Death of Christ

The ex-head of Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, Masao Yoshida, 58, died at a Tokyo hospital of esophageal cancer on July 9, 2013.

When the tsunami devastated Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant on March 11, 2011, Masao Yoshida worked to control the damage caused by the failing reactors. He disobeyed a company order and secretly continued using seawater, a decision that experts say almost certainly prevented a more serious meltdown and has made him an unlikely hero. He chose to place himself in danger, exposing himself to extreme radiation. And his story is just one of many at the plant.

Remembering the disaster, he said "The level of radioactivity on the ground was terrible…but the workers of the plant leaped at the chance to go trying to fix the situation with the reactors…. My colleagues went out there again and again."

Possible Preaching Angle:

What a beautiful picture of sacrificial, Christ-like love.

In an article for The Atlantic, David Graham wonders, “Who Still Buys Wite-Out, and Why?”:

Christmastime is when the pens in my house get their biggest workout of the year. I seldom write by hand anymore. But the end of the year brings out a slew of opportunities for penmanship: adding notes to holiday cards to old friends, addressing them, and then doing the same with thank-you notes after Christmas. And given how little I write in the other 11 months of the year, that means there are a lot of errors, which in turn spur a new connection with another old friend: Wite-Out.

The sticky, white correction fluid was designed to help workers correct errors they made on typewriters without having to retype documents from the start. But typewriters have disappeared from the modern office, relegated to attics and museums. But correction fluids are not only surviving—they appear to be thriving. It’s a mystery of the digital age.

But today, even printer sales are down, casualties of an era when more and more writing is executed on-screen and never printed or written out at all. Yet correction fluid remains remarkably resilient. As early as 2005, The New York Times pondered the product’s fate with trepidation. Yet somehow, more than (two decades) on, it has kept its ground. Who’s still buying these things? Even as paper sales dip, upmarket stationery is one subsegment that is expected to grow, thanks to a Millennial affection for personalized stationery.

For Millennials…the attraction to Wite-Out is the same as any other handmade or small-batch product: The physical act of covering up a mistake is imperfect but more satisfying than simply hitting backspace. There’s also a poignancy to a (messed up) generation gravitating toward Wite-Out.

You can’t erase the past any more than you can erase a printed typo or a written error—but you can paper it over and pretend it didn’t happen.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Isn’t it a relief to know that God doesn’t cover up our mistakes and sins and “pretend they didn’t happen.” At the cross He permanently and completely removed them from our record. “Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be white as snow” (Isa. 1:18); “He forgave us all our trespasses, having canceled the debt ascribed to us in the decrees that stood against us. He took it away, nailing it to the cross!” (Col. 2:13-14)

According to a French story, a drowned girl's body was recovered from France's Seine River sometime in the late 1800s. Her body, displayed in a Parisian mortuary in an attempt to identify her, captured the imagination of one of the mortuary's pathologists. So, he had a sculptor take a plaster cast of her face. The beautiful, enigmatic mask—named "L'Inconnue de la Seine" ("The unknown woman of the Seine")—was soon for sale among artists and writers who found it a muse for their work. In fact, no fashionable European living room of the late 1800s was complete without a mask of the Inconnue on the wall.

But her image didn't stop there. And this is where the story gets really interesting: In 1955 Asmund Laerdal saved the life of his drowning young son, grabbing the boy's motionless body from the water just in time and clearing his airways.

Laerdal at that time was a successful Norwegian toy manufacturer, specializing in making children's dolls and model cars from the new generation of soft plastics. When he was approached to make a training aid for the newly-invented technique of CPR, his son's brush with death a few years earlier made him very receptive.

He developed a mannequin which simulates an unconscious patient requiring CPR. Remembering the mask on the wall of his grandparents' house many years earlier, he decided that "The unknown woman of the Seine" would become the face of Resusci Anne. She has a pleasant, attractive face, with the hint of a smile playing on her lips. Her eyes are closed but they look as if they might spring open at any moment.

So, if you're one of the 300 million people who's been trained in CPR, you've almost certainly had your lips pressed to the Inconnue's.

Possible Preaching Angle:

How like God's work of redemption this is: to take the very worst things imaginable—like the horror of death—and make something new that would save countless lives. This is what God did for us on the cross, which we remember each Easter and Lord’s Supper (1 Cor. 11:26). The difference between the cross and the “unknown lady” is that our Lord was raised triumphantly from the grave and we serve a risen Lord (1 Cor. 15:1-58).

