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Picture the scene.
There is a man who was born in a small town, into abject poverty. He is known for hanging around with all the worst people in the neighborhood. He befriends the drug-addicts and the homeless guys who sleep on the church steps.The church leaders have started to think of him as a real problem - he is a revolutionary who opposes a lot of standard religious practices. He took an axe to the bookshop in the city cathedral while yelling at the priest that God's house shouldn't be used to trade.He goes around preaching his own doctrines and incites people to follow him, which they are beginning to do in great numbers. He has demanded that his closest friends give up their jobs in order to follow him. They all had succesful jobs in the fishing industry, and now they just hang around with him, preaching to people. They expect, and get, hospitality wherever they go. They say they only work for God.

This man was first on the news a few years ago, after a now famous wedding party.The story goes that the host ran out of beer and this man produced a vat load out of thin air.He says he turned the water into ale. A talent to exceed David Blaine, that one! They say he is a healer, that he can lay his hands on people and their illness or disease will just disappear. Some say he has even brought someone back from the brink of death just by touch.

This man has just been arrested. The courts don't know what to do with him. A kind judge tries to give him a chance, but he refuses to answer questions. He will not deny the charge that he has claimed to be the Messiah.The Prime Minister waives all responsibility. Somewhere in the back of his mind is an un-easiness about this man.

But the charges stick in the end. He is charged with blasphemy,and disturbing the peace. They send him to prison ( as we stopped nailing people to crosses quite a while ago).Of course after a few years he is out again, and still behaving in the same way. His insistence that he is God's only son persists, so eventually, 'for his own good', someone puts him into a secure mental institution. The public, not to mention the authorities, breathe a collective sigh of relief as he is now gone for good.
Funny thing is though, three days later he is standing in the middle of the park showing the local girls the marks from the straight-jacket.
Then he vanishes, in a puff of smoke, and a lot of publicity, but says he will be back.
Now his followers are standing up and declaring their faith in him. Would you beleive?

Learn more about this author, Katherine Barnfield.
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