Jesus Christ and the Broken Microwave Oven

Chapter 1

So let me get this straight, said Jesus leaning back against the wall of the cave, you’re going to make me the most famous man in the history of the world?

Throrgon nodded. In many ways you already are. He was dressed in typical Fornian work wear, which consisted of a red jumpsuit with yellow trim and sturdy black boots. His height was similar to that of Jesus and his friends, but in human terms his head was slightly too big for his body. Not so much that you might tap him on the shoulder and say: ‘excuse me, but do you realise that your head’s slightly too big for your body?’, but big enough to disconcert anyone he happened to be in conversation with. The problem he had was that Jesus had no real concept of terms like ‘world’ and ‘history’, as his life was lived very much in the ‘here’ and ‘now’. Contemporary Judea was all he knew.

Jesus mulled it over for a while. He decided to try and bring the conversation round to things he understood. Will there be booze?

This threw Throrgon somewhat. If that’s what you want. As I told you, joining forces with me will furnish you with untold riches.

Untold riches you say. How much will that be exactly?

Throrgon couldn’t work out whether this was part of some elaborate interrogation, or he was just plain stupid. Well it’s an untold amount, obviously, but as far as you’re concerned as much as you want it to be.

Jesus looked over to the rest of his gang for help, but they were just as perplexed as he was. And there’ll definitely be booze?

Throrgon nodded patiently.

And women? Definitely booze and women?

Whatever your heart desires. Except gold. You can have all the silver and jewels known to man, but I require the gold for my own purposes.

Jesus gave the proposition some thought as the rest of his gang looked on expectantly.

Throrgon tried to reach a conclusion. So do we have a deal?

Just run through my part again.

Well, you’ll have to learn to perform a few tricks, and make some speeches that have already been written. Don’t worry though, you won’t have to learn them as you’ll know what to say when the time comes. Throrgon was no salesman and had never had to close a deal before. Money didn’t exist on his planet as people were just given things as and when they needed them. The ability to persuade someone to buy something they didn’t really need, with money they couldn’t really afford, would not have been seen as something to be proud of on Fornia. That said, his gut instinct told him that successful sales pitches were unlikely to include the phrase: ‘and that’s when they nail you to the cross.’

There’ll be a couple of loose ends to tie up, but we can deal with those nearer the time.

Jesus leaned towards him. Prove it!

He hadn’t expected Jesus to take him at his word and had come prepared. Do you have some water I could use?

Jesus laughed. You’ve come to the wrong place, mate. Peter, have we got any water knocking around?

Peter came back with half a wineskin of water. Throrgon indicated for Jesus to drink some which he did.

Now pass it here. He reached into his pocket and produced a vial of liquid which he poured into the skin. He shook it vigorously and passed it back to Jesus. Now try some.

Jesus may have been uneducated, but he wasn’t stupid. He pushed the skin back towards Throrgon. You try some.

Throrgon shrugged and took a swig. He winced. The formula needs a little work, he said, coughing, but you’ve probably tasted worse. He pushed the skin back towards Jesus.

Jesus clicked his fingers and pointed at the wineskin. Judas.

Judas was considered the most expendable of the gang, and as such got all the unpleasant jobs. He took a swig and immediately spat it out again. The watching gang members muttered angrily.

It’s pretty rough, but it’s definitely wine.

Jesus grabbed the flask off him and swallowed greedily. Fuck me, that’s nasty.

Throrgon smiled. As I said the formula needs improving, but I think you’ll agree that I’ve just turned water into wine.

And you can teach me to do that? Jesus said incredulously.

Absolutely. In fact that’ll be one of the very tricks you’ll be learning to do.

Jesus wasted no time. I’m in then.

Perhaps you should take a bit of time to think about it properly?

Fuck that. I want to learn to turn water into wine right now! An excited murmur rose from around the cave.

Doesn’t your world have something called a cooling off period? I’ll come back in two days to hear your decision.

No need. I’m in.

You really should think about it properly. This is a big undertaking.

Seriously, I’m in.

Throrgon raised his hands above his head and clapped twice. In danced a trio of veiled beauties laden with wineskins.

Jesus looked at Throrgon and smiled. How about you come back in a couple of days? Just then the most voluptuous of the girls stopped to furnish him with wine. In fact make it three. I’ll see you back at my house exactly three days from now.

