I was Jesus for a day and now I’m fed up with it all

Playing God can be so terrifying: In I Am Jesus Christ, our author moves out on Mama Maria to fight Satan with laser beams

I’d like to tell you a Christmas story. It’s called “I Am Jesus Christ” and it begins in a stable in Bethlehem where I, Jesus of Nazareth, am born on a dark evening the way one is born in a stable: with woodlice in my hair.

My mother is Mary, my father is a grey-haired carpenter. Above the sheep pastures around the city shines a disputed light that can speak and proclaims something, possibly  my real father, the vengeful God of the Old Testament, from whom Child Protective Services has taken the child.

In Fallout fashion, I then wake up again, only 30 years later, and try to get up from my bed with difficulty as the Messiah and relearn the controls. Maybe Jesus had a stroke in the meantime.

I go outside and my mother is already waiting outside, saying what all mothers say when you’re still living at home at 30: I had a dream tonight, and in the dream an angel appeared to me, and the angel said that soon you won’t be living at home anymore. Listless after this unpleasant conversation, I stroll down the dusty streets of Nazareth to the market. I feel like a god, but a small one. Perhaps the god of indifference.

Washed with all waters

Because I am Jesus, I approach people at random and make myself extremely trusting at the market. The first fruit seller immediately tells me about John the Baptist, whereas I think if you’re doing illegal baptisms in the Jordan River and the Romans want to kill you, maybe not everyone should know.

He wants to take me there too and then something from Paul fades in, I think a letter, swearing he was not telling tall tales and had seen the way of the Messiah with his own eyes. But a quick Wikipedia search exposes that he was in Corinth at the time, not in modern-day Israel, and that Jesus may also have been dead for 20 years when Paul’s mother’s breast wept milk.

Wikipedia also says that Paul received financial support from the Philippians several times during his stay in Thessalonica, which would be very unusual for a period of several weeks, and I wonder why they all actually let anyone put up with them at the time. Note to self: Call mother again and ask how it’s going.

I’d like to tell the indiscreet fruit seller that I really can’t go, to Jordan-Johannes, because, soon there will be food at my mother’s for sure, but I already have no choice. There is no answer option. Besides, whenever there’s an important decision to be made, the screen goes black and I’m practically already there. This is a form of surrender to fate that I – as an atheist – do not know.

I also notice that the textures don’t load for me, but that doesn’t bother me at all, because you practically think that everything is made of clay anyway, but the Lord didn’t come among the people to admire architecture here.

Nazareth at night is beautiful, though. So maybe I’m going off the rails after all. But let’s keep things simple.

Do not lead us into temptation!

I am approaching the picture-perfect Jordan River, meaning “the descending river”, the border between Israel and Jordan, and there is John standing in the water again for three days. He calls me “Messiah”, that’s nice. That would also be nice at the bakery, and then the sounds of a trombone, whereas “Holy Father” would also be pretty cool. For example, at the car registration office.

I’m just about to think about it when he grabs my head and violently pushes me under the water. Nice fish. Afterwards, my father appears in the clouds, or whoever, and shouts Hosanna, although the Youth Welfare Office is looking closely because of the risk to the welfare of the child. Another cut.

I’m standing in the desert and I’m supposed to fast for 40 days and feed only on light. You know, from living communities like “Sound & Love”, on run-down farms, where then – but already after nine days – one is dead. This is all supposed to have taken place on the Mount of Temptation, which still looks pretty today, so as if it really had taken place there, a few kilometres outside the city of Jericho on the West Bank, but I’m also just an insignificant layman.

So I’m standing there in the desert and something from Luke or Matthew comes on the screen. But whose heart is pure and clean, he sees God. I do not see God. Satan appears instead. What does that say about my heart? Satan wants to test and seduce me for 40 days and tells some half-baked lies, which we already know from Twitter.

I have to fight him with lasers and astral balls, which represents my fight against temptation. Complete blasphemy now. Just noticed it’s the 1st of Advent outside and my wife, Catholic, is lighting candles. As a precaution, turn down the sound, or there won’t be a word here at the beginning, but none at the end.

Few can walk on water

After the boss spasm, er, boss fight, Satan grumbles a bit and complains like Trump after his election defeat, but then I’m already standing on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Pretty, pretty. It has to be said.

Two fishermen unintentionally offer me their catch: two metres two marks. They are Simon Peter and some other guy who got lost in the course of history. Anyway, I immediately forgot the name. Which is bad, for a disciple. Would love to tell Peter that guy’s not going there though!

I just want to rejoice a little, after Satan’s nonsense, and wooded nature does the rest, I become practically transparent, and Satan roars he will haunt everyone, I see the temple in Jerusalem, which I will clean up later. And then black alien stones appear all over the forest. Which I have to summon to remove Satan’s shadow. Seriously. That’s when I’m out. That’s when I get really angry at the game for the first time.

