second-coming
Explanation
The Joke
Jesus has returned for the Second Coming. He stands on a hillside and announces "I have returned!" A follower excitedly proclaims: "All followers of the true path shall enter!" But then someone in the crowd asks a practical question: "A 401k? Or Roth?" -- confusing the religious "path to salvation" with financial planning. Jesus and his follower are taken aback.
In the next panels, it becomes clear that the crowd has been "doing this" (debating rules and technicalities) for quite some time. Jesus tries to explain the actual rules, but someone objects: "No, it's against the rules. Sorry, anyway the followers of the true path shall--" only to be interrupted again. The comic ends with Jesus walking away in frustration, shouting "Hey!" as the crowd continues to bicker about procedural details rather than accepting his divine message.
The Humor
The humor comes from the bathetic collision between the cosmic significance of the Second Coming and the petty bureaucratic mindset of modern humans. Rather than falling to their knees in awe, the crowd treats Jesus's return like a town hall meeting, immediately getting bogged down in procedural questions and rule-lawyering. The 401k/Roth joke is particularly sharp: it takes the concept of "entering the kingdom of heaven" and reduces it to retirement planning, suggesting that modern people can only understand salvation through the lens of financial instruments. Weinersmith is satirizing both religious legalism (the endless debates about who qualifies for salvation) and modern society's tendency to reduce everything to bureaucratic processes. Even the literal Son of God cannot cut through red tape.