With a rod of iron a par.., p.51
With a Rod of Iron: A Parable, page 51
“I love you.”
“Mom!”
“Don’t you understand how much I love you?”
Oddly, Brian stopped screaming and faced the stranger in his bedroom. “I want my mom.”
“I know,” Jesus sat down at the foot of his bed. “But don’t you want Jesus, too?”
“I know Jesus. He lives in here.” He pointed at his chest.
“He does?”
Brian nodded.
“How do you know that?”
“Mom told me.”
“When did she tell you that?”
“Mom kept telling me I needed to ask Jesus into my heart, and when I asked her how one Sunday morning, she took me up to the pastor and the pastor prayed for me. Afterward, he hugged me, and mom hugged me, and she was crying and she said that Jesus lived inside me now. So they baptized me and I’ve had Jesus in my heart ever since.”
“Do you feel him?”
Brian shook his head. “No.”
“Then how do you know he’s there?”
“Mom said so. Mom doesn’t lie.”
“Do you talk to Jesus?”
“Yes.”
“What does he say?”
Brian laughed. “Jesus doesn’t say anything. Jesus is invisible.”
“You said you talked to Jesus though.”
“Well—I talk and he listens.”
“Oh.”
“Would you like it if Jesus talked back to you?”
He shrugged.
“That’s who I am, you know.”
Brian shook his head. “You’re not Jesus; you’re just a man and I shouldn’t be talking to you because you’re a stranger.”
“But I am Jesus.”
“No. Mom says that when Jesus comes back he’ll come in the sky and he’ll take us all up into the sky with him.”
“I already did that; I’m back now.”
“But I didn’t fly into the sky.”
“Because I don’t live in your heart.”
“But mom said—”
“Maybe mom made a mistake.”
Brian thought about that a minute, then shook his head. “No, mom said—”
“But I’m Jesus. And I don’t live inside you.”
Brian’s mouth hung open, then he closed it. “You can’t be Jesus; I can see you, but the real Jesus is invisible and you haven’t come back.”
“Look at my hands,” Jesus suggested.
Brian looked, and saw the scars there—scars that looked like they used to be holes in his wrists.
“But you didn’t take us in the rapture—” Brian’s eyes suddenly went round. “You’re the Antichrist.”
“No, I’m Jesus.”
“Yes you are. You’re pretending to be Jesus, but you’re really the Antichrist. You’re from the Devil! Oh, oh, oh!” And then he screamed again, calling for his mom and his dad, and yelling for the Devil to go away.
Jesus remained sitting on his bed for the longest time, but finally he got up and left. Brian couldn’t quite say how he left, but eventually Brian realized he was alone again. Until his mom finally came bursting into his room.
* * *
Brian had dismissed his memory of Jesus as a bad dream—one of those childhood nightmares that everyone gets, from an age when children still have difficulty telling the difference between their dreams and their reality. He could remember being convinced that he had a red bike somewhere, but he could never find it, even though he clearly remembered riding it. “A dream,” his mother had told him, as if that explained it all.
Now, as an adult looking back, it did.
But Jesus?
Maybe it hadn’t been a dream. If what that guy had said was true, then the Antichrist was making his rounds...no wonder everyone was so deceived! If someone comes supernaturally and stands right in front of you and talks to you—how could you not be suckered in? He felt a chill; how close had he actually come to selling his soul? If he hadn’t been raised in a strong Christian home, by a mother and father who cared for his spiritual welfare—there’s no telling what might have happened! He could have ended up like all these poor people around him—utterly deceived and bound for Hell, with the invisible Mark of the Beast proudly displayed on his forehead.
He stuffed the remainder of the booklets back in his bag—and ran in search of Hector.
* * *
The clerk took their signatures and their cash and handed them each a room key—number five hundred thirty-three: nothing special or significant. Not a devil number, nor was it a godly number. He felt some slight disappointment at that—and at the simple fact that once again no check was made to see if they actually had a Mark of the Beast or not. Since practically everyone had it, it must be that checking on it was believed unnecessary.
“There’s a lot of people here,” commented Hector. “Why don’t we pass some out in the lobby?”
“Is that a good idea?”
“What? You’re afraid they’ll get mad at us?”
“Aren’t there rules about soliciting in buildings?”
“What did the apostles tell the Sanhedrin? ‘Choose for yourself whether it is better that we obey you or obey God? As for us, we will obey God.’”
Brian nodded. Hector took up a place near the elevators. Brian moved to the lobby area just by the front doors.
The splattering of a fountain in the background was a nice contrast to the otherwise mind-numbing background music partially obscured by the dull murmur of countless voices. The music was light jazz—his mother had been careful to teach him the different sorts of music that were out there: which kinds were godly, and which were not. She had been a little unclear on jazz, though in the final analysis she seemed of a mind to place it in the same category as rock and rap and all the other forms of perversion that the Devil had invented.
“Music that takes you out of yourself, music that has too strong a rhythm—you need to stay away from it. Anything powerful like that can open you up to Satan.” His mother’s words were common phrases that ran constantly through his mind.
