Friday, April 06, 2007

The Sacrifice

"I went to church this weekend." James said between sips of Big K cola.

"Why on earth did you do that?" I wanted to know. There was little to do in Somerset, but we'd generally managed without resorting to going to church.

"It was Easter. Dawna's family all went." I had forgotten it was Easter. I had stayed in Louisville so I could work. These were the days before i was brave enough to take the TARC anywhere so I spent most of the weekend sitting in the dorm with...time on my hands. I forgotten it was Easter. "It was pretty cool." he continued.

This last bit caused me to pause with my hand in the Grippo's bag. James was very easy going and nonjudegemental, still I was surprised that a guy who had, as far as I knew, only been to church once in his entire life could be so easily taken in. "What...do you mean?" I carefully inquired.

"Well, it reminded me of Predator."

Now, in my 18 years of continuous church attendance, I have heard many outlandish things used in the sermons, from frightening stories of men having the word "God" burned into the chest by lightening to baby sitters turning inexplicably cannibal becuase they had "popped some pills". There were even quite a few pop cultural references, from The Charlie Daniels Band to the Brady Bunch Girls (special prize for anyone who remembers that one). However, Predator, well, this was new.

James continued in that excited but still soft and hushed way of his. "The preacher went into all this detail about how Jesus was beaten before he was crucified. He talked about the blood and the wounds and the crown of thorns pressed down on his head." My dad had once gone one about the size of the thorns they might have used. "I'm sure it wasn't a tiny rose bush with these little thorns." he said with a cracked voice. My dad wasn't really a shouter, but he was quite the weeper. "And I'm sure they didn't set it gentley on his head. I'm sure they pushed it down into flesh." and etcetera. I'm sure James was treated to quite a story. But still, I didn't know how Predator fit in.

"Then Jesus stumbles and falls at the foot of the hill, under the weight of his own cross." James looked into the distance, his eyes glassy. "And he talked about how he stood up again, under his own power, and continued to walk. He made him sound...heroic. Superheroic."
He paused to take a sip of his drink. "I kept imagining the Predators. How they would see this. They would think he was some great warrior." He turned to look at him, his eyes now on fire with inspiration.

"I think it would be great to do a comic that shows a Predator landing on earth during the crucifiction and standing, invisibile, among the crowd. He would watch Jesus fall down, bloody and broken, trembling with agony, and then Jesus would get his hard ass look on his face, and stand up defiantly. The Predator would then nod his head in approval."
I thought about it for a few seconds, taking a sip of my Dr. K. "You should do it!" I said.

He never did.