Autoplay next video

If Jesus was born today

it would be in a downtown motel

marked by a helicopter's flashing bulb.

A traffic warden, working late,

would be the first upon the scene.

Later, at the expense of a TV network,

an eminent sociologist,

the host of a chat show

and a controversial author

would arrive with their good wishes

-the whole occasion to be filmed as part of the

'Is This The Son Of God?' one hour special.

Childhood would be a blur of photographs and speculation

dwindling by his late teens into

'Where Is He Now?' features in Sunday magazines.



If Jesus was thirty today

they wouldn't really care about the public ministry,

they'd be too busy investigating His finances

and trying to prove He had Church or Mafia connections.

The miracles would be explained by

an eminent and controversial magician,

His claims to be God's Son recognised as

excellent examples of Spoken English

and immediately incorporated into

the O-Level syllabus,

His sinless perfection considered by moral philosophers

as, OK, but a bit repressive.



If Jesus was thirty-one today

He'd be the fly in everyone's ointment-

the sort of controversial person who

stands no chance of eminence.

Communists would expel Him, capitalists

would exploit Him or have Him

smeared by people who know a thing or two about God.

Doctors would accuse Him of quackery,

soldiers would accuse Him of cowardice,

theologians would take Him aside and try

to persuade Him of His non-existence.



If Jesus was thirty-two today we'd have to

end it all. Heretic, fundamentalist, literalist,

puritan, pacifist, non-conformist, we'd take Him

away and quietly end the argument.

But the argument would rumble in the ground

at the end of three days and would break out

and walk around as though death was some bug,

saying 'I am the resurrection and the life...

No man cometh to the Father but by me'.

While the magicians researched new explanations

and the semanticists wondered exactly what

He meant by 'I' and 'No man' there would be those

who stand around amused, asking for something

called proof.

