Crucifixion Fails to End God’s Plan

by Robert Docter –

They thought they had put an end to the entire matter–finished the potential insurrection, done away with the charismatic leader able to attract great crowds and confront them with heresy.

The Roman prelate, Pilate, had washed his hands of the entire matter concerning this mysterious rabbi. He never believed there would have been any insurgency anyway. Almost laughingly he agreed to post guards at the tomb. The Jewish puppet government had done their usual manipulation, overladen with paranoid tendencies, to achieve their desired end. As far as they were concerned, the revolutionary spirit was dead.

The Pharisees and the Sadducees rested easy. There would be no more opposition to rules of conduct and behavior their forebearers had established for centuries. The man who claimed to be Messiah was dead, buried, entombed, guarded, a minor three year blip soon to be forgotten.

His friends and followers grieved. They had experienced a great loss–a loss defined individually by each of them. Now, they had to be cautious for their own safety.

But … the Son also rises.

They had all reckoned without God. Their faith had been measured and found wanting. What they had believed to be terminated had been exploded into action. The one they thought to be dead was alive.

The world changed that fateful day–that day that love conquered fear, that compassion arrested ambition, that day that faith and freedom took seed and flowered and broadcast its aroma to a waiting, needy, pain-filled world. It was a day when hope re-entered the souls of humanity. The sacrifice had been freely given. The message was safely stored within the lives of living humans to be passed through the generations to all who follow. The one they thought to be dead was alive.

The world changed that fateful day–that day that love conquered fear, that compassion arrested ambition, that day that faith and freedom took seed and flowered and broadcast its aroma to a waiting, needy, pain-filled world. It was a day when hope re-entered the souls of humanity. The sacrifice had been freely given. The message was safely stored within the lives of living humans to be passed through the generations to all who follow.