CHAPTER 7
Father Russo visited me one windy, cool Autumn day just as the sun fell beneath the buildings near my office. He had read a verse in the Bible that troubled him. It was new verse to me. I had never seen it before but then again, I wasn’t much of a Bible reader. I left that to guys like Russo and Thompson.
“This disturbs me, Matthew,” the priest said. “Isaiah 53:2 says, ‘He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.’”
When Jesus walked the earth two thousand years ago, very little was recorded about his tender childhood and teen years. He was found in a temple and he traveled to Egypt. There was speculation that he journeyed to the Far East. It was speculation, at best. Isaiah’s prophecy gave little else. He grew up like a tender root. Jesus wasn’t a handsome young man. He wouldn’t have made it in Hollywood.
How different from his Twentieth Century Clone. During his growing years, I visited monthly to observe and check his body. We wanted to make sure that there were no problems with the cloned material. His days were filled with Bible study and Bible memorization. He was raised to know all the scriptures by heart. His personal trainer made sure that his body could endure the stress of living the pace of being the messiah.
The fact that “he had no beauty or majesty to attract us” bothered Russo and Thompson. “This could be damaging to television ratings.,” Russo said. The medium was increasingly the way to spread the message but he had to have a TV presence. Image had become everything. They couldn’t see anything that they recognized as “knock ‘em dead” good looks. In that meeting, he had asked me to find a plastic surgeon. I told them it wasn’t necessary. No matter what he looked like, he was a media figure. Russo left as quickly as he came. I don’t think my words gave him any comfort but in time they discovered I was right.
My monthly visits were brief and primarily for scientific reasons. As I sat with him in each visit, something bothered me. I was never quite sure what it was. All the correct physical functions were resident but I was convinced that there was something missing in his humanity. I could have been wrong and it could have been something added to it. I tried to convince myself that it was his godhood. Believe me, I had nothing to compare it to so I was left wondering.
I struggled often with the question of exactly what it was. Beth and I sat up many nights. She thought that I wrestled with the question of whether or not I should have done the cloning. I admit I often felt like I was living out the life of Mary Shelley’s Dr. Frankenstein. I was so obsessed with the 'do' the of the project that I never stopped to ask the 'why’s.' It seemed like I was locked inside a bad black and white horror movie.
I struggled on that level but there was never any real reason to doubt Jesus’ goodness. He was very mechanical in his approach. At times he seemed very wooden in his actions and reactions. As a boy, he would quote a verse and walk away. As a young man, he began rearranging the verses to make them his own words. If the Jesus of the Bible walked the earth in our time, he would have spoken like the clone.
There was little to worry about concerning his media appeal. If I walked into a grocery store in any city of the world, a tabloid flashed his picture with a sensational headline. “Jesus Healed My Cancer When I Walked By His Picture.” That was a good one but my favorite was “Jesus and Elvis Together.” The rag even had photos of the two eating dinner at Graceland. No, there was no worry about his media appeal.
The Prophet Thompson would feature Jesus on his show at least once a month. America, Europe and the rest of the world saw their new savior grow up before their eyes. I felt as if I watching little Opie grow into Richie and then into Ron Howard and finally into the mega talented director. Now I was watching Jesus only he was directing the world and all the people on it. Truly to him all the world was a stage.
Every time I saw him, that same question gnawed at me. What was it that was missing? When he had reached his thirtieth birthday, Beth and I attended a party in his honor on a cool, crisp Christmas Eve. He had developed quite a commanding presence in a room. His mind was sharp. His body was toned and the world hung on his every word. Maria was also there. Her comments finally put all my questions into a neat package.
“Doctor, could we speak alone for a few minutes?” she asked.
Beth excused herself to get some more punch and to talk to Laura, Prophet Thompson’s personal assistant. Maria and I slipped out to the lawn in front of the mansion where Jesus was raised. The house was donated by a supporter and follower. It was in Central Italy and far from reporters and intruders.
“What is it, Maria? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you as distressed as this. Is there something wrong with Jesus?” I quizzed.
“Yes, I think so,” she answered in her Italian accent. Maria’s eyes filled with tears and she began to sob.
While my heart beat hard in my chest I put my hands on both of her shoulders. “What is it?” Her tears and emotion let me know it was truly serious but I needed to have answers to my question. “Maria, it will be okay. Just tell me what the problem is and I can take care of it.”
“Not this one, doctor. You can not give him what I think is missing,” she spoke.
“What’s missing? What do you mean?” I asked as if I didn’t have my own doubts and fears that something was missing. I needed to know what she saw and felt.
“Jesus is a man but he’s not the god-man,” she started to weep again. Her breast rose and fell in deep sobs. I pulled her out of the view of the mansion toward the maze of bushes in the yard.
“Maria, I know what you mean. Beth and I have felt for a long time that there was something missing in our cloned version of the messiah. Why do you say that he isn’t the god-man?” I probed but also wanted to reassure her that I understood what she was talking about.
“The Bible is very plain that my spirit should bear witness to the fact that this is the true messiah. I do not sense that he has a spiritual nature. He has no soul,” Maria was puzzled as she spoke.
I wasn’t a theologian and Maria wasn’t a Bible student either. The percentage was too high that she would be wrong. We talked about it further in the months that followed but always in the greatest secrecy. At what point does the soul enter the human body? I couldn’t answer that question. Thoughts and questions were racing through my head but I knew I had to answer Maria with some direction.
“Maria, this is something very hard to prove or even comprehend. I don’t think you should say any of this to another person. I’m not sure what they would do if they knew how you felt,” I told her.
We went back into the party. Carefully chosen media people covered the event. I have the Time, Newsweek and Life magazines in my files. Jesus was on the cover on each. He was thirty and primed to begin his ministry.
Sometimes it was hard for me to believe that I had been physically present at the key events of my generation, in fact, of the century. I was wandering around when one large man from a South American country stepped back and collided with me. Much like one of those chain reaction car wrecks, I tipped off balance to my side and struck a man holding a drink in his hand. The contents were tossed from the glass onto the man’s suit jacket.
“I’m so sorry,” I told him while reaching into my pocket for my handkerchief.
“That’s all right, Dr. MacDonald,” he said. I looked up at this face. I knew it. Although it had been thirty years since I saw it last on the night that Jesus was born, I recognized it. It was his face. The youthfulness had been replaced by middle age but the hardness was still there. The thirty years had carved the tension of life into every crease and crevice of his features.
I started to say something when a loud speaker drew my attention away from him for a second. I looked back and he was gone. The fellow he had been talking to was still in the same spot.
“Excuse me but I noticed that you were talking to a man a few minutes ago. I was sure that I knew him but can’t remember his name. That’s so embarrassing in social situations like this. Refresh my memory so I can talk to him later,” I told him.
“That was Jack Hesidence.”
“Oh, yes, yes. Now, I remember,” I said as I acted like the name belonged to an old friend. “I haven’t seen him for years. I wonder what his connection to the messiah is?”
“He’s a delegate from his country,” the man told me.
“What country?”
“The United States, of course,” he exclaimed in amazement that I didn’t know. “You just bumped into the Director of the C.I.A. You better be careful next time.”
I looked puzzled and the man spoke to me again. “I meant that as a joke.”
I laughed and pardoned myself.