A young couple approached him, and he pressed a booklet into the man’s hand.
“What’s this?”
“Just something for you to read; it’s all about the man who claims to be Jesus.”
“What do you mean, ‘claims’?” The woman took the lead in posing questions.
“He says he’s the Lord Jesus Christ—but what proof do you have that’s true? And what answers does this man in Jerusalem give to the evidence suggesting he’s not quite what he claims?”
“What? What evidence? What are you talking about?”
“He claims to be Jesus—the same Jesus who died on the cross around thirty AD. Yet, has his coming been in accordance with what the Bible predicted? We know his first coming fulfilled numberless prophesies, but when we look at this man, can we say the same thing? What prophesies has he fulfilled? Has he fulfilled any?”
“I...I don’t know.”
The husband continued to listen quietly, making no comment one way or the other; Brian couldn’t read anything in his face.
Brian went on: “Consider. Jesus himself predicted that in the last day, many would come claiming to be him—but he warned his followers not to be fooled.
“And then, if any man shall say to you, Lo, here is Christ; or, lo, he is there; believe him not. For false Christs and false prophets shall rise, and shall show signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect. But take heed; behold, I have foretold you all things.”
“The Man of Sin must be revealed before the coming of Christ, along with the Mark of the Beast, the falling away, the persecution of the saints. Have any of those things come? No! But would not the Antichrist come with miracles and proofs so strong that they would fool even the very elect—if it were possible? Look at the miracles this man has done! He’s raised the dead and he’s eliminated death, he’s healed the sick, he’s brought bounty to the poor, and he appears to all who ask. How could the Antichrist bring proofs any stronger than that?”
“So you’re saying he’s the Antichrist.” The husband finally entered the conversation.
“Yes.”
“Because of the miracles?”
“Yes.”
“Well...that’s very interesting.” He turned to his wife. “Come on. We’ve got other things to do.” The man pulled his wife away, and they were gone.
The day dragged on. More individuals and more couples, but the results were always the same. They listened politely, they asked probing questions for which he always had the right answers, but they always rejected his message in the end and walked away.
Chapter Twenty-three
Eban sat with his back to the date palm, a picnic basket at his elbow and a young woman across the plaid cloth from him. She had black hair that hung nearly to her waist, while her eyes were smoldering coals and her skin a deep brown, born from the sun. Her lips were pursed in concentration as she bent her energies to pulling plastic-wrapped items of food from the basket.
“Every man will sit under his own vine and under his own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid, for the Lord of Hosts has spoken.”
The passage from the prophet Isaiah came unbidden to Eban’s mind as he sat there; he recognized the application to his current pleasant predicament.
Although he wasn’t exactly under a vine or fig tree, the principle remained: a lazy Saturday afternoon, alone with his wife among the date palms of the kibbutz. Tomorrow, it would be back to work at the university, and tomorrow, this field would hear the sound of voices and the roar of machines; but for now, it was empty, except for the two of them.
“Does it feel like it’s been ten years?” asked Eban.
She glanced up from the plate of tuna sandwiches and stared at him as if she hadn’t quite heard, then she shook her head.
“No, it hasn’t seemed nearly that long. Like yesterday, actually.”
Her name was Leah, after Jacob’s second and unloved wife; the biblical allusion of her name played no role in their lives together. Since the day he’d met her, he’d adored her, and though it had taken a little effort on his part, she had come, at last, to adore him just as much. Perhaps more—which discussion had become a game with them.
“I love you,” he said suddenly.
“I love you more,” Leah replied.
“I love you most.”
“Prove it.”
He sucked in a deep breath. Ordinarily that would be an introduction to foreplay and eventual love making, but he supposed he should resist that urge since they were in a more or less public place. He decided to content himself with just a kiss.
She was not content. His reluctance was weak—they were hardly in serious danger of being embarrassed—and before he knew it they were both naked and happy and staring up at the sky between the palm fronds.
“Hungry?” she asked.
“Yeah, I guess.” At the moment, he was fighting to stay awake.
“We’d probably better get dressed,” she said.
Always the sensible one.
* * *
Later, huddled on the ground, staring at the sky painted orange and yellow with purple by the setting sun, he wondered at the contentment and peace of his life. It had not always been like this, but the time before, the time when the Messiah was not here—that was very hard to remember anymore, as if it had been a life and a set of experiences that belonged to someone else, someone he had read about once, or maybe watched on television. Certainly not his own life.
“Did you see the latest ad for the moon resort?” she asked.
They’d had this discussion before.
“Yes, I have.”
“We’re due for a vacation in two months; wouldn’t it be fun to go there?”
“I’m sure it would be, but can we really afford it?”
“It costs only two thousand for a couple to go; Mary and Bob just went, you know.”
“I know.”
“They had a good time.”
“I’m sure they did. But they make more money than we do. We could do a lot with two thousand dollars.”
“What? Earn more interest from the bank?”