At approximately 1:30 a.m. on March 26, 2024, a cargo ship leaving the Port of Baltimore struck the (I-695) Francis Scott Key Bridge. This caused a devastating collapse of the bridge.

Completed in 1977, the Francis Scott Key Bridge was a practical, final link to the beltway of roads that circled Baltimore Harbor, a much-needed solution to reduce Harbor Tunnel congestion. But for so many, it was more than that. For decades blue-collar workers crossed the bridge. Teenagers celebrated new driver’s licenses by traversing it. And couples were known to get engaged near it.

For some, it symbolized the working-class communities around it—for others, the city itself. The bridge also served as a reminder of a storied chapter in history: Near Fort McHenry, the bridge is believed by historians to be within 100 yards from where Key was held by the British during the War of 1812. It was here that he witnessed the siege of the Fort in September 1814 and wrote the poem that became the national anthem.

And the Key Bridge was simply a presence in people’s everyday lives. Since the collapse, residents have been processing the loss on many levels, from profound grief for the six workers who died, to concern for the immigrant communities affected by the port’s shutdown, to a sense of emptiness that has cast a pall over their memories.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Bridges have tremendous significance. It’s the way to travel safely from one destination to another. No wonder we invest a bridge with deep meaning. As the Eternal Son of God, Jesus is the ultimate bridge, through his work on the Cross, reconciling God the Father with a sinful humanity.

French atheist Guillaume Bignon grew up in a loving family in France. He did well in school and landed a job as a computer scientist in finance. He also excelled in sports, growing to be six feet four inches, and played volleyball in a national league, traveling the country every weekend for the games. All in all, he was happy with his life. The chances of ever hearing the gospel—let alone believing it—were incredibly slim.

While vacationing in the Caribbean he met an attractive young woman. She mentioned that she believed in God and believed that sex belonged in marriage. This was a problem to him, so his new goal in life was to disabuse his girlfriend of her beliefs which were standing in the way of sex. He started thinking: “What good reason was there to think God exists? But, if I was going to refute Christianity, I first needed to know what it claimed. So, I picked up a Bible.” He also prayed, “If there is a God, then here I am. Why don’t you go ahead and reveal yourself to me? I’m open.”

A week or two after his unbelieving prayer, one of his shoulders started to fail, without any evident injury. The doctor couldn’t see anything wrong, but he was told that he needed to rest his shoulder and to stop playing volleyball for a couple of weeks.

Against my will, I was now off the courts. With my Sundays available, I decided I would go to a church to see what Christians do when they get together. I drove to an evangelical congregation in Paris, visiting it as I would a zoo: to see exotic animals that I had read about in books but had never seen in real life.

After the service he hurried to the exit door to avoid all contact with people and the pastor. But as he reached the door a chilling blast went up from his stomach to his throat. He heard himself saying: “This is ridiculous. I have to figure this out.” So, he closed the door, and went straight to the pastor. Bignon said, “So, you believe in God?” “Yes,” the pastor said, smiling. “So how does that work out?” I asked. “We can talk about it,” he said.

After most of the people left, they went to his office and spoke for hours. Bignon bombarded the pastor with questions, who patiently and intelligently explained his worldview. Bignon writes, “My unbelieving prayers shifted to, ‘God, if you are real, you need to make it clear so I can jump in and not make a fool of myself.’”

But instead of a light from heaven, God reactivated his conscience. He remembered a particularly sinister misdeed and God brought it back to his mind in full force. Bignon writes:

I was struck with an intense guilt, and disgusted at the thought of what I had done and the lies I had covered it with. All of a sudden, the quarter dropped. That is why Jesus had to die: Me. He took upon himself the penalty that I deserved, so that in God’s justice, my sins would be forgiven—by grace as a gift, rather than by my righteous deeds or religious rituals. He died so that I may live. I placed my trust in Jesus, and asked him to forgive me. This, in short, is how God takes a French atheist and makes a Christian theologian out of him.

Editor’s Note: Guillaume Bignon went on to obtain a master’s in New Testament studies. In the process, he met a wonderful woman, got married, had two children, and attained a PhD in philosophical theology.

What does it mean when the Bible says that we have been pardoned by God? Here are two classic definitions from American legal history:

First, in 1833, Chief Justice John Marshall, in a landmark decision, described a pardon as “an act of grace … which exempts the individual on whom it is bestowed from the punishment the law inflicts for a crime he has committed.”

