In elementary school I never played with Pokémon cards, or learned all the yoyo tricks, or the water yoyos when they became popular. I never wore the really tight pants, or pierced my face, or listened to the hot bands. So of course, when the resurrection of Jesus appeared at the school I didn’t buy into that either. No one really noticed it at first, just another odd kid in a sea of misfits. I first saw him, or at least I think I first saw him, in detention for speaking out in class, or something along those lines, he was sitting in the middle of the class surrounded by a sea of empty chairs created by the people attempted to avoid the weird kid wearing a robe, I was one of them. I didn’t realize who he believed he was until I saw other people showing up in robes and following him around school, sort of like a cult of some kind. I heard from my friends that this was when he begun preaching. It was about 12:30 and I had just entered the cafeteria with my friend Paul. Paul was one of the largest guys in school, six foot four and around three hundred pounds, but he was also one of the nicest. Ever since his parents had split up and his mom got really sick Paul had been relying on me for moral support and such, but I didn’t mind, I liked having him around, always cheering up the situation and being the optimistic guy of the group. We walked in and we saw him, the Jesus guy, sitting on one of the tables talking to a small group of his ‘followers’, and being listened to by basically everyone in the cafeteria.
We could hear him speaking to his group: “The time has come, the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news.” His group stirred and muttered amongst themselves. He appeared to notice everyone watching him and spoke to the room: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
“Who are you Jesus?” someone yelled back, causing the cafeteria to laugh uncomfortably.
“If any of you are ashamed of my and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of you when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.” He then stood up and walked out of the room, followed by his 4-5 followers. The cafeteria was stunned into silence, not even the previous heckler had anything to say.
“Man that kid is weird,” someone muttered.
* * *
Word of mouth spread quickly after that, it seemed everyone was talking about him, though it seemed no one would take him seriously. Most of what you heard was ridiculing him or some joke; “Hey man, did you hear that that Jesus kid cured Steve’s mom’s cancer?” “Who’s Steve?” “That kid whose mom used to have cancer, you know?” “No not really.” “Yeah well I heard that Jesus kid cured her cancer.” Or something along the lines of: “I heard all those guys follow that Jesus dude because he turned their water into wine and gets them wasted.” “That’s awesome man, maybe I’ll ‘take up the cross’” “Yeah man do it, free wine.” It seemed that the teachers were completely throwing this off as just another pointless piece of teenage gossip. But while the gossip of him increased I didn’t see him at all, he seemed to have disappeared from the school. I asked Paul and a couple other friends but they hadn’t seen him either. It wasn’t until two weeks later where we caught sight of him again. We just got out of school when we saw a huge crowd was gathered around the bike racks. We ran up to the outside ring.
“Who’s fighting?” Paul asked some kid.
“No one, that Jesus kid is over there, apparently he healed Joe’s leg.”
“Joe’s leg is hurt?”
“I think he crashed his bike.” We tried to push in closer but the mass of kids was so tight we couldn’t even catch a glimpse of him and Joe, but we were able to hear him over the crowd.
“How’d you heal him?!” Someone called out.
“Everything is possible for one who believes.” The crowd went silent.
“Go, your faith has healed you,” he said to Joe. The crowd parted as Joe walked out of the center in a kind of confused daze.
“How did you do that?” someone from the crowd called out.
“With human beings it is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.” Everyone just stood there, no one could believe what they had seen. He walked out of the circle and back into the school and the crowd followed him in awe.
“Jeez…” Paul muttered.
* * *
That was when it got serious in the school. Everywhere you went, in all your classes, in all the hallways you would find followers of the proclaimed ‘Jesus’. They’d be dressed in simple robes and sandals and would constantly speak of how amazing their prophet is, their Jesus. But it wasn’t until a week later when things became more serious for me.
“Hey Nick, have you seen Paul recently”
“Nah man, haven’t seen him in a week, I heard his mom got worse, he’s probably at the hospital.” Nick was one of my other friends, I didn’t hang out with him much, but he was still entertaining.
“Ah, that sucks, thanks for the info.”
“Hey you got to check this out man.”
“What?”
“You know that Jesus guy? I’ve been filming him, I got some sick footage, gonna edit it together and make like a documentary or something. Dude this could be big.” Oh yeah, Nick was an aspiring filmmaker, always looking for some big break or movie he could shoot. Last summer he sent 17 entries into the local film festival. None of them won.
“Yeah maybe another time, just let me know if you see Paul.”
Nick seemed kind of disappointed, but he shrugged it off quickly and said he’d let me know if he saw Paul. But when Paul still didn’t show up to school in the next few days I became worried. This wasn’t like Paul, he sometimes took days off to see his mom, but he never missed 2 weeks of school in a row. So I called up the hospital. They said he had come in a couple days ago, but they hadn’t seen him since, and that his mom was doing better. Well that’s good news I thought, but I still didn’t know where Paul was. The next day Paul was in school, but he was wearing the robes and sandals of the followers.
“Paul what’s going on? Why haven’t you been in school?”
“My mom got a lot worse, and the hospital said she wouldn’t make it through the month, I didn’t know what to do, but then I had a talk with Jesus and he really helped me out. He told me to have faith, and it will help heal you and those close to you. So that’s what I did, I gave up everything to follow him, and after that, my mom started to get better. It’s a miracle man, a freaking miracle.”
