John 14:2 NRSVUE (slightly edited)

Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come back." The woman answered him, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, 'I have no husband'; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!" The woman said to him, "Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem." Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. (...) God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." The woman said to him, "I know that Messiah is coming (...) When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us." Jesus said to her, "I am he, the one who is speaking to you."

adjustments.

Luke 12:32

“Don’t be scared...” the creature, burning with a white hot light that burned the eyes of the huddled group of screaming and cussing men and women, wearing what looked like dilapidated army boots and metal arm guards and a grin so wide and fierce it looked like it was painted on, looked like it could split the damn thing’s face clean open, might as well have told them to stop breathing and drop dead altogether (”I thought I would”, Steven said later, huddled around a small fire comprised of newspapers and nursing a too warm can of cheap beer, “thought I’d fall over and die of pure damn fright when...he(?) came out of nowhere, like a bolt of lightning, and didn’t give us a minute before it started rambling all of that stuff off to us”). “Don’t be scared; I’m about to tell you something that is going to change the entire world. You’re tired of fake news, the world ending, the government poisoning you, some new global superpower threatening to take over? I’ve got news that makes all of that as insignificant as the smallest algae on the ocean floor is compared to the most massive, ancient, exploding supernova.” (Blank stares, none of them had finished high school, Juan worked as a janitor, Chelsea danced in a seedy topless bar, Pam cleaned motel rooms, Steven held a cardboard sign and smoked Pall Malls under the overpass, all of them praying to see a new day dawn, praying to a God they were pretty damn sure had forgotten all of them a long time ago, and was never going to wreak the holy and joyful havoc He had swore He would). The angel (that’s what he/she/xe was and is) laughed; it wasn’t a nasty or mocking laugh, the laugh of bankers picking your pockets and sneering as your granny wept over being evicted from her own home, or the superior snicker of pot bellied bad breathed business men sticking dollars in your g string like they owned the skin they were touching. It was a laugh like Xe couldn’t contain all of the joy inside of them, like words or tears or chords or poems could never really get across, you had to BE there, it was the laugh of a new mom in the delivery room hearing their baby’s first wail, the laugh of a nervous and shy groom at the altar almost dropping the ring, a laugh that made you want to laugh with them and share in whatever it was that made It light up like a rocket launching into the damn sky. “This is real news my friends, this is good news for every man woman and kid on this earth. Nothing will ever be the same again, and you wouldn’t WANT it to be.” “Well, what is it then?” Pam blurted out, still  clutching Steven’s arm so hard he was sure he’d have nail marks for days. The angel went preternaturally still, and gave them a look full of such gravity that Chelsea finally shut up her terrified under the breath whimpering, and they all looked slowly at one another before turning, with an almost collective intake of breath, to face the angel. “Tonight, in the town of David, a Savior has been born. The one who is going to save your lives, save the whole world...the Messiah, (the angel smiled almost wryly and lifted an eyebrow like they were considering telling a very under appreciated joke) the Lord, you know.” Juan let out a soft gasp, his clenched fist going straight to his mouth, like he was going to start crying any second and was trying to hold himself together. “And I’m here to be your sign, to point you to all of this” (Xe spread out their hands in a gesture somewhere between a courtly bow and jazz hands). “You’ll find the baby in the free clinic across from Bethlehem Square; his mother is named Mary Nazarene and she’s...you’ll never meet anyone else quite like her; her fiancé Joseph will be with her, you might have a bit of trouble getting close to her with him there, he’s incredibly protective of them, you know. I should also warn you, you won’t find some magnificent or glamorous scene, that place is so crowded and strapped for resources they couldn’t even get a proper cradle..crib, I think you call them these days? It’s difficult to evolve with the ever changing vernacular. He’s lying in a  cardboard box of all things, that they cobbled together to make a baby bed.” Before they had time to even process these strange proclamations, an entire HOST of these strange heavenly beings appeared, all in their mismatched military garb, and they started SHOUTING and ROARING praises to God, at a volume and with a ferocity that was more akin to a battle victory than some singing choir (Chelsea would never forget the sight and sound of one of the angels, with long hair and camo pants and a distinctively feminine appearance, doing some kind of odd but jubilant dance, stomping their feet and tilting their head back, the shout reverberating from their throat “GLORY IN THE HIIIIIGHEST!”) and then...wonder of many of the night’s wonders, the heavenly host turned to the bedraggled group of “ne’er do wells” who had been given the ultimate privilege of being the first to hear about this historic moment, the freaking birthday of the Liberator Himself...and the Host started blessing THEM, each one of them, blessing them with the favor and pleasure of the Lord of Hosts Himself, (Juan had completely lost his composure at this point and was blubbering like a toddler, as one of the angels stared him dead in the eye, and told him “Be at peace, have and receive Peace itself, our Father in Heaven approves and supports, and HONORS you, Juan. You and so many of your brothers and sisters on this Earth.” And just as quickly as the first angel had appeared, all of them disappeared. After almost five minutes of emotional whip lash, and shaky hands struggling to light cigarettes, and quiet sob fests and prostrated stumblingly worded but wholehearted prayers, Steven cleared his throat and turned to his friends. “Well, I guess we need to make a visit to Bethlehem Square, and find that clinic.” They all stared at him, but he said, with more clarity than they had ever heard him speak with, “We have to go. We have to see this thing that happened. I mean, God Himself told us..basically.” And so they set off, and that night a small and not quite clean enough hospital bed had four men and women, who were incidentally (and perhaps, importantly, for this story) homeless, gathered around staring and pointing and cooing at the red faced newborn baby in his teenage mother’s arms. And it was loud, and disorganized, and messy, and there were lots of strange smells (stale beer and disinfectant and sweat and baby lotion) and Mary should have been embarrassed, horrified, confused, exhausted beyond belief...but she wasn’t, and she filed the events of the night and faces of the men and women away in her mind, to take out and examine at another time, on another day. And it wasn’t a silent night, and it should have been mundane, at the very most it could have been simply an unusual story for the night staff at the clinic to talk over by the vending machine...but it was a night that did, as the grinning, flame eyed angel in army boots said, change the world. Gloria in excelsis Deo. 

modern aesthetics: nephilim