CHAPTER 5
“The media event of the year, that’s how Thompson sold this to every cable system in America,” remarked the lighting crew member to his assistant as they hung the par cans and floodlights around the small barn in Bethlehem. Nearly a year after Russo’s visit, I stood watching this media event with interest from the background. During college, I did a few theater productions and the behind the scenes technical work always interested me.
The assistant handed up a red gel for a Par can. It would be used to warmly tone the skin of the birth mother as the baby is first shown to the world. He asked his boss, “How in the world did he pull this off? First of all this whole clone sh—I mean stuff, scares the he—heck out of me. And then to work out a deal to televise it from a barn in Bethlehem is unbelievable. This Thompson guy is some kinda wheeler-dealer to pull this off.” Inside my heart, I affirmed that. I was enjoying watching and listening. I heard a different side. This was a side I often missed because I was so close to the event.
The crew chief talked as he worked, “I’ve been with him for about three years now and he seems to have a knack for this kinda stuff. He knows how to get people interested in what he’s doin’ and then market it. He’s sharp. Give me that wrench over there, will ya? Once I tighten these we need to move to the next support tree and then that’s the last of them.”
As the two crewmen finished hanging the lights, I moved near the director. He checked the “birth of Christ” set. The animals and hay needed to be visible but not unhygienic. That was what he told the set designer. He had to make sure it was done right. I overheard some of the other workers as they talked. The man who was spreading the hay whispered to the woman setting the blankets in place, “What in the world is he doing in here. He doesn’t know anything about health hazards. He’s a director.” I understood the director’s obsession. This was the biggest production he’d ever done. The birth of Christ would be the highest rated TV show in the history of the medium. That would mean one thing to him—moving up to the big time. Which he did.
While the preparation on the barn took place, I moved over to where Maria was. Thompson and Russo talked with the doctor in the mobile surgical unit. Russo paced like an expectant father while he asked questions, “How long after you induce her will she give birth?”
As the Doctor cleaned his hands he tried to assure the two men that everything was fine. “It won’t be that long after I induce but we’ll need to be ready and we must have Maria in place by that time. I don’t want to be moving her when Baby Jesus enters the world. Gentlemen, I suggest you go over there and relax. My medical team can handle this routine procedure from here. That is, if you can call birthing the Christ child routine?” He laughed.
Maria laid in her trailer showing the strain of her labor pains. As I looked in on her, I thought about the events that brought her to that point. We often talked about what was happening in her life. Her honesty and sweetness disarmed me in our communications. Her soft, dark brown hair grew matted with sweat as the make-up people raced about in a flurry of pre-showtime activity. They were concerned about her sweet virginal look. It had to be preserved for the camera’s sake. The production was broadcast around the world. In the midst of it, I thought back to what Maria had told me about that first day that Father Russo came to the convent. She was a novice. He had noticed her beautiful, innocent face. Later that day, Russo asked that the young nun meet with him. After several minutes of getting to know her history, he asked, “Do you love God?”
“Of course, with all my heart and soul and mind.”
“If His Excellency, the Pope, were to ask of you a special request, would you be willing to serve him and God?”
“Yes, that is why I have entered the convent. I want to serve my God and my church.” She wondered where their conversation was going.
Russo settled back in the austere wooden chair and fixed his gaze upon her face. Russo would often say, “She is perfect. No other could be the mother to the new Christ. Sister Maria was perfect.” Russo spoke to her, “Sister, it tells us in the Holy Scripture that our Lord Jesus Christ will return one day and lead his people. That day is not far away. You won’t understand much of what I’m going to tell you but let me go ahead. There is a new scientific process in which we can create an egg from the DNA code of Jesus Christ himself. This egg would be planted in the womb of a virgin, allowing it to grow and finally, into this world, a new born baby would arrive. This baby would be Jesus himself.”
Maria listened intently. She didn’t understand the how but was willing to obey if she was the one chosen to carry the child. She smiled. I laughed when Maria told me that she thought about how Mary was told by an angel dressed in white. Her angel was a priest dressed in his black suit. It seemed so opposite, almost funny.
Father Russo explained that he wanted her to be the mother that carried the baby. She nodded. Russo left. Maria sat for awhile longer, thinking that it must have been a dream. Over the next couple months, Russo returned several times to talk with her and reaffirm that she was indeed to have the Christ child. It was only a matter of time.
