Andrea Mitchell here, with breaking news from the front lines of "Decision A.D. 30 -- The Selection of Messiah", reporting from the Yeshua campaign.
Yesterday, on the eastern shore of the Sea of Tiberius, came incredible reports that the son of a carpenter (who just weeks ago sprang onto the national scene seemingly out of nowhere when Yohan the Baptizer selected him as his running mate) had fed an estimated 5000 people with just five barley loaves and two fish -- yet reportedly everyone had plenty to eat and twelve baskets of left-overs were collected after the picnic. In an attempt to substantiate these claims of miraculous Messianic powers, this reporter was determined to confront Yeshua of Galilee with my usual incisive questions. But when I arrived yesterday afternoon, Yeshua's handlers informed me that he'd wandered off to the Golan heights on a nature hike. This morning when all the members of the press corps that follow the Yeshua campaign went down to the sea where Yeshua's followers had set up their headquarters, we discovered that they'd mysteriously disappeared during the night, leaving only the empty docks where their boats had been moored the day before as clue to their whereabouts.
Scouring the shores of Galilee, we caught up with Yeshua's twelve-person campaign staff in Capernaum (way over on the west bank). There we discovered that Yeshua had rejoined them. When this reporter confronted the campaign staff about the inconsistency of its previous story that he had gone camping in the Golan and yet we now find him with them on the opposite shore, (insisting that they had in fact told the "Gospel truth") they fabricated an even more incredible tale of Yeshua walking across the sea in the night (in the middle of a storm no less) and rescuing them from drowning even though they were in a boat and he was on foot.
Having determined that Yeshua's campaign staff is either loaded with certifiable lunatics or pathological liars, this reporter sought out Yeshua himself to get to the truth. I found him surrounded by an angry mob who ironically seemed to be upset that he'd escaped from their attempt to crown him king of the Jews. In answer to my ever-probing questions about his having fed 5000 people the day before, Yeshua cryptically answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled."
This reporter assured this so-called Messiah that I didn't see any miracles, I hadn't eaten any "Wonder Bread" and I wasn't buying this load-of-carp story about the fish and chips. The crowd picked up on my skepticism and began shouting, "What then do you do for a sign, so that we may see, and believe you? What work do you perform?"
This reporter in an attempt to confirm the reports of miraculous feedings, derisively shouted out: "Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, 'HE GAVE THEM BREAD OUT OF HEAVEN TO EAT'."
Sensing my sarcasm, Yeshua rudely shouted right back, "Truly, truly, I say to you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread out of heaven, but it is my father who gives you the true bread out of heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world."
So I mockingly replied, "Lord, always give us this bread."
Then came his shocking reply (which, no doubt, all of you have seen on YouTube), "I am the bread of life; he who comes to me will not hunger, and he who believes in me will never thirst. ... I am the bread that came down out of heaven."
The crowd (many of whom were from Yeshua's home town of Nazareth) began mumbling things like, "Isn't this Yeshua, the son of whatsisname that carpenter? How can he say, 'I have come down out of the sky'?"
Yeshua then (sensing that the crowd was beginning to turn on him) totally lost it and petulantly screamed at them, "Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him ..." And then he repeated his absurd claim a third time, "I am the bread of life!"
But then (as if claiming to be a loaf of barley bread out of heaven weren't crazy enough) he added the even more ridiculous assertion: "Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This bread {pointing to himself} is the bread which comes down out of heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is my flesh."
The stunned crowd began saying things like, "How can this guy give us his own body to eat?"
Then Yeshua completely flipped out, saying (and I quote verbatim), "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread which came down out of heaven; not as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live forever."
Remember now, this wasn't just some lunatic shouting profanity on the street corner. This is Yeshua, who (up until this morning) was the leading contender for the Jewish monarchy, speaking in the synagogue and urging people to commit cannibalism in order to live eternally in the sky.
Needless to say, the call for Yeshua's immediate coronation ended and the crowd quickly dissipated -- even several members of Yeshua's own campaign staff withdrew their endorsement.
In this reporter's many years of following Messiahship campaigns, I have never seen anything that even remotely resembles the political debacle I witnessed today. This wasn't just a mere misstatement that's cost the front-runner a few percentage points (like that pathetic Katy Couric interview) -- this appears to have been a calculated decision to terminate any hopes of ever becoming the Messiah.
So, Bob here. With my imagined news report out of the way, let me ask you: "Do you agree with the mainstream media's analysis that Sarah Palin's resignation speech was a career-ender?"
