all violence against fellow members of the human species; that is, violence simply will not happen. Understand, I do not mean that such activities will be punished; rather they are just no longer possible.” He smiled pleasantly. “Finally, I have abolished all human illness; the lame will now walk, the blind will now see, the deaf will now hear. Those in wheelchairs have been freed from them, those who were on their deathbeds can now get out of them. Those who have died in me now live forever; old age, suffering—even death itself—I have pushed away for the next thousand years.
“The time predicted by the prophet Isaiah is upon you: ‘Then a branch will grow from the stock of Jesse, and a shoot will spring from his roots. On him the spirit of the Lord will rest: a spirit of wisdom and understanding, a spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord; and in the fear of the Lord will be his delight. He will not judge by outward appearances or decide a case on hearsay; but with justice he will judge the poor and defend the humble in the land with equity; like a rod his verdict will strike the ruthless, and with his word he will slay the wicked. He will wear the belt of justice, and truth will be his girdle.
“’Then the wolf will live with the lamb, and the leopard lie down with the kid; the calf and the young lion will feed together, with a little child to lead them. The cow and the bear will lie down together; and the lion will eat straw like cattle. The infant will play over the cobra’s hole, and the young child dance over the viper’s nest. There will be neither hurt nor harm in all my holy mountain; for the land will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
“’On that day a scion from the root of Jesse will arise like a standard to rally the peoples; the nations will resort to him, and his abode will be glorious.
“‘On that day you will say: ‘I shall praise you, Lord. Though you were angry with me, your anger has abated, and you have comforted me. God is my deliverer. I am confident and unafraid, for the Lord is my refuge and defense and has shown himself my deliverer.’” Jesus spread his arms wide. “’With joy you will all draw water from the wells of deliverance. On that day you will say: ‘Give thanks to the Lord, invoke him by name, make known among the peoples what he has done, proclaim that his name is exalted. Sing psalms to the Lord, for he has triumphed; let this be known in all the world. Cry out, shout aloud, you dwellers in Zion, for the Holy One of Israel is among you in majesty.’”
With that, Jesus lowered his arms, smiled and walked away from the podium, disappearing off to the left. There were no questions from reporters, although a fair number of them had been standing nearby.
A shift in cameras suddenly showed a stunned Faith McAdams, the reporter in Jerusalem, staring at them through the television. Donald Jeffers’s voice slid in over her. “Faith...could you give comment...Faith... Faith?”
“What?” She looked like she was waking up from a dream. “Did you say something Donald? Oh...” For the first time she seemed to realize she was on the air. “I’m sorry, Donald. Could you ask your question again?”
“What was the general reaction there to his speech? Could you tell anything—”
“If my own reaction is indicative of anything, I imagine the speech has been well received. I mean, really—this is Jesus Christ. How can we say anything negative?”
“So there’s no doubt—”
“Did you look at his hands?” asked Faith.
“His hands?”
“Yeah—if you look at his hands you’ll see scars—right here...” she pointed to a spot on her wrist, just below the palm. “They’re pretty obvious and quite large.”
“I hadn’t noticed....”
“Do you have the tape? If you run it I can point it out to you.”
The tape was up and running a minute later, Jesus quoting the passage out of Isaiah. Then near the end, when he lifted his arms and spread them out, there they were, as plain as anything, though Morvan hadn’t noticed either, so enraptured by the words that nothing else seemed to matter. Each hand showed a deep scar from a severe wound.
“I happened to pick up a Bible this morning,” said Faith slowly, “and I was reading in Zechariah, the twelfth chapter and verse ten. It came to me as I was looking at Jesus speak.” She pulled a Bible from a table in front of her and began reading, “But I shall pour a spirit of pity and compassion on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. Then they will look on me, on him whom they have pierced, and will lament over him as over an only child, and will grieve for him bitterly, as for a firstborn son.” She looked up from the page and there were tears in her eyes. “I think I understand,” she whispered.
Morvan turned away from the screen, tears in his own eyes. “I don’t...” he began, but he couldn’t say anything more for the longest time. He was rescued from his distress by the sound of a ringing phone.
It took him awhile to realize its source was his own desk.
Rushing across the room, he was able to leave his employees behind. On the third ring, he had the receiver in his hand.
“Hello?” he said.
“Hello. Is that you Morvan?”
“Yeah.”
“This is Loran.”
“Loran! Where are you? Did you oversleep?”
“No silly, I’m in Jerusalem.”
Morvan was dumbfounded. “What are you talking about? How could you afford—”
“You heard me talk about the rapture, didn’t you?”
“Rapture?”
“When Jesus came back, remember I told you that people all over the world would disappear?”
“Oh yeah. I remember; I was wondering how Jesus could be back and—”
“So I was wrong.” She was quiet a long time; Morvan almost thought she had hung up. “The Rapture happened different than I expected.”