Nine months before this Television spectacle, she was brought to Zurich, Switzerland and implanted with the egg. Once the OB-GYN was positive that she was pregnant, Maria was taken to the United States to live in the home of Rev. Thomas Thompson. His secretary, Laura, was her support through the process. Laura was sweet to her as she grew in physical size. Laura would find her clothing. They would go to lunch and shopping. It was a wonderful time. If it wasn’t for Laura, she may not have gotten through it all. Especially, since the Pope had her removed from the sisterhood. Thompson tried to keep all news from her but somehow this one item slipped past. It was on the cover of a newspaper a customer was reading at an eatery in Orlando. His Excellency was not as supportive of the project as Father Russo had said. Then again, that was only the beginning of the falsehoods we were told.
The director entered her trailer swinging the door wide open while barking orders to those around her. As the door continued to move back and forth in the wind on squeaking hinges, the doctors and nurses moved Maria to a gurney. Laura leaned over and kissed her forehead, “I’ll be nearby Maria praying for you. The moment is almost here. You are blessed.”
“Among all women,” she grunted out with one of her breaths. Somehow Laura had taken on Elizabeth’s role in the Christmas story. If the pains weren’t so bad, Maria might have laughed again. That scene left me in tears. These were the only genuine people I met in the entire ordeal.
The director barked, “We go on the air in five minutes. Places everyone. Get that girl into the barn right away, and someone grab that lamb over there before it craps in the barn. Move it out. I like realism but not that real. Sound! Watch your boom. It’s too low.”
Amidst this, Maria was wheeled into the barn to become the center of the camera’s focus as she delivered the child. The drug she was given to induce labor had pushed the pains to only a minute apart. It wouldn’t be long. I saw that she felt the pressure and wanted to bear down but she knew her technique. She and Laura had gone to natural childbirth classes together. She told me that she knew what to do but wished that Laura would’ve been there with her. The medical teams carefully picked her up and placed her on the table in the barn.
“Thirty seconds till show time,” the director called out but the expression seemed out of place for the birth of the Christ child. A voice said “Ten, nine.” Hands fussed with her garments and moved her hair. Make-up had just finished powdering her. They couldn’t control the sweat on her small, beautiful face. Her dark curls fell wherever they wanted. “Three, two—ONE!”
Camera One opened up on The Prophet Rev. T. N. Thompson. A choir sang “O Come All Ye Faithful” somewhere in the background, faintly enough to be heard, but not overpower Thompson’s words. He began, “It is after midnight and the start of a new day here in Jerusalem. It is very early in the morning on December twenty-fifth. I’m standing beside a barn behind an inn in the City of David, known as Bethlehem. Nearly two thousand years ago, Jesus Christ was born under the same circumstances to a beautiful young Jewish girl, named Mary. He grew to become a man, while all the time holding onto his godhood. This man-god lived amongst his people teaching them, doing miracles and prophesying about the future. And at the age of thirty-three he displayed the ultimate act of love—he went to the cross to die for our sins.”
The screen faded on Thompson as it moved to an earlier sunset cut of Golgotha hill. The Golgotha set had been erected with a cross jutting out of its crest. To that cross they had fixed a young man, fortunately for him, it wasn’t with nails. As the sun rose behind the cross, a silhouette of the figure had stood starkly out from the blazing red-orange matte background. The actor raised his head to God and then let it drop. The camera moved in close on his face to reveal bloody, beaten features covered by the rivulets of blood that had flowed out from the crown of thorns. The make-up people had done an excellent job along with the film crew. They had captured a moving and visually gripping scene for the global TV marketplace. The Golgotha scene cross faded to Thompson’s face superimposed in the same form as the dying Messiah’s.
Thompson continued his narrative, “He was placed in a grave not far from the scene of his brutal murder. The grave was carved from the rock, nothing more than a cold, damp, stone cave. Since it was so near the time of the Sabbath, those performing the burial could not take the time to properly prepare the body. They wrapped him in a shroud. The material soaked up the remains of his blood from the vicious wounds and the many stripes across his back. They remembered the words of the prophets of old, that ‘by His stripes we would be healed.’ They all went about their religious duties feeling the grief and the loss. Wondering what next? They had invested all those years in the ministry of this man who they thought was the Messiah. Now what?
