With a rod of iron a par.., p.13
With a Rod of Iron: A Parable, page 13
He huddled down deeper beneath the covers. He wished he could go back to sleep.
“Eban?”
The voice at first sounded like his father’s voice, but when he opened an eye to look—not sure if he really wanted to acknowledge that he was awake—he found a stranger in his room.
Opening his other eye, he rubbed them both with his knuckles, because the stranger looked oddly familiar.
“My God!” he exclaimed. “It’s you!”
“Right on both counts.” Jesus sat down on the foot of his bed, crossing his legs. Dressed in shorts and T-shirt, he hardly looked like the conquering king: more like a well-muscled life guard, the sort that would make women swoon—and keep them from giving Eban a second look.
Eban sat up.
What was Jesus doing in his room at two in the morning? And why was he talking to Eban, of all people?
So he asked him.
“You’re important to me.”
Eban just stared.
“This shocks you?”
“Well—yeah...”
“Don’t you think of yourself as someone special?”
“Well of course...”
“Then where’s the problem?”
“But I know I’m not really special. There’s a million guys just like me...”
“Actually, there’s no one just like you. Or just like anyone else, for that matter. Each human is unique.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I understand the point you’re trying to make. But is it the right point?”
Eban was silent a moment. He knew he should be quiet, that wisdom would dictate he slap his hand across his mouth and that maybe he’d be better off prostrating himself on the floor. And yet...how could he not ask the questions that were bubbling up inside him?
“I’m nothing, just an ex-army private, young...aren’t there more important people to be spending time with? I mean, what about the sergeant—or better yet, the general? But why a general of a little country? You should be talking to a general in America, if you really need to talk to someone military...”
“I need to talk to you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I love you.”
“Me?” Eban was dumbfounded. “Why, for God’s sake?”
“Yes.”
Eban gaped; it was the longest time before he made a connection between his words, and Jesus’ response.
“I’m nobody,” he insisted again.
“You’re the center of the universe.”
Eban felt himself at a loss for words once more. For the first time—or the first time Eban had noticed it—Jesus smiled.
“Every human being is the center of the universe—to himself or herself,” said Jesus. “Everything revolves around him or her. Everything is considered in light of how it will affect him or her. On Saturday Night Live, many years ago, a man named Al Franken did a skit on the Al Franken decade—a parody of the “me generation” and “me decade” that had gone before. And he said that in the coming decade, by which he meant the eighties—the nineteen eighties...”
It really had been a long time ago! Eban didn’t feel so bad for not knowing this Al Franken Jesus was talking about.
“Al Franken told viewers that in the coming decade people would be asking themselves how a given decision would affect ‘me, Al Franken’ or how a given policy of the government would affect ‘me, Al Franken.’ And of course the humor—part of it at any rate—if a person stopped and thought about it, was the fact that everyone actually thought about the universe in just such parochial terms. You judge existence on the basis of how it affects you—and really no one else.”
Eban was about to protest, when Jesus held up a finger and hurried on, answering the question before he even had a chance to get it out.
“You are concerned about other people, but only as they are other people you know and care about, because they therefore affect you directly—they are extensions of you.”
Eban felt suddenly quite miserable. Was there anyone so selfish as him?
“But all human beings are like you; there’s not a one who isn’t. So again: why’s it so hard for you to imagine that I should be here, or that I should care about you so much?”
Eban shook his head.
Jesus was still smiling. “I take the perspective of each person; I see the world as each person sees it, and I care about each individual as he cares for himself. There have been odd interpretations of my words, but their truth is self-evident. Love others as you love yourself. This is not a statement encouraging self-love, nor does it posit selflessness. Rather, it simply describes the nature of the universe as it’s perceived by each individual. The command is to try to love others in the same way one loves himself—that is, allow another person to become the center of the universe, too.” He paused. “This is the way God loves each person. God is the center of the universe, and he draws each person to that place; therefore, you are here with me, and I with you. It is natural for it to be so.”
Eban blinked, as the truth of the concept slowly filtered into his brain. “But...I have spent a lifetime rejecting you. My people have spent generations...”
“Why do you love your parents?”
Eban was taken aback by the question. “I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I just do.”
“I want reasons.” Jesus tapped his right hand with the forefinger of his left. A scar was visible. “Give me a list. What are the reasons. Now.”
Eban stammered. “I don’t know...I never...I just love them. How can I give you reasons?”
“God loves you.” Jesus said quickly. “Why?”
The answer was as unfathomable to him as the previous one.
Jesus didn’t wait for his response. “God simply loves you; if he could give reasons, then there would be a way for you to stop being the object of his affection. You might even do something that would make God hate you.” He paused. “What do you think of the man who divorces his wife because she is disfigured in an accident?”
“He’s the lowest form of slime on the planet.” An easy answer.
“Then why do you imagine God is that petty?”
Eban was once again startled by an answer.
“So you rejected me,” Jesus shrugged. “So you’re a bad person, so maybe you murder and rape and steal. So you have wicked thoughts and talk back to your parents. So what? None of that are issues with God.”