“I thought the world was supposed to get trashed—you know, the end of the civilization and all—”
She sucked in a deep breath. He could hear the embarrassment in her voice. “So, I was wrong about the details. I’m really sorry about that.” Then she seemed to brighten. “But Jesus came back Saturday night and so now I’m in Jerusalem.”
“You said that, but I still don’t understand—”
“The Rapture. I told you already. Here, let me read to you, I’ve got a Bible here with me—found it in the hotel.”
“You’re in a hotel?”
“What, you thought we’d be sleeping in the streets?”
“Aren’t there—”
“Yeah, it’s a little crowded. And I guess not everyone is in the hotels...there’s a lot of people. I can’t begin to tell you how many—”
“I’ve seen on TV.”
“We came back on horses. Up and down. It was weird. Let me read you that passage. I found it here...it’s in Thessalonians—”
“What’s a Thessalonians?”
“Never mind. ‘This we tell you as a word from the Lord: those of us who are still alive when the Lord comes will have no advantage over those who have died; when the command is given, when the archangel’s voice is heard, when God’s trumpet sounds, then the Lord himself will descend from heaven; first the Christian dead will rise, then we who are still alive shall join them, caught up in clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Thus we shall always be with the Lord.’” She paused. “Isn’t that neat?”
“Um, yeah. So what exactly happened?” Morvan still didn’t understand, except that it didn’t sound like Loran was going to be coming into work this morning.
“I was getting a snack, you know, not really thinking about much of anything, and the next thing I knew I was flying through the air. Went right up through the ceiling of my apartment—”
“That must have hurt.”
“Went through it like it wasn’t even there, silly. Felt like...have you ever had those dreams where you fly?”
“Yeah, everybody has those.”
“That’s what it felt like, or maybe flying in an airplane, except without an airplane. And I was naked. Left my clothes behind.”
That created an interesting image in his mind, which he tried, without much success, to suppress.
“The air was filled with people; we were all flying together, and it was like I could touch them all, knew them all—like we were all one. And we flew over the darkened ground and sped across the ocean in a flash and there he was, standing on a cloud—”
“There who was?”
“Jesus, silly. He was standing on a cloud, and there was light everywhere and music...you never heard such music, like a thousand rock concerts and operas all thrown together. And he had his arms out for me and I flew right into his arms where he greeted me with the best hug I’ve ever had in my life. And then he gave me a robe and helped me put it on. And I was laughing and crying at the same time and he was, too. And then we walked over a little way and he showed me a horse. Told me it was mine for the trip to Jerusalem, though it was its own self’s really, and she—it was a mare—her name was Pollux I think he said.”
“You talked to Jesus?”
“Jesus was talking to everyone! It was so great! I’ve prayed all my life, you know, but nothing like this. Jesus showed me how to get on the horse and how to ride it and told me he’d help me and that it would be easy and I saw of course that it would be; it seemed like I knew a lot more stuff than I had only a little while ago. And then Jesus...it seemed sad at the time, though I don’t know why—he took me to a little room and he showed me my life on Earth and I saw how much I failed him—I really blew it, you know...so selfish and stupid and...but then he pointed at the cross and my life just vanished, so that all I could see was that cross and of course it made sense. Like Paul wrote, ‘I have been crucified with Christ: the life I now live is not my life, but the life which Christ lives in me; and my present mortal life is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me.’ And then later in the same letter he wrote, just at the end—and this is so profound—I never understood it, not really, until my life disappeared in the cross: ‘God forbid that I should boast of anything but the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world is crucified to me and I to the world!’ Isn’t that great! Jesus took care of all my screw ups and all that’s left is the cross and the good stuff he was able to do through me despite my stupidity. Jesus loves me and he kept telling me that, over and over again. He gave me a crown, too, and it looks pretty.” She paused. “You know, I feel better than I ever have in my life.” She paused again. “Do you know what Jesus did after he showed me Pollux—you know, my horse? He took me to another room, a big room, bigger than any room you’ve ever seen before in your life. And everyone was there, just everyone. Most of the people from my church, my mom and dad, my brothers and sisters and then there were lots of famous dead people, too. I saw Moses and got to talk to him a little—and I even waved at Adam and Eve. They were such a cute couple—”
“Did they have belly buttons?”
There was a long pause on the other end of the phone. “I don’t know. They had on these white robes so it was kind of hard to see something like that. I could ask them sometime, I suppose, but that seems pretty silly.” She paused again. “So anyhow, we all sat down at this huge table—there must have been millions of people, I don’t know. And we had the best meal you can ever imagine. Just every kind of food there, all my favorites. No liver, no broccoli, just the good stuff, like hamburgers and fries, pizza and root beer...it was wonderful. I ate until I was ready to pop. And you know what, I got to sit right next to Jesus! He talked to me the whole time, kept asking me if I was having a good time and telling me how glad he was to see me. It was wonderful; I felt completely at home—like I had been there all my life and was just waking up from some sort of horrible illness or a bad dream or something.
