Once upon a time, in a galaxy far away, there lived a prince. He was a good prince, handsome and strong. His subjects loved him, and served him with great pleasure. The prince loved each one of his subjects as if they were his own children. But, alas, the prince was sad because he did not have a princess to share his planet with. He searched the galaxy and could not find a princess. Actually, there were some princesses of royal blood. But these were very few, only a handful in the entire galaxy, and most were ugly or spoiled rotten, which means they stank.
He dreamed of a princess that would be beautiful to look upon, but also would poses intelligence, and compassion for his subjects, and she would have to smell sweet of course. He wanted a bride that would be exactly like himself, in every way. You see, his was an unusual planet. There was no crime, famine, pestilence, ugliness or darkness; there was no night. His subjects loved each other and there was never any fighting among them or any kind of sorrow, and no one ever died. On his planet even the wild animals got along with each other. And there, no one stank.
He ruled his planet with a rod of iron. That did not mean he was not kind and loving, only that he would not tolerate any thing that would mess up the loveliness of his planet. If ever there was found any one who was unloving or greedy, or in short, any one who started to stink. That person would be banished from the planet quick, before they had a chance to contaminate the rest of the planet. He was guardian of his people and his main occupation was to keep them safe from any thing that would spoil their peaceful and loving existence.
This was why he could not marry just any princess. He knew that if he did, she would have the power to destroy his planet. It had happened to a friend of his. This friend had been a prince in a peaceful and loving planet similar to his own. But his friend had made the mistake of marrying a beautiful princess that stank. His whole planet had suffered. It was no longer a loving and peaceful place, as the people who started to stink would fight with each other, and there was a rumor that there had even been a murder. That unfortunate prince was distraught at first, but now even he was beginning to stink. So much so that the two princes could no longer be friends, so as not to contaminate himself and his own planet.
Our prince was disconsolate. He did not know what to do. He had even considered marrying one of his own subjects, but he knew that this was unlawful, as none were of noble blood. He knew that if he ever broke even the slightest law he would begin to stink himself and bring destruction to his planet. He was about to give up in despair, and conform himself to a lonely bachelor’s life.
But then an idea began to form in his mind. He thought it over a very long time. He developed the idea into a plan. It was a complicated plan. It would take a long time maybe even centuries. But he had all the time in the world. He would never die, that is if he kept himself from stinking.
He had heard that in another galaxy there was a planet where everyone was of noble blood. Surely there he would be able to find at least one lovely maiden that did not stink.
He made the necessary preparations to leave his planet. He assembled his subjects and explained his plan. He vowed he would not return without a princess. They were sad for him to go, but they saw the need. They had actually been quite worried about him for a long time, about him not having a princess. They wanted him to be happy and knew this was the only way. So they said good-bye to their good prince and wished him god speed.
He traveled many years just to get to the galaxy that this new planet was in. As he approached the planet, he was surprised to see that it was set in this galaxy all alone. There were no other neighboring planets with inhabitants to be companions to those on this planet.
He all of a sudden realized how tired he was of traveling, and how glad he was to finally be in sight of his destination. He had high hopes of finding his princess here.
As he was descending to the planet however, he was horrified to notice the smell. It was an acrid, putrid smell like that of rotting flesh. Like that of dead or dying bodies. At first he hovered over the planet, watching. Trying to decide what to do. He could not bring himself to land. He felt repulsed and sick. It was the first time he had ever known sickness. As he got closer and closer he started convulsing and throwing up his last meal. He backed away from the planet instinctively. After a time, he stopped throwing up and his stomach started to calm down.
He remained at a distance thinking. He wanted to go home, but he had made a vow, and he would keep it. But how? The stink was so overpowering that he couldn’t even land, how would he ever be able to start searching for his bride. It would be impossible to find any one on this planet that did not stink. He was so very discouraged.