Throrgon bowed and left the cave. When he was sure no one was looking, he pushed a button on his wrist communicator. Android, take me up. Within seconds he was back on his spaceship.

*

The reality was that Throrgon needed the two days to properly formulate the next stage of his plan. He wasn’t totally sold on it himself, as it was not so much the best of a bad bunch, as the least bad of a rotten pair. He’d only come to this godforsaken planet as it was the first one he could reach that contained enough gold to get him back to his own Universe. Gold was needed to power his dark matter drive, in the same way a car engine needs oil as well as petrol. Unfortunately his Android had failed to inform him that at the point in the earth’s history he would arrive, all the gold would still be in the ground unmined. He arrived at a time before dinosaurs ruled the earth and before fish had crawled out of the sea. All he could see in every direction were trees and plants. It would be millennia till intelligent life formed.

After three months of utter desperation, he tasked his onboard computer to play out every possible course of action he could take, and give him the two which statistically offered the best outcome. As the second was to kill himself there and then, he decided to go with the first. Based on data from his own galaxy, it seemed that a planet would usually have mined most of its gold within two generations of making its first radio broadcasts. The ship he had stolen was capable of travelling at virtually the speed of light, so all he had to do was fly around very quickly for an appropriate amount of time, and on his return the earth would have aged a lot more than he had. He would effectively have travelled into the future. Most people would not take kindly to having a stranger steal their planet’s entire supply of gold, so it was decided that he would have to coerce the most powerful man in the world to help him. From the snippets of broadcasts his time probe had sent back from the future, it seemed to be a straight choice between Adolph Hitler and Jesus Christ. As Hitler was a great and powerful warrior, he decided it best to take his chances with Jesus.

The plan was more complicated than he would have liked, but brilliant all the same. The life of Jesus Christ was documented in a book called the bible. All he had to do was to change the bible to say that Jesus would return in approximately 2000 years to lead the righteous to heaven. To do this he would need the world’s entire stock of gold, which should be assembled, ready and waiting for him. Throrgon could then take the gold, and leave Jesus to rule the world as the son of God, or something. That would surely give him access to enough women and booze to satisfy even his voracious appetite.

What could be simpler?

*

Throrgon thought it only fair to explain to Jesus that once they went to the future he wouldn’t ever be able to come back again. Whilst you can effectively travel forward in time simply by travelling very fast, the laws of physics mean that it isn’t possible to go back again. It was becoming increasingly clear to Throrgon that Jesus lacked even a basic understanding of how his Universe worked. He would have to start from the beginning.

At the pre-arranged time he entered the single storey mud hut Jesus called home, and took a seat across the table from him. After a few basic formalities he began the lesson.

We are sitting here talking right now and that’s known as the present, or today as you’d call it. Right, what did you do yesterday?

Jesus shrugged.

You must be able to remember what you did yesterday.

I vaguely recall going out for a drink with Judas, but that’s about it to be honest.

OK, but when you actually went out for the drink with Judas it wasn’t yesterday, was it? It was in fact today.

No, it was definitely yesterday. I haven’t even seen Judas today. He hasn’t surfaced yet.

Throrgon decided to try a different tack. What are you doing tomorrow?

I thought I might clean the front room. Mary Magdalene’s been having a go at me about it.

Right. But when you actually clean the front room it won’t be tomorrow any more, will it? It’ll be today.

No, it’ll definitely be tomorrow. Unless something better comes up of course.

Let’s try something else. Yesterday, today was tomorrow, and yesterday itself was today. But today, what was tomorrow has become today, and what was today is yesterday. Are you with me so far?

Jesus looked at him like a dog that’d just been told to check that all the computers in the house were running the same version of Windows.

You see you can only ever do things in the present. You can’t do things yesterday or tomorrow, as at the point you do the thing it is by definition today. So you won’t be cleaning the front room tomorrow, will you? You’ll be cleaning it today.

No, it’ll be tomorrow or not at all.

Despite the fact his people were unable to feel emotion, Throrgon was starting to become exasperated. "But you can’t actually do it tomorrow, can you? You have to actually do it today. You have to do it today!"

Jesus leaned forward and spoke very deliberately. I can’t do it today, because I’m busy.

