Helaman 8

There were judges in the crowd, hip-pocket flunkies of the Gandianton Group. They bellowed things like “Where do you get off, N-boy?” and “You’re a sicko traitor, man,” and, of course, “Handcuff him!” Granted, Nephi had said some things I couldn’t print here, though nothing God wouldn’t say if he had the podium. But still, it was the specific content and not the rhetorical flourishes that piqued the judges.

Still, no one wanted to tackle Nephi and tie him up. And the judges were afraid that if they did, the people would assault them. Nephi always seemed to have friends in the hometown crowd.

So the judges got a little more formal. “People, why do you let this man, in the name of free speech, spew this form of hatred at us? He’s condemning all of us for the crimes of a few. And he’s almost provoking our enemies to invade our territory again. Not that they’d beat us. We’re basically invincible. But still …”

Some people bought this new tack. Others, ad hoc character witnesses, shouted defenses of Nephi and even his message. “He’s a good man. His arguments make sense. We see it everywhere. He must be a prophet, because who else would be so blunt with his comeuppance?” The haters feared the sympathizers and backed off. Nephi, emboldened, started up again:

Look, brothers, haven’t you read about Moses, whom God fortified to smack the Red Sea and split it open so our ancestors could walk through without even getting mud on their feet—and then dropped the sea walls back on their Egyptian pursuers?

So if God gave one man that power, why on earth are you muttering about me and my predictions? You think God can’t tell me how dire your future is? Be grateful we’re not by the Red Sea so he can’t lure you into it and drown you for sport.

Okay, that was overly harsh. But you deny anything I say, even when I’m just quoting people like, oh, Moses, and all the rest, about the Anointed One’s visit to earth.

Moses did this symbolic thing too: he held up a brass snake on a pole and told people to look at it and be healed. Okay, a little oblique, I know. But this was a symbol that Jesus would come and heal people. The snake—not a good symbol for Jesus, I’ll grant you. But the looking and the healing part, those work.

So, whatever the symbol, I’m here to tell you that if you look forward to Jesus’ coming and don’t get snotty about your own abilities, you might well get to live forever.

Moses talked about this, Abraham, et al. Abraham was especially taken with the coming of Jesus partly because it was a strong tradition and no one stuck to tradition like him. A long line of Jesus patriots preceded him, though we don’t know most of their names. Bad reportage for the first few thousand years. Or however long it was. People fight about the chronology.

After Abraham, of course, people are lining up to talk about Jesus by whatever name, sometimes a symbolic moniker, sometimes bafflingly oblique. But we all know what they were trying to say, don’t we?

Some of the local favorites are Zenos, Zenock, Ezias, Isaiah (maybe the same guy—language issues), Jeremiah, Godfather Lehi’s old co-prophet, who also predicted Jerusalem’s takedown—so why not trust him on this?

I mean, we know that Jerusalem is gone. At least we hear that, though, of course, communication from the Old World is, let’s say, spotty to non-existent. Zedekiah’s sons, except for the lamented Mulek, got chased out of Jerusalem. Lehi, Nephi talked sternly about this destruction and eventual salvation. They were fundamentally gloomy about so much—why shouldn’t we think that any hopeful word they spoke was so against type that it must be true?

My point: Jesus is basically God in some form, however paradoxical that seems. All these old prophets, including our New World pioneer ancestors, had visions and ecstatic quasi-trances that even our medicine men can’t rival, all about the Anointed One to come. The Lamb. Whatever name you want to use. It’s an archetype. (Sorry, that’s a little too progressive a term, maybe. But it’s meaningful to me.)

I think you all believe what I’m saying, most evidence to the contrary. And I think if you say you don’t, you’re liars, in which case you’re damned. It’s tautological, perhaps. But I always stick to my hunches. You believe my words and, more to the point, you believe other supernatural feelings and even events you’ve felt and seen. You have this gnawing belief-symptom. Don’t lie about that.

And given that belief-symptom, you have no excuse for miscreant behavior. You’re so good about stockpiling goods and stuffing your pockets. How about stockpiling salvation and furnishing your heavenly living rooms? Things on earth rot. Heaven doesn’t allow decay. But you can’t be rotten yourselves and go there.

Widening the metaphor: you are ripe. You’ve turned blood red with ripeness. And you should—it’s embarrassment for your deviant tropes on instinctual sex and violence.

For example: you go right now to the judge’s chambers and you’ll see he’s been hacked to death by his brother. That brother wants to be judge. But he’s an agent of the Gadianton Group.

I really don’t need to say anymore about them. You’ve all either suffered at their hands or you’re operatives. Anyway, check out what I said.