Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Trust Me, This is Funny



Alright, Christmas is coming and I thought I'd kick December off with an appropriate, if not completely blasphemous, joke about none other than Your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Ready? (At this point, any practicing Christians should start genuflecting or tossing holy water on their ears and eyes). Here we go:

So Jesus is up on the cross.

He's sweating, bleeding, crying and in general, not having the best day of his life.

John (or James -- it's not so important, really) is in the crowd who had gathered to watch Jesus, uh, die.

Racked with pain, Jesus calls out to his disciple.

"John, please. Come to me. I have something important to tell you."

Dutifully, John pushes through the crowd and attempts to get past the Roman guards posted around the crucifix but is pushed back.

"I'm sorry my Lord," John cried, as he rejoined the crowd in defeat.

Again, Jesus, seemingly on his last legs, calls out to John, pleading "My lamb, come to me, I have something important to say before I leave this world."

John steeles himself and pushes back through the crowd, this time managing to distract one guard (who had been day dreaming about a better job than watching people attached to lumber slowly die) and make it to crucifix. However, before he could get a leg up, he is knocked down by the angry sentinels who curse him.

Limping this time, John returns back to the crowd, more than a little embarrassed and avoiding eye contact.

But Jesus cares not for social awkwardness and calls out a third time to John. Though feeble, his voice is strong like James Earl Jones or Vin Deisel if they were Jews.

"John! Hurry, my time is short and I have something that needs to heard."

"Son of a BITCH!" John says under his breath, being careful not to offend Mary.

Shoveling up the last of his grit, John moves back towards Jesus. This time the crowd barely protested as he climbed through, many of them snickering as he passed. Though it should be noted that this was the first utterance of the phrase "third time's a charm" -- in aramic.

John makes his way to crucifix and confronts the Roman soldiers, this time with a large stick in his hand. It was only after the first soldier fell, the side of his face gushing blood, that John remarked the irony of beating down a man to speak to someone who practiced non-violence. The second guard, who had left his spear at home, ran.

As John reached the crucifix, Jesus' cries became more desperate, weaker.

"John, hurry, I have something to tell you."

Like a rhesus monkey, John scaled the crucifix to the "oohs" and "aahs" of the assembled mob who had not expected any acrobatics along with their ritual torture/murder.

"Quick John, please." Jesus pleaded.

Pulling himself up, John was in tears as he got closer to his teacher.

And then he was at Jesus' side, muscles straining as he clung to the wood.

"I'm here my Lord." He whispered, like a prayer.

Dazed and bleary-eyed, Jesus calls to John.

"Come close, I have something important to tell you."

John leaned in, as close as he could, sensing Jesus would not be alive much longer.

"John, I . . I . . ."

"Yes my Lord.?"

"John, I can see your house from here."

Now, at this point you are either laughing hysterically or scared that just by reading these words that you are headed for hell.

If you're not laughing, I'm used to it cause my wife didn't laugh either when I told her this same joke last week. That's right, the same woman who declared, in church no less, that she was no longer a Christian, could not dare let a laugh slip her lips in the face of pure hilarity.

Now, before you give me credit for this comedy gold, I cannot take the credit. That belongs to my dad who told me this same joke countless times over the years. In truth it only came back because the punchline is in the movie "Up" which my kids watched perhaps 15 trillion times over Thanksgiving.

So there you go, share it  . . . if you dare.

Oh yeah, MERRY CHRISTMAS!