“But I thought...”
“What? That you need to be good? Is there any human being that’s good? Who never makes a mistake? Who never acts selfishly?”
Eban’s shoulders drooped.
“Why do you think I died?” demanded Jesus.
Eban shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“So that your self-centeredness wouldn’t be an issue. God loves you. Period. There isn’t anything to stop it, nothing to change it, nothing to get in the way. So the only question is: do you love God back?” He paused. “It’s your choice.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Do you want God to be a part of your life or not?”
Eban almost responded by saying, ‘of course’, and then he paused. The implications of the statement suddenly exploded around him. Eban was the center of the universe. If he let God in...that would have to change. God would become the center, and Eban would become something off to one side. In fact, if he loved God as he loved himself, then God would have to take Eban’s place.
Eban would have to die.
But what was the alternative?
A life without God. And then what? Would it be worth living at all?
“Of course I love you!” Eban exclaimed.
“You’ll let me stay here, to be a part of your life—“ Jesus paused, “to be your life?”
Eban nodded.
And once again, Jesus smiled.
* * *
When he walked into his parents’ living room some hours later after the sun was up, he discovered his father Andrew, his mother Elsie, his brother and sister, each had stories like his to tell—Jesus had come and talked to each one of them. At first, this news confused and puzzled Eban—even frightened him—until he stopped and remembered who he’d been dealing with.
God could be in more than one place at once. He could easily devote one hundred percent attention to everyone. He was the perfect parent, the perfect teacher, and the perfect friend.
The one truly able to love as a person loved himself.
“What did he tell you?” Eban asked his father.
“He told me I was going to go to Hell,” said his father, wearily lowering himself into his chair.
The rest of Eban’s family sat quietly about the tiny living room.
“Hell?” Eban started to sweat; perhaps a reaction appropriate for thoughts of Hell.
“That’s the way I reacted, too,” said his father. “Eventually. Not at once. First off, I laughed at him.”
“You laughed at Jesus?”
His father’s face flushed. “Yeah. Scary, ain’t it?”
Eban nodded.
“What else did he say?”
“He did more than talk. You know, they say talk’s cheap. Me, I like cheap—especially now.” He paused. “He took me to Hell.”
“Took you to Hell?”
His father nodded. “Either that, or he showed me what it was going to be like.” He shrugged. “Who’s to say whether I really went there or if he simply took me to something like a movie set. Me, I think he took me to the real thing. Why not? He’s God, he can do anything he wants...”
“What was Hell like?” Morbid curiosity about a place he’d always heard about...
* * *
Several images competed with Andrew Steinberg’s brain for dominance, each wishing to establish itself as the proper portrait of a land of make-believe. If Hell existed, it was for the unusually wicked, like Adolph Hitler or serial killers. Murderers would go to Hell; he’d always been convinced of that. And rapists. They were especially bad, too. But he wouldn’t be there; never.
Hell was supposed to be smoking pits and flames, with red-suited demons hopping about stabbing folks in the butt with their pitchforks. Either that, or it was a place—if some of his friends were right, when they joked about it over beers—where they would “party hearty.” So either Hell was a place for the Hitlers and Dalhmers of the world, or it was a place where the guys played poker to all hours, got drunk and laughed at dirty jokes.
The two images battled in his head, and he suspected both were wrong.
Jesus had taken him by the hand and the next thing he’d known he was no longer in his comfortable bed, his darling wife quietly asleep beside him. Andrew stood upon a plain of glass that stretched as far as the eye could see. Overhead, a pitch black sky glowered at him. Though starless and moonless, he could see no wisps of cloudiness; he could smell no brimstone; nothing was burning or burned. In fact, he couldn’t really smell much of anything.
A warm wind blew across the barren surface, but it was not uncomfortably hot. Dry, it swept away whatever sweat might have been wanting to form on his skin.
“This is Hell?” he finally asked. How long he’d been standing there before he finally asked the question, he could not have said.
“This is Hell. I said you were going to come here.”
“Where are the flames?”
“Just wait.”
“And where is everybody?”
“Just wait.”
Puzzled, he did what Jesus said. Hard to believe this was really Jesus. As hard to believe as being in Hell. Probably it was all some sort of crazy dream—crazy dream inspired by the news. The Messiah came, the war was over. Eban was home. Surely that was enough to bring dreams to anyone.
Odd, that they should be so unpleasant.
Why should he fear the coming of Messiah?
Jesus kept his hand on him and together they began walking across the surface. Despite its obsidian smoothness, it was firm enough under his feet. Besides the smoothness, he noted idly that it was warm—not hot—about the same temperature as the air.
The scenery around them did not change. No mountain ranges appeared on the horizon. No structures revealed themselves. No demons leapt from nonexistent hiding places. In fact, as he looked about, he realized there was no place anyone could hide, even had they wanted to.
