remembering jesus

so, as you may already know, i live in the magical, muggy ohio valley city known as cincinnati.  about 30 miles north of here, in monroe, ohio, a neon megachurch erected a GIANT 62-ft statue of [half of] jesus emerging from a pond in the middle of a field, directly on the side of I-75 in 2004.  it had [rightfully] earned several nicknames since then, my favorite two being  butter jesus [for the statue's weird buttery color] and touchdown jesus [for the 'touchdown' pose his arms made], though it's technical name was 'king of kings' or something of this nature.  it looked like this:

and there he is, in all his glory, complete with a cross and what i only imagined to be the ten commandments-type 'tablet' or something in his mostly submerged lap.  the structure you see in the background is the weird neon megachurch.  neon because, well, at night, it's lit by neon, like all good megachurches should be... er...  not really.  there were MANY jokes about this statue around these parts, and across the country, just google one of his two nicknames to find some.  anyway, we had a wicked storm tonight, sending most of the tri-state to their basements, complete with tornado touchdowns [pardon that pun] and severe thunder, lightning and loads of rain.  apparently, it wasn't the best idea to put a fiberglass statue in front of a pond in the middle of a mostly-open field, however, because jesus totally got hit by lightning, caught fire, and completely burned [or melted, if you were one to call him butter] to the ground, leaving just his inner structure.  here is what butter-turned-toothpick jesus now looks like after tonight's storm:

 photo credit:  vincent rush

robot toothpick jesus and neon.  crazy.  i guess God was serious about that 'false idols' thing, eh? 

RIP, touchdown jesus.  i will miss all the jokes that cincinnatians made about you.  i will be glad to not see you along the highway when i take road trips, however, but i will still yell "touchdown!" as i pass, like i always do.  and megachurch?  take it as a sign.  real jesus did not like your butter jesus, which is why he smote it.