I Wouldn’t Want to Be Jesus. 

Oh, I wouldn’t mind doing a miracle here and there—

I even suspect I could come up with something

a little more imaginative than walking on water, water into wine….

 

As Jesus I would have no problem with the cool sayings,

like “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,”

or, “Easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle—”

hey, if I knew they’d still be quoting me 2000 years later,

I could do a lot better than eye of a needle—

If I knew I had people following me around,

memorizing everything I said,

I could come up with some real quotables.

Just substitute Republicans for Pharisees,

and I’d be halfway home already.

 

Walking town to town with a gang of friends who idolize me?

I could hack that. I know how when a bunch of guys get together

in some desperate enterprise, this strange chemistry happens

and everybody’s sense of humor gets sharpened,

and if we survive we remember those parts of our lives

as much for the laughter as for the desperation.

 

How would I feel about some woman

washing my feet with her hair? I might say,

“Darlin, that’s a little over the top,” but on balance,

that wouldn’t be the deal-breaker.

 

Turning the other cheek would be hard for me,

but I think I could do it if I was really sure it was the right thing,

and I think Jesus was that sure. It would take a lot of pressure off,

just knowing you don’t have to maintain that difficult façade of,

“Yeah, I am your tender, sensitive poetry guy, but at

the same time I’m Irish and don’t fuck with me—“

 

No, the reason I wouldn’t want to be Jesus—you probably think

this is going to turn into a meditation on the Crucifixion,

and OK, crucifixion is not something I’d look forward to.

But it was just one day. And I’d be more afraid of it if they

were torturing me to get me to betray my friends, because

I know that in the end, I would betray my friends,

and that would be the worst part. But they were torturing

Jesus just for sport, and put it in perspective,

we hear about more imaginative torture than that

every night of the week on TV; Senate hearings,

extraordinary rendition, Guantanamo, waterboarding…

 

Pain? Women endure childbirth, some several times,

sometimes willingly; every day people go through

excruciating pain. I’ve gone through it; there are times when

you just have to grit your teeth and think, “My job is simple:

all I have to do keep breathing in and breathing out,

and this will pass. Every breath I take I’m one breath

nearer coming out the other side.” And it does pass.

Hardly a one of us gets through this life

without having to suck it up a time or two.

 

Would I have said, “Father, forgive them,

they know not what they do?” For me, that would be

a real stretch. But the hardest thing of all would be

the taunting: when they started talkin’ shit, like,

“If you really are the Son of God, come down

from the cross… blah blah blah.” I don’t think I could

resist the impulse to rip the nails out of my hands and feet

and hop lightly to the ground and say, “You want me?

You got me, bitch!” No Resurrection, no Christianity;

just squander everything on one great, misdirected,

crowd-pleasing, punchline.

 

But the whole, complete, total,

entire reason I wouldn’t want to be Jesus,

the deal-breaker to end all deal-breakers,

is all the subsequent centuries

sitting at the right hand of the Father and

weeping at all the inhumanities, the atrocities, abuses,

being committed

 

in my name.

 

If I were Jesus

I’d never stop crying

even in heaven

at all the shit going down every day

 

in my name,

 

never stop repeating over and over

to the end of time

and beyond,

 

“Better I never came.

Better I never came.”