“In those early hours of Sunday morning, the physical body of Jesus Christ went through a tremendous transformation. It was filled with a heavenly energy that we can’t explain. But that energy surged through the shroud, leaving an indelible and mysterious impression, as Jesus' body was resurrected. Because of that resurrection, the church has pressed on through the world, making great strides preaching His message to all men and women. The message of love, hope and peace.
“Now today, due to modern genetic science, we have the literal body of Jesus being reborn. Not a resurrected, perfect, heavenly body but a real, flesh and blood body like ours. In that shroud, known today as the Shroud of Turin, the genetic code or DNA of Jesus himself was saved and protected over the centuries. Through the hard work of Father John Russo from the Vatican, that DNA code was brought to a biological scientist named Matthew MacDonald. Dr. MacDonald created an egg which was implanted in young Maria. And today, this day, in the City of David, Christ will be born.”
The scene shifted to the Orlando Prophecy Center’s choir performing “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.” The video technicians had the clip of the Father Russo interview cued and ready. The moment the choir sang their last note the screen faded to Russo.
“It was over a year ago that I first came into contact with Dr. MacDonald. I had just read his doctoral thesis on cloning from genetic material. It had interested me. As I slept that night, a voice came to me that was far too real to be a dream. Behind the voice was an image filled with light. It told me to seek out Matthew MacDonald because the time was ready for Jesus to be born again on this earth. As an attaché to the Vatican, I was able to gain access and a DNA sample from the Shroud of Turin. This sample was brought to Dr. MacDonald. From that point I can explain no further, except that Christ the Lord will soon walk this earth again. ‘O Come, O Come Emmanuel.’”
The director had cut to a commercial. Thompson realized the worldwide impact of the program and was able to sell commercials at $1,500,000 a thirty second spot. At that time, it was a great deal of money. Super Bowl commercials were bringing considerably less but then again this was the ultimate television spectacular. Every eye in the world would be focused on their television sets. Coke’s “It’s the Real Thing” seemed somehow appropriate to Thompson when they bought several minutes of ad time. Thompson drank the product constantly but he also liked the slogan. The commercial immediately followed Russo’s interview. More came along afterward but Tom Thompson liked “It’s the Real Thing.” It fit. It said it all with a prophetic tongue in its cheek.
When the commercials ended, the monitors went up with Thompson standing in front of the barn door. It was open and the viewers could see behind him the figure of Maria. Next to her was a doctor dressed in white while he stroked her hair and spoke softly. What he said didn’t matter, the scene was for the cameras not for Maria. Her discomfort meant little to the producers and director. Camera angles were more important than this little angel. Thompson entered the barn. Camera three came up on him as he walked inside.
Thompson turned and spoke over his shoulder into the camera. “In a few minutes, the world will witness the birth of Christ once again. While we wait, contemporary Christian music stars, First Trump, sings their rendition of “Angels We Have Heard On High.”
In the background, Mason Sean Blackmore, a record producer sat watching the whole scene. I overheard him on the telephone saying that he was torn. On one hand, he knew that the music he would release on the New Messiah label would go instant platinum and probably double and triple after that. On the other side, something was not kosher about all this. When he signed the contract, the dollar signs blinded him. In the months that followed, through his prayer and quiet times, he saw something odd about the situation. He wanted out but couldn’t do it. By the end of the phone conversation, Blackmore decided to ride it through. Maybe it was all legit. If it was, he’d enjoy the money. If it wasn’t—well he would cross that proverbial bridge when it spanned the murky, troubled waters.
As the song finished, the word was passed to the director that Maria was ready to give birth. Her labor pains were only seconds apart. The director rushed in and yelled at everyone in the barn to take their places. He looked at Maria and said, “Hold on, sweetie, we’ve got a minute before the song ends and then another thirty seconds of intro comments. I’d like to get another two minutes of commercials in if I can. Can she hold back, Doc?”
Maria grimaced in pain, in Italian she probably had many words she would have liked to say to the director. Ones her old Uncle Giordano used to use just seconds before her mother would strike him and say, “Don’t use that language in front of the children.” Yeah, those were the words she had for the director. I was sure of it. The director cut for a commercial.