Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: ZENITH (04/21/16)
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TITLE: Xaphan's Letter | Previous Challenge Entry
By Noel Mitaxa
04/28/16 -
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High-Chancellor of Hell.
Greetings, Your most awesome Malevolence,
I fondly remember our partnership in the Great Rebellion, even though being cast out from Heaven seemed like the end at the time.
However, the Enemy has always made it easy for us to twist whatever he does.
That couple in the garden were a pushover. What an offer we made, “Eat this and you’ll know the difference between good and evil―just like G... er Go… ahh Go…” Well, you know who I mean; but how hard is it to say that dreadful name!
They leapt at the offer, and the Enemy showed up too late! They were hooked, and ever since we’ve been able to ensure that they keep blaming each other. So we can stir up trouble and stay out of their sight.
Religion? What a cinch to warp! Play on their fears about no guaranteed harvests or stock breeding, and they fall into line with fertility cults. Replaying the cosmic intercourse between the male god Baal and the female god Ashtaroth each year before sowing any crops; mixing their fear and guilt with stirred-up hormones to ensure that each year’s orgy topped those of other years.
That Joseph character could have undermined it all when activated his vision of building enough grain stores to enable the Egyptians to survive a seven-year famine. Thankfully, nobody remembered him or any thought of food-storage after four hundred years of Egyptian slavery―and another forty years wandering around and dying off in the desert―before they could step into their Promised Land. A fiendishly-efficient way to ensure we could rewind the fear factor and resume the deliciously degrading temple-prostitution routine.
And that forty years trick. Wow―what a bonus! If Israel had trusted Joshua’s and Caleb’s report instead of what the other ten spies told them, they would have only taken eleven days to high-tail it from Kadesh to Canaan! Then they might have arrived full of faith instead of carrying all those dead memories!
Every so often prophets arrived to warn of the Enemy’s judgement, and people succumbed to their fear-mongering and fun-squelching. But not for too long, for we ensured that the prophets were all a bit crazy–like Isaiah wandering around stark naked for three years―and he was one of their so-called Great Prophets! Not a pretty sight for any impressionable kids to see…
It’s been so much fun to keep everything the way we like it.
But it’s suddenly got a whole lot better.
As you insisted, for three years I’ve watched that Galilean carpenter-rabbi spread his strange ideas, fix up a few cripples and lepers, and yes, he’s bruised some of our lower minions as he’s meandered around. He’s picked up a few followers, but nobody with any clout, or many brains. Even at their last Passover meal they still couldn’t get a handle on what he was trying to tell them. Son of Man? Son of G-G-Go-Oooh? What’s all that about?
But for just a few silver coins their treasurer handed him over to the only people with any real religious authority. How good was that?
After the meal the authorities trapped them all at Gethsemane, and from there it was a pushover.
The priests quizzed him about his claims to be divine; but though they could have stoned him to death they wanted to show everybody how they could strongarm the Romans. So he was shoved off to Herod, and then to Pilate. At first, Pilate was cautious about the royalty claims, but he finally ordered his soldiers to lash him to a pulp.
The fragrance of all that cynicism was so refreshing; with the crowd whipped up into such a frenzy against this pathetic figure―who was “crowned” with thorns―that they actually asked for a murderer to go free instead of him!
Next step - crucifixion.
Easy to arrange; official, religiously-approved and politically correct. With built-in shame, and the brutality that prolongs death in the most beautifully sadistic way anyone could ever imagine.
We arranged two thugs as company for him, and a few hours later he was gone. Oh yes, for despite all his great claims about faith and trust, we heard him shriek out, “It is finished!”
We’ve heard that this guy was supposed to be the Enemy’s big idea, so there’s nothing more to worry about.
He’s gone, and we can now reach beyond our wildest dreams.
From Xaphan,
Your subservient Guardian of Judea
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Nicely done.
Blessings~
I was thinking throughout how this demon kept interpreting things as a victory when each one was a part of God's plan. And then, the capper that he actually thought Jesus being crucified was a success for his team...which, I guess, is the way Satan would have seen the execution of Jesus.
What a panic the place must have been when he rose from the grave! :)
Great job. I loved it!
This is a very clever and well written take on the topic and I would like to have read a sequel to it. Sometimes the word limit... well, limits leaving you wanting more. But then, that's the hallmark of a great story. Well done!
It reminded me of one of my favorite books, The Screwtape Letters. I didn't miss the irony.
I ran off on a rabbit trail for a bit thinking about the 11 day journey and how the Israelites 'should have hightailed it over there.'
Great point and my rabbit tale went down the road of grumbling and what it cost them.
Thanks for this reminder of how history usually repeats itself in each of our lives when we are asked to step out in faith.