Hey, just so you know ... this post is now about 15 years and 11 months old. Please keep that in mind as it very well may contain broken links and/or outdated information.

What would you do if, through an unexpected twist of fate and time, you came face to face with Jesus of Nazareth? In the flesh. A living, breathing, three-dimensional figure with a disconcertingly casual manner. When you had pinched yourself to make sure that you weren’t dreaming and found that he was still there, would you turn your back and walk away – or would you try to find out what he was doing so far from home?

“Mission” by Patrick Tilley has been in my personal library for almost 20 years. I bought it at a used book sale at the Porter Public Library in Westlake, Ohio in the late 80s on a total whim. I can’t remember why my teen-aged self would have purchased it: it’s a nondescript blue and gray hardcover novel, about an inch and a half thick, with no dust jacket, just the words MISSION and TILLEY printed on the spine in gold leaf. There’s no synopsis page in the front, no “about the author” page in the back, nothing to clue my young self into what the book was about. I must have opened it and flipped through a few pages, but I can’t remember what I would have read at the time that made me buy it, but I did. It’s an amazing story, and has apparently turned into a cult classic during the two decades it has sat on my bookshelf …

“Mission” tells the story of Leo Resnick, a Manhattan lawyer who finds himself in the middle of an eternal struggle between cosmic forces of the Power of the Prescence (good) and ‘Brax (evil). And it just so happens that one of the foot soldiers on the ground (Earth) in this war is a Celestial who ends up trapped the body of one Joshua of Nazareth (who we’ve come to know as Jesus). I think “Mission” qualifies as science fiction: there are aliens, space ships, time travel, mystical powers, etc. but it also contains an extremely healthy (and detailed) dose of religion. And not just Judaism and Christianity … all religions. Tilley does a masterful job of weaving his story through history and religion, explaining almost everything in the Bible as we learn the Truth through Leo’s experience with The Man (as he calls him).

I can see religious people possibly being offended with the topic. After all, when it comes down to it, Jesus is a stranded space alien trying to get back home. Tilley also takes a few good shots at organized religion in general. But you have to remember this is fiction: any good story is better when it’s woven into real events (like what the movie “Stargate” did with Egyptian mythology).

In a neat juxtaposition, I started reading this in mid-April, shortly after Easter. So the events in the book were corresponding with current real-life dates and events (at one point, it was May 5 for me and I was reading about May 5 in the book). As with any good book, the twist at the end is the best and made me wish it wasn’t over.

In doing some Google searching while writing this, I’ve learned that apparently this book is now hard to find in-print. I guess I should hang on to my aging first edition for a bit longer … I might want to read it again in another 20 years.