I mean: The graphics are terrible, everything is buggy, everything jerks so you can’t record video, not to mention the battles. Plus, textures don’t reload, glitches everywhere that you might have politely overlooked ten years ago, but not anymore.

The idea of re-enacting a historical life as accurately as possible – Marcus Aurelius, Cleopatra, Jesus – actually mega. I would have loved to have had that in school, anyway. And I also think you can forgive a beta some things. It’s a beta. But this now. God’s ways are inscrutable, that’s for sure. And the path to becoming a Messiah is rocky. But so rocky?

Basically, the game mixes all genres aimlessly. Suddenly there’s even a map and open world, and these black and purple gems. I mean, I’m not in Gothic. I try to reach Simon Petrus in his boat, but I can’t even walk on water. The quest log says I should transport fish from the lake into the boat, activate Superskill with Tab. But Tab doesn’t work. And any other key doesn’t work either. So I quit the game with Ctrl + Alt + Del. Never before has the task manager felt so good.

Jesus Superstar

I would have loved to clean the temple and knock down the market stalls. Probably levitating with a superskill. I would have loved to be crucified, if you can call it that, to take some of humanity’s troubles off my back (cross, haha). I would have died next to the poor lunatics next to me. And risen from the dead after three days or east. Or risen in any case. I see in a very old Lets Play from 2021 Jesus rolling aside the stone of his tomb, with the same touch laser stuff as against Satan. No way.

Jesus story: actually cool. Jesus implementation: completely tasteless. And I mean, I’m raging here as a complete atheist. But that’s no way to treat people!

I’ll give the game another chance and start it again, because you’re supposed to turn the other cheek when someone hits you. It was written on some cigarette pack once. Now it won’t start at all. Second try: not again. White screen.

Jesus Superstar

I would have loved to clean the temple and knock down the market stalls. Probably levitating with a superskill. I would have loved to be crucified, if you can call it that, to take some of humanity’s troubles off my back (cross, haha). I would have died next to the poor lunatics next to me. And risen from the dead after three days or east. Or risen in any case. I see in a very old Lets Play from 2021 Jesus rolling aside the stone of his tomb, with the same touch laser stuff as against Satan. No way.

Jesus story: actually cool. Jesus implementation: completely tasteless. And I mean, I’m raging here as a complete atheist. But that’s no way to treat people!

I’ll give the game another chance and start it again, because you’re supposed to turn the other cheek when someone hits you. It was written on some cigarette pack once. Now it won’t start at all. Second try: not again. White screen.

I find from the developer (some devlogs at Youtube). In it you can see: the open world, crafting, chasing away demons that look like the gargoyles that squat on top of churches and look down.

Another video, with the scene with John at the Jordan, in the Unreal 5 engine. The desert in the Unreal 5 engine. And that’s when it all hits me. How cool this game could have been. With historical knowledge. With real locations. Without battles. Just role-playing and very minimalistic.

I mean, I wasn’t in Israel, but on the border of it, in Egypt and Jordan. The deserts there are beautiful. Biblical. And that’s exactly how I could imagine it. You stay in the desert for 40 days and no cosmic Satan comes, but you have to survive. Then find disciples. Less miracles, more real people and settings. Then the gimmick of you being persecuted and betrayed and disappointed would be super good too. Suddenly I feel like I’d like to do this game.

I would rewrite the prologue. Jesus doesn’t awkwardly learn the controls, but you play pregnant Mary and desperate Joseph, worried about his wife and child, on a starry night in Bethlehem, where, despite the birth, none of the pepper sacks open up to you. As the birth approaches and Mary goes into labour. And you, the player, become frantic. No folklore, minimal, emotional and real.

How the occupiers are, savage and godless. And how they commit crimes, and harass the poor people. How they live in sin and plenty, and think it’s perfectly normal like Christian Lindner. You don’t have to be religious to realise that this story is more than a story, and there are reasons why it has lasted 2000 years.

For example, I remember to this day, I had a very Christian friend, how we went to the old weir in Marburg late at night, under a starry sky, to illegally and drunkenly slide into the lake, which was of course forbidden. The friend didn’t drink, he was God-fearing after all, and wanted to drive us home safely. He never said anything bad, but everything about him was a rebuke to us to behave differently. When he stumbled sober on the way back, I bawled from behind, “And where is your God now?”

I know to this day. Because to this day I am ashamed of that story. And I will probably also have to think of this game at Christmas, when it gets dark outside and the church bells call the faithful to prayer, stern and emphatic. Probably always, by the name of Jesus, from now on.

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And then I think to myself, I’m changing the narrative now. I will think of my game when it begins to snow softly outside the windows in the darkness. “Hosanna, my dears. I now proclaim to you the coming.” And if we were crucified, we would have no lasers and no telekinesis. Below us would stand the Romans with the lance. And we would look into the evening, how red the sun sinks in the desert, and we would look into the sky, and we would wail as only a child can wail to his father, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? “

For thus it is written. And so it will always be written. Without astral balls. Just with words. Merry Christmas, dear ones. And a truly blessed Advent season.