“Your moms getting better because of the doctors, not because you started listening to this Jesus. It doesn’t work like that.”
“You don’t know how it works. He made me believe, and my faith helped my mom get better.” I was stunned. I didn’t think a friend of mine would even be foolish enough to believe in something like this, the entire notion that ‘having faith’ could heal people was ridiculous.
“Fine. Believe that nonsense.”
“He can help you too, don’t be so hostile towards him, accept Jesus and you will be healed as well.” I didn’t respond, I was too angry at this point. I didn’t understand how anyone could believe that. “Just let me get you to talk with him, you will see his message and understand what it means to believe in something.” Talk to him? What could he possibly do for me, that is the biggest waste of time I have ever heard.
“Fine, but only because I know this is all complete bullshit.”
* * *
The usual math room was empty. Paul had told me to come here so I can meet him, the person he called Jesus. I wouldn’t call him that, but I didn’t know his actual name, so I had no clue what to call him. I had been here for 15 minutes, and this room was stifling hot, I was already angry at this guy. I had never really seen him alone before, he was always surrounded by a huge mass of people, his followers, and those just following along with the crowd.
The door opened and he walked in. He was a lot shorter then I remembered, topping out at what must have been 5’4”. He had long brown hair and was wearing a robe (which I imagine was intended to be a Halloween costume), just like the stereotypical white Jesus. He sat down across from me and didn’t say anything, just kind of stared at me. It was unnerving.
“Hello?”
“Hello my son,”
“Uh…”
“Paul has told me all about you. I understand you are having trouble accepting what I say. But know that this is okay, you can be forgiven, all you have to do is give your material possessions up and follow me and you will be able to enter the kingdom of God.”
“Look, I don’t know what your talking about, all I know is that you need to stay away from Paul, he has enough shit going on in his life, he doesn’t need some bullshit cult like this to brainwash him.”
“Paul has made his choice, he has accepted my words and has embraced the kingdom of God. He believes you can also be saved.”
“I don’t want to be saved. I don’t even know what being saved means. I’m here because Paul needs help, and you aren’t the one to help him.”
“You should be happy for Paul, he has been able to stand up for himself and doesn’t need to rely on you to get through the day any more.”
“He never relied on me, you’re just fucking with his mind, making him depend on your fucking cult!”
“God has helped Paul heal from his wounds.”
“THAT’S BULLSHIT! THIS ENTIRE THING IS BULLSHIT!” I flipped over my chair shoved past him and drove out of the room.
* * *
Paul was waiting outside of school for me.
“How did it go?”
“Listen, this guy is scum, he’s just fucking with your mind, don’t listen to his bullshit.”
“I see.”
“I’m serious. You need to stay away from this guy.”
“I’m sorry you couldn’t understand, he could have really helped you.”
“He’s not really Jesus! Why don’t you get that?!”
“He may not actually be Jesus, but his message is just as strong. He has shared it with the school and changed the lives of many. This weekend his message is going to spread across the entire state. Him and His followers are meeting upstate in the woods, to determine who is going to preach his message and where.”
“Oh Jesus Christ.” I sighed, “you’re not going are you?”
“Of course I am, all disciples are going to hear him preach. Despite your closed mind you should go, he will help save you.” I was done after that. There was no point. If all these people wanted to waste their lives on this bullshit, I wasn’t going to try to stop them, even Paul.
* * *
I didn’t go to the Jesus thing, but I still went to school, and it was almost completely empty. None of my friends were here, Paul was gone, Nick was gone, John was gone, they had all gone. I just coasted through the day with the hope of getting home before any of the Jesus folks got back. It seemed even the teachers didn’t bother trying to teach, and it seemed like an eternity before the bell rang. On my way home Nick came running up to me.
“Dude, dude, dude, dude…” He gasped for breath.
“Calm down man, what’s up?”
“Dude I have to show you this.” Nick had the biggest grin I’ve ever seen on his face; it was rather scary.
“Fine lets go.”
Nick dragged me over to his house where one of his film buddies was finishing uploading some video on his computer.
‘ “Hey did you finish yet?” Nick asked the guy.
“Yeah its all set up, the whole thing.”
“Nice, start it up.”
The guy started the movie on the computer. I saw what it was instantly. Basically the entire school was gathered in this large clearing of a forest in their Jesus robes. They were just standing there, no Jesus, no speech, no preaching. We watched them stand there for around a minute before Nick burst out laughing.
“Do you see this man? How awesome is this? This is gonna be a such a huge hit online! We’ll be famous!”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Dude we set it all up! The Jesus guy, the preaching, the meeting, and everyone fell for it. We even have it all on tape! We’re gonna post this online! It’ll be a huge hit.”
I was stunned into silence. The entire school and been pulled in by this Jesus and had placed all their faith in him, for this. To be betrayed.
* * *
I felt bad at first, to know Paul and so many people had been fooled and betrayed like that. But that feeling didn’t last long. By the times the videos had circulated the school and everyone knew what had happened I felt that it was for the better. These kids had learned their lesson, and more importantly Paul had learned his lesson. None of them will be letting anyone dictate how they act and what they believe anymore.
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