Throrgon threw his hands in the air. He was clearly wasting his time. He would just have to kidnap Jesus at the appropriate moment and deal with the consequences afterwards. He said his goodbyes and teleported back to his ship.

Chapter 2

A casual reader of the bible could be forgiven for thinking that Jesus’ day job was casting out demons, and that water-into-wine type conjuring tricks were something he performed on special occasions to entertain the masses. For that they can thank Throrgon.

His android had sent a time probe into the future which beamed back electromagnetic broadcasts from the earth’s future. They were therefore familiar with the contents of the bible, and knew for definite that Jesus would become the most famous man in the history of the planet. However as many of the Bible’s words didn’t exist in their own language, the android was unable to translate them. Both Throrgon and Android struggled with the concept of demons, as Fornia had long since lost such mumbo-jumbo from its vocabulary. So for the first week they went from town to town pretending to cast demons out of Mary Magdalene. This worked to an extent as she was an accomplished actress. However the townsfolk were less easily convinced than they would have been had Jesus exorcised one of their own. Eventually Android concluded that the possessed must fall into two categories: attention seekers and the mentally ill. As they would be unable to teach Jesus to cure the mentally ill, they focused his efforts on attention seekers.

It occurred to Throrgon that an attention seeker would be keen to confirm that Jesus had cast out their demon(s), as it would legitimise their claim to have been possessed in the first place. It would also allow them to continue to be the centre of attention, without having to pretend they were possessed any more. Android built Throrgon a rudimentary lie detector and it was him who initially screened the possessed for mental illness. It soon became clear though that anyone capable of reading people could do this job without special equipment, and Simon the Zealot had this skill in droves. As a former tax official he was used to people lying to him, and therefore adept at sorting the genuinely ill from the fantasists. Throrgon had quickly identified him as a useful ally as he possessed something none of the others had: an education.

Eventually Throrgon was able to beam down to earth just once a week to give the apostles their instructions for the next seven days. He noted that Jesus had assembled a good little team around him. Simon the Zealot provided the brains and Simon ‘The Rock’ Peter the brawn. He acted as Jesus’ personal bodyguard for the odd occasion a trick went wrong or a demon failed to disappear. They would charge the freed person’s family money to fund their daily expenses, and anyone who didn’t pay was re-possessed. The management team was completed by Mary Magdalene. As well as dealing with the women in the camp, she was in charge of general logistics. She would go ahead of Jesus and his entourage to their next venue, ensuring they would have food and shelter for the evening. In many ways she was the world’s first ever Tour Manager.

In fact had the act of sending his cowardly Android down not proved to be more trouble than it was worth, Throrgon could have spent the entire time in his ship out of his head on hallucinogenic drugs. A normal Fornian would have used the time wisely, fine tuning the crucifixion and their escape to the future. Unfortunately for Throrgon humanity was starting to rub off on him, and he’d begun to take on many of the traits his people had spent generations breeding out of themselves. He had become lazy. He would later come to regret this in ways he could not yet even conceive.

*

The plan was now to convince mankind that they had to build a monument to God out of all the gold that existed on their planet. This monument would be required to enable Jesus to lead the righteous into heaven in 2000 years’ time. Throrgon could then turn up with Jesus in the year 2013 and simply steal it. As this would be 20 years before Jesus was due, the monument would be completed but their appearance still a surprise. He could then fly back to his own Universe, leaving Jesus to explain to the human race where all their gold had gone, and why they still weren’t in heaven. He would insert exact specifications for its construction into the bible, so that there would be no confusion as to what was required. It would also demonstrate that the divine power behind the bible knew exactly how much gold the earth contained, making it harder for troublemakers to keep any for themselves.

He mused that some kind of animal statue was probably best, as a quick flick through the Old Testament suggested that people in this day and age already knew how to make them, meaning the project could start immediately. They were in the ship’s main meeting chamber and Android was suggesting animals that might be appropriate.

In the broadcasts from 2000 years hence the most common animals described by the adjective ‘golden’ are lions and bears. The word ‘lion’ appears frequently in the bible, so perhaps a golden lion would be the most appropriate form for the statue to take.

Throrgon was unconvinced. "I was thinking that the hardest thing to do will be to keep people committed to the project as they become more sophisticated over time. I