We have all heard about “finding Jesus” right? But I have never heard of having Jesus being stolen back.
That’s a new one. But then I didn’t except all the stuff above either. Geez, what a world.

(And by the way, personally, I think Jesus finds us. I mean if I am “lost” somebody better come find me, because I am the one, er… lost, right? When someone gets lost in the blizzard they don’t go and search and find the rescue team right?)

So it all started when we were trying to pickup my couch, some Christmas lights and ornaments from my old place up North. While loading, my ex-wife graciously brought over my family’s creche that she had discovered in an old box.

When we got back to Marin a few hours later, it was cold, late and drizzly. We were exhausted but decided we should move the couch up to the first landing (where no one could see it and it would be undercover from drizzle till morning.

Without details, my girlfriend and I live as one of several tenants in a converted mansion of sorts. Very Gothic. There are lots of dark corners, paths that lead nowhere and lots of green moss. The front of the place looks like it was fortified for potential Visigothian attacks (we keep hot pitch in a big vat simmering on the stove just in case). It should have stone gargoyles at the corners. We are on the top floor overlooking San Anselmo in a slightly posh flat.

Anyway, we took the cushions off the sofa and the smaller stuff upstairs and then went back and did the hard work of moving the couch to the first major landing (no small feat).
Then we collapsed until she realized that she had left the box with the creche in the box by the car.

“No way baby,” I said. ”It’s 90 steps down to the street”. We live in a quiet court in Marin. They don’t allow vagrants or the homeless here. Who is gonna come by after eleven at night and steal the baby Jesus in the dark?

At the time, I had no idea that Jesus’ manger had become such a spiritual hot bed until the next morning, and that we ourselves would be so personally affected. Granted, the Time magazine cover story (I had not read it yet) should have alerted me, but I just thought they were doing their usual deflection from real news.

Had I read the Time article, and done a little of the research above, it might have given me cause to throw my big coat on and slunk down in the cold and get the box.

I didn’t. And it cost me Jesus.

So we got up early. It was cold, misty but light out. A bit Like "Helm‘s Gate" in early morning. What is one sofa?

We prepared in the cold morning to move the couch through the tricky maze.

But it was gone. The couch was gone, and so was the box that held the whole creche.

Worse, there was a ransom note pinned to the wall.

*******

Now, first of all where do these people come from?

I admit I loved the idea the night before, at 11:30, when we joked about somebody actually STEALING the nativity scene and getting all the way home thinking they had a box of CD’s or expensive glassware...or who knows what.

We laughed our asses off thinking about them opening the stolen box and finding the baby Jesus! Then digging deeper and finding some farm animals, only two of the wise men (the third is missing and has been replaced by a figure that looks a little like David Koresh (even has the glasses). The figurine frankincense and myrrh is still there, but the gold is missing. We figured it was the Spice Girl (Victoria) who made sure that her stuff stayed put. Beckham himself probably made off with the gold.

To make matters worse, the roof of the cold barn is in bad need of repair. Someone had tried to patch it with a hot glue gun and popsicle sticks, but like a bad slumlord, refused to paint.

We also, the night before, in our arrogance postulated the "what if" of a truly "AMERICAN" version. So along with the Koresh-like figure, as the third wise man, we imagined there was also a leaflet where you could order a Janet Reno figurine and tanks. (This is, by the way, a private sick joke and not like actually producing wax figures in London of two-of-three actual living war mongers as the three wise men, and then displaying them for a fee).

We had worked the comic material for a good 25 minutes till we were too tried of laughing and it was late. But neither of us thought anything would be gone in the morning.

And if it was? If the creche was gone in the morning? Ha! Joke's on you pal!

We imagined the thief…”How did you meet Jeeeeesus?!”

“I stole him…and his mother and kin too. Over time, they grew on me.”

No doubt, in a few years he and his hair-shellacked wife would have a Boomer church of 4,000 plus, who would ignore the poor and disenfranchised, talk of Jesus in a lightly “commemorative way” but have a great new “building fund” for a church that would seat 10,000.

By then the 13th volume of Tim La Haye’s endless “End Times” books would be coming out.

Funny stuff.

The story continues:

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