The Last Day

40

The streets of Jerusalem, Israel Third week of January, 2000

Apparently a French documentary film crew was next to confront the feisty young Messiah. They claimed to have stumbled across her as she was preaching to a small group of millenarian pilgrims at Wadi El Joz, Jerusalem, an ancient wellspring which had recently gone dry due to the drought.

Unfortunately, the film in their cameras proved disastrously overexposed. The only hard evidence the Frenchmen could supply for their encounter was the surviving audio track. A French network aired the report, consisting of artist's renderings accompanied by a narrator and the audio.

According to the account, after the film crew had spotted the Messiah, they stealthily circled the gathering to come up behind her. One bold cameraman, searching for the best available vantage point, climbed up and seated himself, cross-legged, in the basin of the dry wellspring itself, only a few feet behind the unsuspecting prophetess. Switching on his camera, he grinned and called out brazenly to her in French, “Hey, my pretty little Messiah, dance for the camera! Show us a little leg, yes?”

His fellow crew mates had snickered at this, but the Messiah apparently did not find his antics so amusing. She stopped her instruction, turned slowly, and folded her arms across her chest, stifling his leer with her penetrating gaze.

“I am the vessel which bears drink for the parched soul,” she responded sharply, in French, “yet you would discard the water for the cup!”

Shaking off the effects of her accusing eyes, the cameraman tried to save face with his comrades. “I am a red-blooded man!” he exclaimed. “I like women. What is wrong with that?” He resurrected his grin.

She walked past him, studying him. “You are like the man adrift at sea who quenches his thirst with salt water. At first, his body appears satisfied, but soon the thirst returns. And each time it comes, it comes sooner and stronger than before. Each swallow only leads to another, driving him to madness!”

What was relayed next was subject to a great deal of professional skepticism. The report claimed that, as the prophetess turned to leave, the spring spontaneously gushed back to life, dousing the cameraman's lap and amour with icy water. Again, there was no proof for this anecdote. It was true, however, that the wellspring was supplying clean, sweet water once again. And having drunk from the spring, the entire French crew, including a now subdued cameraman, attested to a dramatic spiritual and physical rejuvenation.

In yet another of these fleeting encounters, a news-woman for an Atlanta, Georgia, TV station caught on video an enlightening new finding for the public record. The reporter was in a second-story Jerusalem hotel room overlooking Salah Ed-din Square when she noticed the fast-paced Messiah leading a crowd through the street below. Leaning out a window with her video camera in time to intercept the prophetess, the reporter called down frantically, “Who are you? We don't even know your name. Do you have a name?”

Surrounded by a large and flowing, ever-growing entourage, the young Messiah paused, turned and shielded her eyes with her hand in the morning sun. “Yes,” she said, almost hesitantly, dropping her hand after locating the reporter, “I have a name. The name God has chosen for me is Jeza. My name is Jeza.” She turned and was gone again.

There was no universal agreement on the correct spelling of her name, as she didn't bother to clarify it. Hereafter it was often spelled “Jeeza,” “Jeze,” “Jesa” or “Gisa.” But there was no disagreement on the pronunciation. It was “JEE-zuh.”

The next documented appearance was recorded by a London Times newspaper journalist. He happened to be strolling near the Hurva synagogue in Jerusalem's Old City Jewish Quarter when a small crowd began gathering at the entrance to the temple. On a hunch, the journalist ran around to the back of the building and was able to enter through a door left unbolted.

He then quietly made his way to the congregational area of the synagogue where he spied the Messiah sitting cross-legged on the floor, speaking enthusiastically with ten elder rabbis. By now, hundreds of people were crowding at the windows outside for a glimpse.

Before being detected and ejected, the journalist was able to shorthand what became known as the first of Jeza's New Messianic Allegories, the complete text of which ran in the next edition of the Times. Later editions would appear in this form:

THE PARABLE OF THE INVENTORS’ SONS

When Jeza had come into the temple, the chief rabbis recognized Her and welcomed Her saying, “For what purpose do you honor us with your visit?” And She spoke scripture with them, impressing all with Her breadth and knowledge. Then they asked of Her, “Are you truly the Chosen One, the New Messiah?” And She answered them saying, “I am the New Messenger. I am the clarity amongst the din.”

“Then teach us,” they said, “and we will listen.” So She taught them, saying:

“There were two inventors who each had a young son. Now each inventor created a great, complex machine that performed its tasks well and made the inventors much money.

“In time, the sons grew to manhood and both inventors retired, turning their machines over to their sons, saying, ‘Go now, use your machine properly and it will earn you your living.’

“So the sons took their fathers’ inventions and put them to work. And for a while, the machines performed as they should, earning each son his living. But then there came a time when the parts wore and failed, and the great machines would no longer function.

“So the first son went to his father and said, ‘Alas, the great machine is broken and my customers are angry. You must fix it or I will lose everything.’ So the father took up his tools and went out to fix the machine.

“The second son also went to seek his father's help, but his father refused him, saying, ‘You are a man now and this is your responsibility.’ So the second son, with great worry, went back and labored on his machine alone, losing much business, but with time, restoring it to use.

“Yet, the first son never learned to repair his machine, and when the time came that his father died, the machine fell again into disrepair and the first son lost everything.

“But the second son taught himself how to keep his machine functioning. And, over time, he saw how to make improvements that caused the machine to perform better than it had even for his father.

“Now I ask of you, which of these was the better father to the son? The one who generously helped? Or the father who made his son discover for himself the workings of the great machine?”

And the rabbis answered Her, “Why, the second father who made his son discover the workings of the great machine.”

And Jeza said to them, “So, too, must you no longer look only to the Father, but go forth and learn the functions of His Great Machine-and improve upon it.” (Apotheosis 12:5-16)

41

Palace of the Sanctum Officium, headquarters of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, Vatican City, Rome, Italy 2:00 P.M., Friday, January 21, 2000

Thirty cardinals rose from their armchairs around the ornate long table as Nicholas VI entered the room. The pontiff deposited a sheaf of documents before him, removed his spectacles from their case, fit them across his nose and took his place at the head of the table. “God's blessings upon you,” he greeted them, and they responded in kind, taking their seats.

On the pope's immediate left was Antonio di Concerci, prefect of the Congregation. Di Concerci placed several papers in front of Nicholas, without comment, and then returned to examining documents of his own.