Despite the darkness above and around, he seemed able to see well enough. Jesus was still wearing white; he could see the color and texture of his skin, the brown flecks in his eyes. Sight was not a problem. Odd, he had never seen so clearly before in darkness. It was a paradox. Dark, and yet everything visible.
“Here,” said Jesus.
With the speaking of the word, he lost awareness of Jesus’ presence. In fact, it was as if he not only wasn’t there, but had never been there at all. Immediately he was assaulted by a raging inferno, an inferno not from flames licking at his heels. Worse, the flames came from inside, springing up and gnawing at his guts. The thirst that came to him was insatiable; an intense desire that had no release, even had he been given a vacuum pump, he could not have emptied himself of the torment.
His nakedness became apparent to him. He stood exposed to the sky, to the world, and there was no covering, no running, no hiding. His eyes sought relief from the unrelenting dullness of the world around him. He wished everlastingly for solace and found none.
A thousand gallons of water would not quench the flames tormenting him with the lost opportunities, the lost choices. He raged, but his rage burned himself and no one else, because no one else was to blame for his problem. It was as if he had taken a chain saw and sliced off a foot: it was done and there was no undoing it, and it was a stupid mistake.
There was no second chance.
Unexpectedly, he became aware of the throngs around him. Men and women, all young and beautiful, milled about, but none seemed to notice anyone else. How could a lifetime of sin be punished by an eternity of this?
The thought came to his mind and there seemed at first, no answer.
Seventy years, perhaps—and a billion unending here in torment. Why? Why?
Because he was stupid? Because he had made the wrong choices? God, he was human! What did the Almighty expect? Because I didn’t choose Jesus, because I didn’t know about him, hadn’t really understood or heard the message, I’m condemned to wander on a sea of glass, burning forever?!
“Yes.” The answer came from the lips of Jesus and suddenly he was back in his bedroom.
The raging inferno in his soul was gone, as if it had never been there. The relief was so great, that he flopped to the floor, exhausted.
“It’s not fair,” he said at last.
“Not fair?”
“No. A person lives for seventy years, maybe a little more. So he messes up in that time. Is that a reason to torment him for all eternity? Why not just torment him for however long he had been on Earth? Or maybe, if the person were exceptionally bad, like a Hitler or something, then torment him correspondingly longer. That seems fair to me.”
“Gee, I’d never thought of it like that.” Jesus paused for the longest time, a smile growing on his lips, as he allowed the sarcasm to sink in. “Let me give you a real answer to the question, by way of analogy. A young woman was driving south on Interstate Five in California; she reached down to change the channel on the radio, and for a moment, took her eyes off the road. In that brief second, she failed to notice the brake lights on the car in front of her, slowing because of a rabbit that had suddenly run across the road. She slammed into the car at a hundred fifty kilometers per hour. But she didn’t die. She was merely left a quadriplegic for the rest of her life. How unfair!” Jesus paused. “And all because of an error that lasted only a second.”
Andrew felt embarrassed. “I didn’t mean to imply that you’re stupid, or that...”
Jesus chuckled. “Human beings do it all the time. They pray and ask for something, and they spend hours explaining why this is a good idea, as if I wouldn’t already know. As if I’m too old and feeble to think anymore, or maybe, being God, I’m just too busy to notice such things. Or perhaps they make me promises—‘if only you’ll save me from this mess I swear I’ll never do this again’—or positively, ‘if you save me from this, I swear I’ll go to church or synagogue from now on’.”
Andrew lowered his head. How many times, after drinking too much, had he made such a promise to God?
“As if I’m supposed to believe you’ll really do what you say? Or do you think that I really care that you go to church and synagogue.”
“Don’t you care about...”
“Religion?” Jesus chuckled. “That’s not the issue.”
“What is it then?”
“Me. I’m the issue. Do you love me, or do you love yourself?”
“Does it have to be an either or sort of question?”
Jesus nodded.
This was impossible! And of course, Jesus would know the answer even before he said it. The real answer, not the one he imagined Jesus would want to hear.
“Well—of course I love myself. Everyone does.”
“So you don’t love me.”
Not a question. Bare statement. Andrew protested. “So because people don’t love you, you send them to Hell? Isn’t that a little selfish? And if they do love you, or claim to, then how do you know they’re not doing it just because they’re afraid—because they don’t want to go to Hell? How is that really love then? That’s a shotgun wedding!”
Jesus smiled. “You’re answering your own questions, if you’ll think about it a little.”
“I love myself and I’ll never love you because I can’t give up loving me. You say it’s an either-or proposition. And if anyone did love you, wouldn’t it just be so they could get out of Hell? I sure didn’t like my visit...”
“Do I love me?” asked Jesus.
“Of course. Everyone loves himself.”
“That’s the definition of Hell, you know. Or at least one of them. There’s an old story told about a man who died and was given a glimpse of the afterlife. First he went to Hell and found everyone was sitting at a long table. Each person had one hand tied behind his back and his other hand had a three foot spoon tied to the end of it. On the table were bowls of soup and they were trying to feed themselves—but of course were not able to.
