If blasphemy is not your thing, or if you are offended by making fun of ridiculous religious beliefs, you would be well advised to go to another blog, read your bible, or go to a meeting of fellow travelers caught up in the world of Christian religious myth. You have been warned. It is not your narrator’s desire to injure anyone or to destroy their child-like faith.

What we really want to avoid is having the villagers come after us (me) with pitchforks and torches.

In the highly disjointed and inconsistent accounts of the last week of Jesus in mortal undead human form, today, Thursday, was his last full day to be alive. And he was quite busy. After he rode into town on an ass and cursed unto death an innocent fig tree, according to one or more of the four gospels, he did at least the following: raised one Lazarus from the dead; had his feet annotated with precious oil; told several “parables” emphasizing how important he was; told people they should pay taxes to Caesar because Caesar’s head was on the coinage; informed that there is no marriage in Heaven; taught that many are called but few are chosen; instructed that loving god is the greatest of the commandments; praised the actions of a woman who gave a farthing, all that she had, to the church; said that those who did not have a sword should sell their garment and buy one; washed his followers’ feet and said they should wash each other’s feet. It is unclear if all of this happened on Thursday, but it is clear that it happened before Friday. According to the story, that is.

These are but a few of the behaviors and sayings ascribed to Jesus that occurred between the time he rode into town on a donkey on Sunday and the time he was arrested late Thursday or early Friday of that week, a period of time which has come to be known as “Holy Week.” Jesus and his disciples were homeless, and they either stayed at the home of followers or outdoors in the nearby Mount of Olives. Perhaps the week should be known as “Homeless Week.”

It is hard to believe that all of this could have happened in the time allotted by the scriptures. It was now Thursday, the Jewish “Passover.” Jesus had his sycophants acquire a location for them to eat the Passover meal. This is known at the “Last Supper.” It has been the inspiration for a lot of very decent art.

Anyhow, at the dinner, Jesus invented the practice of Holy Communion, i.e. the eating of his body and blood—a story taken literally by many. Just how this can be understood as something other than cannibalism is not known.

Jesus predicted that one of the twelve apostles would betray him. Upon hearing this, Judas got twitchy at the supper and left. He, as you probably know, had been given thirty pieces of silver to betray Jesus to the officials, which he did after dinner at the Garden of Gethsemane, on the Mount of Olives, just outside of the walls of Jerusalem, where Jesus and his homeless crew had been sleeping while visiting the Holy City.

Either late Thursday, or early Friday morning of Holy Week, church officials hauled Jesus away. Nobody had slept very well that night, except maybe Peter who fell asleep with some of the others of the now eleven followers, before saying three times that he had no idea who Jesus was. As Jesus had foretold, right after Peter’s third denial of knowledge of Jesus, a rooster crowed.

It was therefore officially Friday morning. This is known as “Good Friday.”

What happened then is another story.

Edwin
Edwin Kagin © 2012.