Second, in 1866, the Supreme Court gave another famous definition of a pardon: “a pardon releases the punishment and blots out of existence the guilt, so that in the eye of the law the offender is as innocent as if he had never committed the offense … A pardon removes the penalties and disabilities and restores him to all his civil rights; it makes him, as it were, a new man, and gives him a new credit and capacity.”

Christian Philosopher William Lane Craig offers this as a marvelous description of a divine pardon. “‘If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation ….’ The pardoned sinners’ guilt is expiated, so that he is legally innocent before God.”

On the Cross, Jesus was both our substitute and a representative. Here are two analogies to unpack what that means.

A substitute is someone who takes the place of another person but does not represent that person. For example, a pinch hitter in baseball enters the lineup to bat in the place of another player. He is a substitute for that player, but in no sense represents the other player.

On the other hand, a simple representative acts on behalf of another person, and serves as his spokesman but he’s not a substitute for that person. For example, a baseball player has an agent who represents him in contract negotiations with the team. The representative does not replace the player but merely advocates for him.

These roles can be combined. Here’s an illustration of both.

If you’re a shareholder for the company, and you can’t attend the shareholders meeting, you can sign an agreement authorizing someone else to serve as your proxy at the meeting. That person will vote for you, and because they have been authorized to do so, their votes are your votes. You have voted via proxy at the meeting of shareholders. The proxy is a substitute in that they attend the meeting in our place, but they are also a representative in that they do not vote instead of us, but on our behalf, so that we vote.

In bearing our punishment, Jesus was both our substitute and a representative before God. He was punished in our place and bore the suffering we deserved. But he also represented us before God, so that his punishment was our punishment.

In an issue of CT magazine, Megan Hill tells her unremarkable conversion story which initially left her with doubts of its genuineness.

Megan has no memory of becoming a Christian. She says, “I didn’t pray a prayer, or walk down an aisle, or have a eureka moment. My Christian testimony of how I came to faith, is downright boring.”

She was raised by godly Presbyterian parents, gave thanks before meals, and recited prayers at bedtime from the children’s catechism. Church attendance shaped the weekly rhythms of her life. By the time she was age three or four she embraced the knowledge that God was her Creator, Jesus was her Savior, the Spirit was her helper, and the Bible was her rule. Megan writes, “But it took me most of my life to appreciate just how extraordinary was the grace I had received in ordinary circumstances.”

In fifth grade, I began to attend a school where dramatic testimonies were a regular part of morning chapel. Week after week, speakers—a drug addict, a party girl, an atheist—told of God’s rescue. But I am baffled that I never once heard a testimony like my own. And so I began to fear that I hadn’t really been saved … at all. Perhaps I was floating on other people’s convictions, happily living in a Christian environment without actually being a Christian.

Yet I was thankful for the church that had validated my testimony. In December 1989, I approached the elders of the church and asked to become a member. They, who had heard all kinds of stories from all kinds of people, declared my testimony to be a work of God. A few weeks later, I stood in front of the congregation and received the right hand of fellowship from those who had been lost but now were found. My testimony may have been boring, but it was welcomed. And I was also thankful for grace.

It wasn’t until I became a parent, at 27, that I began to see that in all testimonies, it is not the outward circumstances that are amazing. It’s the grace. There is no dull salvation. The Son of God took on flesh to suffer and die, purchasing a people for his glory. As Gloria Furman writes, “The idea that anyone’s testimony of blood-bought salvation could be uninteresting or unspectacular is a defamation of the work of Christ.”

For myself, I cannot point to a specific day of spiritual awakening. I can point only to my Lord, who says, “All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away” (John 6:37). My Jesus, I come. Every day in need of grace. And I find myself not cast out.

The United States recorded its one millionth organ transplant in September of 2022, a historic milestone for the medical procedure that has saved thousands of lives. It's unclear which organ was the record one millionth and details about the patient are unknown at this time.

The very first successful organ transplant occurred in 1954 at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. That was when doctors transplanted a kidney from 23-year-old Ronald Herrick into his identical twin brother, Richard, who was suffering from chronic kidney failure. The lead surgeon, Dr. Joseph Murray, received the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his role in the procedure.

Up until the early 1980s, the number of transplants every year remained low. However, success in transplants organs other than kidneys—such as hearts, livers, and pancreases—and the advent of anti-rejection medication led to a rise in transplants. Since then, transplants have become a far more common procedure. In 2021, more than 41,000 transplants occurred, which is the highest number ever recorded.