“Well—yeah. We have to have money in savings. Besides, there’s more expense to going to the moon than just paying the translocator toll. There’s also the hotel and the meals and then the recreational stuff has to cost—”
“Mary said it only cost them five thousand dollars for the entire trip, meals and everything.”
“That’s a lot!”
She frowned, looking frustrated and almost angry. He bit his tongue to keep from smiling. It was cruel of him, perhaps, to torment her like this—but her reactions were so predictable and so extreme as to be almost comical.
“I don’t see why we need to worry about ten thousand dollars,” she said.
“I thought you said it would only cost five thousand—”
“Well, they stayed in a cheap hotel and they didn’t buy any souvenirs. I figure we’d want to stay in a nicer place, and besides, they didn’t go everywhere—like they didn’t take the tour to Tranquility base, where Neil Armstrong walked on the moon the first time.”
“Oh.” He nodded. She didn’t seem to catch the sarcasm in his voice.
“So, you see, it’s not so very much. And besides, if I work a little overtime between now and then, I figure I can get most of it together by then, anyhow.”
“In two months?”
“Well, maybe it would take longer than that.” She looked morose. “But in a year. I could have all that money earned back in a year. And it would be great fun to spend two weeks on the moon, wouldn’t it?”
“We have a month vacation.”
“But that would cost more,” she started to say.
“That’s okay.”
She blinked at him, startled, and puzzled, and not at all sure how to respond.
“Okay—like in…we’re going?”
“Of course we’re going. I made the reservations a month ago.”
She stared at him, her eyes both darkening and sparkling brighter at the same time. A grin began to form on her lips, but she fought it and then hurled herself at him. “You jerk!” she accused him. “You knew all along and you just let me go on and on, pleading and begging and making a fool of myself!”
“It’s such fun to watch you try to manipulate me, as if I’m too stupid to notice.”
“Jerk!” but she laughed and planted her mouth on his, as if starting to kiss. Instead, she blew a puff of air in his mouth, making a honking noise in his throat.
He responded by kissing her back, but his attempt at retaliation was met by returning air pressure, so that they remained locked in each other’s arms, their cheeks puffed out like squirrels.
Lovemaking, however, finally and invariably followed once again.
* * *
He had seen the brochures and had watched the documentaries on television, but they were like faded black and white photographs compared to actually being there. Unlike most places, it was more than just the sounds and smells that were not portrayed in such electronic secondhand gossip, it was the feel. There was no way to describe or make someone understand ahead of time what it was like to be on the moon, to find oneself weighing but a sixth of what one had weighed most of one’s life.
The comparison made to being in a swimming pool didn’t really do the moon justice. In a swimming pool, you were wet, often cold, and wearing next to nothing. On the moon, you wore clothes and had shoes on and everything was dry—unless you chose to go swimming on top of everything else!
The trip through the translocator from Earth to the moon was a ride in little people mover cars, like something from Disneyland, a place he’d visited once as a child on vacation in France. But Disneyland was nothing compared to this.
Supposedly Disney was in negotiations with the conglomerate that held title to the moon colony, but he hadn’t heard anything about that in a long time. What would a Disneyland on the moon be like?
The voice of the computer had warned them to be very careful getting up from the people mover. Even with the warning, it was hard to keep from bouncing away, or tumbling on one’s face, like the hapless couple in the car ahead of them, who stepped out and promptly bounced, face first, like a pair of tennis balls. They came up laughing, their amusement echoed by most of the folks around them.
The air was alive with joyful voices, and Eban raised his to join them. “We will have to speak English while we’re here, it looks like.”
“Of course. Everywhere outside of Israel, one must speak English.”
“Even within Israel, one must speak it occasionally.” He reflected on the wisdom of the Israeli school system that had insisted everyone, whether they liked it or not, should learn the language of the world. Consequently, Lisa’s command of English was passable, if not flawless. He thanked God he was a native speaker.
“Look at that!” His wife diverted him from his thoughts, yanking his eyes toward her pointing index finger.
A man was flying through the air overhead, flapping long wings that were like a cross between a parachute and a hang glider. He soared delicately and smoothly upward, riding an invisible column of warm air toward the top of the dome far overhead. Eban would not have been surprised to see clouds.
“We have to do that!” she gushed.
“We will.”
He hauled his bags from the idle people mover, pulling them too hard and too fast; their weight was much less than his muscles were accustomed to, but their mass was still the same as it had always been. Their momentum almost dragged him off balance.
He staggered, caught himself, and ungracefully stabilized. Leah chuckled at his discomfiture.
“Don’t laugh,” he responded. “You’re just standing in one place. Let’s see you move a muscle.”
She shook her head. “I’m no fool. I’m clumsy on Earth. I’ll be twice the klutz here.”
“At least here you won’t hurt yourself.”
She shook her head again. “I don’t hurt myself on Earth, either,” she pointed out. “I’m always running into things, stumbling, and mostly I don’t even notice. You ask me, ‘did that hurt?’ and I respond by saying, ‘did what hurt?’ I don’t even know when I hurt myself.”
