“Father, I’d like to talk to you about the results of my life on Earth”, Lord Jesus addressed Lord Vishnu after the meeting of the Gods took a more relaxed turn, as Mary decompressed and was now chatting vigorously with Lady Zina and Lord Buddha about their Earth experiences, which were both similar and vastly different. It seemed that she got her frustrations out of her system now.

“I see you are distressed over possibility of failure”, nodded Krishna. “You need not be, for you did well”.

“How would I not be distressed, Holy Father? I expected my disciples, of all people, to follow my commandment to love each other as I loved them, and almost instantly after my departure they marginalised my wife, whom I loved the most, who was supposed to be the soul of the Church, the holder of the deepest knowledge, and also so close to me that she was in essence my own flesh. And why? They were jealous, they fought for power, and they edited her out of written testimony so thoroughly, that she will seem like a peripheral figure, and they hinted that “the most beloved disciple” is some fictional guy named John. So, basically, it’s not something that just happened to them by accident. It took premeditation and planning. They removed my wife, who was of one mind and one body with me, and now they are going to do who knows what in my name and with my authority, and I’m afraid Satan is going to adopt, distort and redirect the movement into something that is more useful than harmful to his intentions. And also, I thought my sacrifice would deprive him of his power and authority over that world. That obviously didn’t happen. So, I failed”, he sighed despondently.

“I pretty much expected things to go like this, so be not worried”, Vishnu patted his son’s shoulder. “I would be a poor planner if I planned for absolute success and didn’t account for the Enemy’s efforts. Everything you said is true, and yet it doesn’t matter. Yes, your disciples were influenced by their lower nature, and Satan surely helped, and they marginalised your wife and thus sabotaged the spiritual core of your teaching. That is now lost. However, the teachings never last. The core is always lost within a generation or two after the death of the founder. So, the loss of the spiritual teaching is the least of my worries, as it was destined to happen within a century. Also, complex, sophisticated teachings are the least effective there, because they assume a target audience that doesn’t exist; essentially, if Mary had knowledge that only she managed to grasp, and your other students didn’t, what are the odds that someone from an even wider circle would have benefited from it?”, he asked rhetorically, and Jesus didn’t answer.

“Exactly”, Vishnu nodded. “So the teachings are more less useless. However, since you put so much effort into teaching her, Sanat Kumar thought she was the prime target and invested huge efforts into neutralising her completely. Also, since he had more holes than plugs, he needed to leave most of it open, which meant other students, whom he deemed harmless due to their previously demonstrated cowardice and propensity for succumbing to societal indoctrination and habit. Also, he thought students will try to cover up the fact that you were crucified because it’s the most shameful death, and you don’t want to brag with your supposed Messiah being crucified by the Romans. He also ignored everyone from the outer circles. Which means he ignored Saul of Tarsus, the persecutor of the Church, and he ignored the apostles, thinking they are measly cowards who will keep to themselves and possibly preach to a few Jews, which will come to a bad end because the Jews fear Roman persecution over supposed Messiahs. Which is how we win”, he winked at Jesus, who still didn’t understand it

“Kid, think”, his mother interjected. “Kefa and others will have a seriously guilty conscience over what they did to Magdalena. It’s not a small thing. They will fear your anger and punishment after death, and Kefa especially fears it because he trice betrayed you already, and this is now strike four. They will not cower in some basement now. Also, we need someone outside of that circle, who is actually capable of spreading the message, someone smart, eloquent, heard-headed and fanatical, convincing and educated. Father gave a vision to Saul the Persecutor, and he had a spiritual conversion, that will make him into the most ardent and fanatical spreader of the news about your crucifixion and resurrection, literally making the whole world know, and he’s theologically so much better than those shepherds, tax collectors and fishermen you taught, it’s not even funny. He’s one of the young bright hopes of the Sanhedrin, and he also has fire under his butt because he persecuted the Church and fears divine punishment if he slacks, so he’ll throw himself into the jaws of death for you. So, essentially, Sanat Kumar spent his resources neutralising Magdalena who would have sat in some hut and taught a mystical teaching to dozens of people over her lifetime, and opened himself to dozens of highly motivated people who are mostly dumb as rocks, but who will now be organised and prodded into forming a universal theology, not just a Jewish sect that worships death of a descendant of David, that only a handful of Jews would care for, but spreads good news that Death does not reign supreme”, she smiled and rubbed her son’s shoulder.

“Oh”, said Jesus. “So you really thought this through”, he smiled. “Did I even make any damage to Satan? I’m afraid that part failed completely”, he mused.

“The problem with testing your hypothesis by getting yourself killed is that you can’t try something else if you fail”, answered Vishnu. “And yes, he is still in charge there. But he had to cede ground in order to save himself from repercussions of torturing and killing you. All who follow you out will be allowed to do so. However, he will of course do his worst to obfuscate things to the point where the very idea of who you are will be so vague or polluted, that this will be a hard thing to do. But it doesn’t matter, because you rose from the dead on the third day. The witnesses saw you, and they are spreading the good news. The concept of soul outliving the body, and there being another, better world in the afterlife, combined with the bright highway of light you carved into that world, is the only thing that matters to me. As far as that is concerned, everything was a resounding success, and people down there now have a reasonable hope in place where there used to be only despair”, he concluded.

“We must not become complacent, though”, Lakshmi added. “The Enemy will be working. Sabotage the message. Introduce similar-sounding but spiritually vacuous alternatives. Blame your followers for all kinds of disasters and persecute them. Spread slander. Incite your followers to commit abominable acts. Based on what we’ve seen so far, this is certainty rather than conjecture. We can also expect attacks from unknown directions, which are hard to account for since they are unknown; basically, he didn’t think of them yet, but we expect that he will. This is not a fight we expected to win now. It would be sweet if we did, but we are not so optimistic as to count on it. But, you scored a big hit and it will count”, she finished.