Sadly, approximately 5,000 people die waiting on transplant lists ever year. And a study published in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology in October 2020 found that many donor kidneys in the U.S. are unnecessarily discarded. But organ donors and recipients hope that by sharing their stories, they will inspire people will sign up to donate and help reduce those long waiting lists.

Possible Preaching Angle:

1) Heart; New Life - God has also given millions of new hearts (Ezek. 11:19) through the work of the Great Physician. However, just as the article states, many die while waiting for a new organ, so also many die without taking advantage of God’s gracious offer of salvation (“why will you die?” Ezek. 33:11; Luke 13:34). 2) Christ, substitute for humanity – There is joy for the patients receiving a new heart. Yet, the joy is bittersweet because the cost of that new heart was someone's life. For one to live another had to die.

In the opening scene of the 2016 film Collateral Beauty, advertising CEO Howard Inlet explains that his strategy is driven by three things. At the end of the day, (1) we long for love. (2) We wish we had more time. And (3) we fear death. These three things, Howard claims, drive every human act.

But then we see him three years later. His six-year-old daughter has died of cancer. It has destroyed him. In his lament at life, he writes letters to love and time and death. To death he writes: “You’re just pathetic and powerless middle management. You don’t even have the authority to make a simple trade.”

Later, he explains what he meant: “When we realized our daughter was dying, I prayed. Not to God or the universe. But to death. Take me. Leave my daughter.”

Like Howard, Jesus volunteered to make the trade for us. But unlike death in Howard’s mind, Jesus wasn’t middle-management. He was completely in control. He is the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down his life for his sheep. Jesus really did die for us.

In 1951, Henrietta Lacks visited John Hopkins Hospital complaining of bleeding. Doctors discovered a large, malignant tumor on her cervix. Lacks began undergoing radium treatment for cervical cancer and later underwent a biopsy to determine the progress of the treatment. Doctors were shocked to find that Lacks’ cells were unlike any others they had ever seen. Whereas other cells that they used for research would die, Lacks’ cells doubled every 20-24 hours.

Today, these cells, nicknamed “HeLa” cells, are replicated worldwide and have been used to study the human genome; the effects of toxins, drugs, hormones, and viruses on the growth of cancer cells; and played a crucial role in the development of polio and COVID-19 vaccines. Lacks’ cells were the first immortalized human cell line and one of the most important cells in medical research.

Henrietta Lacks died more than seventy years ago at the age of thirty-one. History would have long since forgotten her if not for that special something drawn from her blood. Today, scores of polio survivors and the billions who've been vaccinated for COVID-19 owe a great debt to this woman of whom most people have never heard. Only as her story is retold each February as part of Black History Month is she remembered.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Jesus' story bears many similarities to Henrietta's. He, too, died around the age of thirty. He, too, might have long since been forgotten if his story wasn't regularly retold and at Easter especially. Like Lacks, Jesus is honored for that special something about his blood. As Isaiah puts it, "He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed."

When police officer Cpl. Annette L. Goodyear holds up her hand to direct traffic in front of the local middle school, drivers usually stop. But when one driver didn’t, Goodyear didn’t have time to get angry or offended--she was instead focused on the girl crossing the street.

Cameras caught Goodyear as she pushed the child out of the way and was instead struck by the car herself, landing hard on the pavement. Goodyear said, “It was strange. As I’m lying there, I’m thinking to myself ‘this actually did happen.’ It didn’t seem real as it was happening.”

Authorities cited the driver for multiple infractions including negligent driving, failure to stop for a pedestrian in the crosswalk, and an expired registration.

Despite her hard landing, Goodyear was not significantly injured. She was in good enough spirits when she left the hospital that she immediately went to check on the student, who while not injured, was too shaken up to go to school.

Goodyear said, “She saw me standing there and as she was walking toward the door, she was getting teary-eyed. And when she got teary-eyed, then her dad started getting teary-eyed, and we all started at that point. I was just so thankful she was standing there and that she was OK.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

When you put your safety on the line for the benefit of others, you embody the sacrificial love that God has for all humanity which he showed in his Son on the Cross.

In China, the extremely wealthy can avoid prison terms by hiring body doubles. Incredibly, this is true! Slate.com originally broke the story of how the super-rich in China get away with pretty much everything, including murder.