“I thought we’d been there for weeks, maybe months and then Jesus got us all around him and told us it was time to go back to Earth and start ruling. He gave me my job assignment, and told me what he needed me to do. It’s so easy, really, you know. I just have to take care of my neighborhood in Burbank; my parents and some friends of mine will be helping me, plus a bunch of other people. We’ll have such a good time, you know...but I needed to call you, let you know why I wasn’t at work. I don’t want to lose my job, you know.”
“Uh...that’s okay...you don’t need to worry.”
“I’m not worried.”
“So we’ll see you tomorrow?”
“No problem. I’ll be back.”
“That would be nice.”
“Great. Now where was I? Oh yeah. Jesus gave us our assignments and then we all got on our horses and came down to Jerusalem. It was a real short ride, you know—just over a hill and there we were, gliding down on the mountains around the city. Hard to find room for us all, you know—we spread out all over the place. I wound up nearly at the Dead Sea, myself, but that wasn’t far, really, considering how I can travel now.”
“How you can...”
“I could be there with you now if I wanted to, but I thought that might scare you guys if I suddenly popped out of thin air. I didn’t used to be able to do that and I never knew anyone that could before, but...” she let her words trail off. “Things are different, now, you understand.”
“Yeah...” said Morvan slowly, trying to assimilate it all and not doing too well. “How is it that you had time for weeks of eating if you just left last night?” The chronology of the events she’d described didn’t seem to mesh, as if she had been telling him some sort of wild dream. If it weren’t for the fact of what he’d seen on television, he’d never have believed a word of her story—certainly not from someone like Loran who’d always seemed a bit of an airhead. Nice and all, with some flighty religious views and always dropping the name Jesus even when she hadn’t hurt herself or gotten mad.
Perhaps he’d have to watch that from now on. Jesus might not appreciate having his name used as a cuss word.
Jesus had come back Saturday night. The jury was still out on whether he was mad or not, but Morvan decided here and now that Jesus was not a person he ever wanted to upset. Making God Almighty angry was just not a healthy thing to do. There were probably worse things than being dead and God would surely know them all.
“So we’ll see you tomorrow morning?” He heard himself say the words as if from a long distance away.
“Yeah. Say ‘hi’ to everyone for me. Tell them I love them.”
“Sure.”
The dial tone returned, buzzing in his ear. Slowly the irritation of it focused his attention and got his arm to put the receiver back in its cradle.
Joe was standing about a foot from him, staring into his face.
“What do you want?” Morvan asked.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Your face is white as a sheet.”
He nodded once, felt dizzy, stopped. “That was Loran.” The room was quiet, except for the interminable mumble of the small television. Most people were still locked in on it.
“Loran? What did she want?”
“She wanted me to say ‘hi’ to everyone, tell them that she loved them.”
“That’s an odd message.”
Morvan shrugged. “She’s in Jerusalem. Jesus took her there. Something about the Rapture. Do you know anything about it?”
Joe nodded. “I remember her talking about it. I thought the world was supposed to end afterward.” He thumbed the television. “But Jesus didn’t say anything about destroying things—”
“She said she was sorry about getting that part wrong.”
“Oh—well sure. So the world’s not going to end?” Joe looked wary but hopeful.
“I guess not. She’s coming back tomorrow.”
Joe nodded. Together, they went back toward the television.
* * *
The drive home from work was ordinary—so ordinary, in fact, that he could almost forget that Jesus had come back. The music on the radio was the same as it had been Friday night, before all this had happened—just different songs, since it was a good station that didn’t repeat the same stuff over and over again. He could go a whole week before he’d hear the same song twice.
The freeway was a little more congested now, as if people had gotten to work perhaps later than normal, but still had gotten there just the same and now they were coming home. He was sure there were more people on the freeway now than there had been in the morning.
Pulling into his driveway, he absently noted that his lawn needed mowing. Come Saturday he’d have to take care of that, but not before. He was too tired to try something like that during the week. Better on Saturday. He could start early, then stretch out in the hammock later with something cold to drink.
Mr. Pulaski’s lawn across the street always looked pretty, neatly trimmed, with the bright flowers in the boxes under the window. He was retired, he was a widower, he had the time to take care of that sort of thing.
The garage door opened at the touch of a button and he pulled the car inside. It stayed up long enough for him to unbuckle his seat belt and get out, then slowly began its downward plunge. He entered the house through the kitchen door.
He’d beaten his wife home again. Her car was nowhere to be seen.
“Hello, darling.” The voice was sweet, feminine, and poured into his ear as soon as he set foot inside. The warm aromas of cooking food rose from the stove.