He sat there for what seemed to be an interminable time, and it could have been years. All this time he was watching this planet. Watching the people. He watched them as they worked and played. He saw them as they went to war against each other. He noticed how dark this planet was compared to his own planet, where there was no darkness at all. He noticed how the people pretended to be happy and many parties were given to continue the charade of happiness. But he also noticed that they were actually very sad and unhappy. It showed mostly when the people were alone.
He wondered how things got so bad here. This made him think of his father. His father was the King of the Universe and He had created all things. He had created all of the galaxies, including this one. So how had it gotten so bad here? He knew his father was a good and just ruler. He knew that He would not create this planet in this condition. He decided to have a talk with his father. He knew his father could hear him from anywhere, so he just started talking.
“Father, how did this planet get so stinky?”
He actually already knew the literal answer to this question. It was the greed, pride, selfishness, etc. that stank. But again he wondered how this planet had gotten so bad. No other planet that he had ever been to had been this bad.
“The prince of this planet is the most foul smelling of all”, his father answered him.
“Yes, I know”, said the prince sadly, and then continued “He was my friend at one time. I didn’t realize how bad it had gotten.”
“Yes”, his father answered. “This planet has gotten so bad that we had to separate it from every other planet by many galaxies.”
The two were silent for a time and then the prince said, “What are we going to about it”?
“Well, I do have a plan, but you will have to help me and it will be most dangerous and difficult.”
“Father, you know I will do anything you ask”, the prince replied.
“Yes, I know but not this time”, his father said.
“What do you mean? You need my help and then say not this time”?
“I mean, this time I will not order you. If you do it you must do it for your own reasons and it must be your decision. I cannot even tell you what my plan is right now. It must be of your own choosing. Stay here and observe this planet all you can. Observe the people, and I’m sure an idea will come to you. Let me know when you are done.”
The prince began to observe the people and before he knew it, he realized that he was starting to get involved himself in their lives. And then he realized that he cared deeply what happened to them. He started to think, “I must go to them, and help them”.
Instantly, like a flash his father said “Good, how will you do it, without contaminating yourself.”
“Father, I know that you can do all things. If you would have me to go, I know that you can protect me. But only if I am constantly in your will. I will have to be very careful not to do anything of myself, and only that which you tell me to do. Isn’t that the key”? He asked almost breathless with excitement.
“Yes, my son. Indeed you are just like me in every way.” Said his father with pleasure.
So the plans were made and the son was sent to this planet on a mission of mercy, to rescue the people from their terrible foul-smelling prince and also from their own stink.
He was there only a short time, but it was indeed profitable. In the end those that did not like his “smell” ended up killing him. But that was not the end of the story. Actually, this was The Plan that he and his father had worked out before he ever went there. After he had been dead for three days, he rose again from the dead. Now, he could never ever get stinky.
It was something that had never been done before. Now the people that wanted to, could become “stink-free”. All they had to do was identify themselves with His death, and let his resurrected Life live in them. If they were no longer living their own lives, their own way, but living His Life in them, they would start to stink less and less. The more of His Life that was in them the sweeter they smelled.
The prince was over-joyed. He would finally have a sweet-smelling princess. In fact, he would even have an army of sweet-smelling people in order to do battle against the most foul-smelling prince. In the end, he would take them all back to his home planet to live with him forever and ever.
However, not all of the people on the stinky planet wanted to stop stinking, some had become so familiar with the stink that they did not like the sweet smell of those that didn’t stink. They would try to get them to start stinking again. Sadly, some of the people who had almost stopped stinking would sometimes get tired of living the princes’ sweet-smelling Life and go back to living their own lives again. Then they would start to stink again. This made the prince and his father sad, but they decided that they could do nothing more for those people if they wanted to throw it all away again. And those people ended up stinking more foul than those who had never even heard of not stinking.
What is the moral of this story?
Don’t stink.
Seriously though, I know that this story has some theological errors in it and I am going to point them out here.
1. The most important thing is that Jesus is not an equal to the devil, Jesus is G-d,
but the devil is just a created being that got filled with pride.
2. Jesus did not just trip over this planet. He created it.
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