goatgodschild | Retrieved 2016 Writing

Content Warning: Writing by an 18-year old kid, Christianity, autism, panic attacks, tests.

When I was about eight years old, I was taken to a friend’s Christian school for their Easter performance and subsequent “fun”. There was a standard Passion play (despite having acted my little heart out in the rehearsal I’d been roped into prior, I was not allowed to play Pontius Pilate, who I liked because he got the most lines and got to wear a gorgeous purple scarf). There was also a talent show, crying babies, and I nailed my best friend on the head with my foot ‘cause she jumped off a play structure while I was swinging upwards...Anyways, with almost twenty small children (K-6), the people in charge wanted to keep us occupied, and it was Easter, so another Passion play (animated! For kids!) was put on.

As there are about thirty million versions of “animated Passion play” or similar searches online, I have never found what version they put on for us. But I remember. I remember very well. [2022 EDIT: I HAVE LOCATED

THIS; IT IS CALLED "The Greatest Adventure: Stories from the Bible". It is, indeed, quite bad.]

Jesus seemed like a nice guy in the story, and we were all told that Jesus was our friend. He seemed like an okay friend, too, with lots of friends and sleepovers (that is what I thought Gethsemane was--a big sleepover). In our rehearsals, a lot of time had been dedicated to the passing of Jesus back and forth between Pilate and Herod, so I’m pretty sure I thought that this was going to be some kind of legal drama. Ace Attorney, 33 AD!

NOPE.

Now, my knowledge of Christianity was pretty spotty at this point, as you might have guessed. I would not learn about “The Garden of Eden” until I was eleven. I was homeschooled, yes, but I was homeschooled due to my neurodiversity, rather than any religious reason. Keep an eye on that neurodiversity. It is about to become important.

So, in an effort to pander to kids, they decided to make things a little more...applicable. The Roman soldiers don’t just arrest Jesus, they beat the ever-loving crap out of him, mocking and teasing him all the while. That wasn’t just a story, that was familiar. I knew being teased, and I didn’t like it.

The trial is nonexistent. Jesus is whipped, without reason. That was not in our play, because K-6 children whipping each other in front of their parents appeals to a VERY small demographic. Blood sprays, scores running down his back, and I was terrified.

Under the table, I curled into a ball, beginning to keen and bugle, because Jesus was being hurt, Jesus was our friend, but he was hurting, Jesus was crying, and I was crying too. I could feel the whip over my shoulders too, hear the Roman’s voices slashing at my ears, and if he was God, why didn’t he send them away? Why did the Apostles just stand there?

Jesus is put on the cross. Shaking, weeping, he begs for mercy like a man who didn’t know what he was getting into. Cringing, he begs for water, and the soldiers cry “Give him vinegar!”, forcing the awful stuff into his mouth as precious moisture is ripped further from his body and they laugh, laughing, laughing.

I know what it sounds like when you are being laughed at.

I asked why, if Jesus knew so much, why he ever let Judas near him if he knew he was going to be sold out? Why didn’t it stop? The aides told me to calm down, keep watching. They gave me a book of bible stories to read, which with the luck I had that day I opened at random to the curse of Nebuchadnezzar, and the Tale of the Fiery Furnace met me when I flipped backwards.

I wasn’t diagnosed with any type of nuerodiversity until I was fifteen. When tests were applied, and my family history was examined, it made sense for my diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome, ADHD, “mild” anxiety/depression...and, of course, a spattering of schizophrenia.

That night, I lay in the bathtub and could feel the scores over my back, over and over again; and wondered why this religion hurt. My friend said if I felt the whip-marks, I must be very holy, but I didn’t feel holy. I just felt scared.

When I was fourteen, I found an audio cassette of “Jesus Christ Superstar” in a pile of other cassettes, and the sale I was at stated that everything you could fit it in a grocery bag was two dollars. I got it along with about six other cassettes, including “The Library Dragon”, “Deer Dancer: Songs of the Southwest”, and of course, “The Best of Willie Nelson”.

I turned on “Jesus Christ Superstar”, and never looked back. By the end of that year, I was listening to it nearly twice a day, the overwrought emotion of its performances sounding ‘real’ to a teenage me, or at least real enough. I would dance across my room, singing part after part and deaf to my tone, crouching to mimic the slinky countertenor of Caiaphas, throwing my body into almost chest-beating rigor to illustrate the frustration of Pilate and Judas. Jesus’ fear and rage pounded through my feet as I spun on my heel to change a part. I have heard complaints about the music itself, but I live in a hippie-rich area with at least two high schools that only perform musicals. To me, JCS sounded...normal. No, better than normal. REAL.

In the California high school curriculum, at least that of Santa Barbara County, you spend junior year (your third year, generally speaking) being tested. Here you have your ACT Prep, SAT Prep, ACT, SAT, AP Testing, quizzes, weekly in-class exams, placement testing, midterms, final exams, as well as starting your scholarship applications and college entrance advisories. You are told at every turn that to fail any one of these is to fail your potential, to end your academic career, to not really achieve or succeed.

It seemed, some days (a lot of days), like what Jesus sings in “Gethsemane/I Only Want To Say” was what everyone was feeling, deep down. That these tests seemed too much, we’d worked our tails off for these three years and all we had to show for it was being told to go out and do it harder this time, do it with a smile on your face, because Somebody Really Important is Always Watching.

Best of all for me was that Judas’ betrayal finally made sense. Judas says, again and again, “I really didn’t come here of my own accord!”, begging the priests and God not to “[damn him] for all time”. When he finally does betray Jesus, an angelic choir tells him “Good old Judas”, as though he is a recalcitrant pet.

To me, this wasn’t a guy betraying his teacher for no reason except a bag of silver.

This was a man being psychically tortured, puppeteered by God against his will to say what needed to be said and do what needed to be done in order to make God’s live-action revenge/torture fic come to life.

That is the God I remember, and a God I understand.