About 2000 years ago, a small group of Jewish people, living under the tyranny of Roman rule, began to listen to the words of an itinerant preacher. They saw him reach out in love to the hurting people, the broken people, to comfort them and heal them.

They heard him give radically new interpretations of the ancient Scripture. Then they watched in horror as he was arrested, tried on trumped-up charges, beaten, mocked, spat upon, and finally nailed to a cross to die between two thieves.

They experienced the incredible pain of seeing him dead and buried on Friday, and the equally incredible joy of seeing him alive again on Sunday morning. They heard his promise that his spirit would remain with them all the days of their lives and beyond.

And as they remembered what he had said and done, maybe they remembered the day of his baptism by John in the Jordan River. Maybe they remembered that a voice from heaven had declared, “This is my Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” And maybe the pieces of the puzzle began to fit a little better for them.

Thanks to Johnny Dean

My Commentary:

What those first followers lived through was not simply a sequence of events, but a slow unveiling of meaning. They encountered Jesus first as a teacher whose words carried authority and mercy, a man who touched the untouchable and spoke hope into lives worn thin by suffering.

Then, in a single terrible rush, they watched that same life crushed by injustice, violence, and fear. Friday felt like the end of everything they had dared to believe.

Sunday changed that forever. The resurrection did not erase the memory of the cross, it illuminated it. What once seemed like failure now appeared as love carried to its furthest extreme. His promise that his spirit would remain with them was no longer a comforting idea — it became a lived reality, strong enough to sustain them through doubt, persecution, and loss.

Looking back, they may well have remembered his baptism in the Jordan. The voice from heaven: “This is my Beloved Son” had not been revoked by the cross. It had been fulfilled through it. The suffering servant and the beloved Son were one and the same. What God had declared at the beginning was now confirmed at the end — and beyond the end.

Faith often grows this way for us as well. Understanding comes later, in hindsight, when scattered moments suddenly cohere. In remembering who Jesus was, what he endured, and how God vindicated him, the pieces begin to fit. And we discover that the story we thought was over is, in truth, is only just beginning.

How has YOUR faith and YOUR relationship with Jesus evolved over time?

DON’T TREAT PEOPLE THE WAY THEY TREAT YOU. TREAT PEOPLE THE WAY GOD TREATS YOU!