According to Slate, a wealthy 20-year-old named Hu was drag racing his friends, when he struck and killed a pedestrian. Although Hu received a three-year prison sentence, allegations arose that the man appearing in court and serving the three-year sentence wasn’t Hu at all, but a hired body double!

In another case, the owner of a demolition company that illegally demolished a home hired a destitute man and promised him $31 for each day the “body double” spent in jail. In China, the practice is so common that there is even a term for it: “substitute criminal.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

This may seem scandalous, but 2000 years ago Someone became our substitute and took the punishment we deserve. He took the penalty of all our sins in his own body on the Cross. Justice is not met by the wealthy getting off scot-free. However, the death of Christ was “The just for the unjust – so that he might bring us to God” (1 Pet. 3:18).

In a sermon on the Atonement, Will Anderson used the following illustration:

Food demonstrates how everyone benefits from a form of atonement, whether they acknowledge it or not. Everything we eat—whether plant or animal—was once alive. It had to be plucked from the tree, pulled from the earth, or slaughtered in order to sustain you. Every meal is a testament to the fact that other things must die, if you are to live.

Most people who regularly enjoy a juicy burger or steak have never looked into the eyes of the animal that gave its life for their sustenance. The realities of the slaughterhouse are unseen and unthought of by most consumers—we reap the benefits without considering the cost. It’s hypocritical to caricature the Cross as needlessly cruel while benefiting from atonement at the dinner table every day.

Some may object: It’s one thing to kill an animal, but another entirely for God to (sacrifice) his Son. Yes, it’s true that the Cross is horrific. And yet Christ willingly embraced it, which should fill us with trembling and humility, not disgust.

Something stirs our souls when we watch someone willingly die for another—it moves and breaks us simultaneously. Why? It’s because our souls were formed by a Creator who sacrificed himself for us. We may deny atonement with our heads, but our hearts can’t be fooled.

Niccolò Machiavelli was a Renaissance era philosopher, politician, and writer. His writings greatly influenced modern political science. The following is an edited excerpt from The School of Life’s YouTube video on his views.

Machiavelli believed that to be effective, political leaders needed to be ruthless and tyrannical, not empathetic and just. His book, The Prince, is a short manual of advice for princes on how not to finish last. And the answer was never to be overly devoted to acting nicely. and to know how to borrow every single trick employed by the most dastardly, unscrupulous and nastiest people who have ever lived.

Machiavelli knew where our counter-productive obsession with acting nicely originated from: the West was brought up on the Christian story of Jesus of Nazareth. (He was) the very nice man from Galilee who always treated people well.

But Machiavelli pointed out an inconvenient detail to this sentimental tale of the triumph of goodness through meekness. From a practical perspective, Jesus’ life was an outright disaster. This gentle soul was trampled upon and humiliated, disregarded and mocked. Judged in his lifetime and outside of any divine assistance, he was one of history’s greatest losers.

Possible Preaching Angle:

What Machiavelli (and so many others) fail to take into account is that the gentle Lamb becomes a Lion. After the seeming “defeat” of the Cross, our resurrected Lord will return in great power and glory to reign over the earth. He was exalted by the Father because of his willingness to humble himself and take on the form of a servant.

Max Lucado tells the story of a missionary in Brazil who discovered a tribe of Indians in a remote part of the jungle. They lived near a large river. The tribe was in need of medical attention because a contagious disease was ravaging the population. People were dying daily.

A hospital was not too terribly far away—across the river, but the Indians would not cross it because they believed it was inhabited by evil spirits. They believe that to enter the water would mean certain death. The missionary explained how he had crossed the river and was unharmed. They were not impressed.

He then took them to the bank and placed his hand in the water. They still wouldn’t go in. He walked into the water up to his waist and splashed water on his face. It didn’t matter. They were still afraid to enter the river.

Finally, he dove into the river, swam beneath the surface until he emerged on the other side. He punched a triumphant fist into the air. He had entered the water and escaped. It was then that the Indians broke out into a cheer and followed him across.

That’s exactly what Jesus did! He entered the river of death and came out on the other side. No wonder we celebrate the Resurrection!

In the Middle Ages the sea route to India seemed an impossibility. it was often discussed in the great economic and political centers of Europe. They used to wonder whether there would be a route around the bottom tip of Africa to that rich land of the spices. Many had tried and all had failed. The tip of Africa had become known as the Cape of Storms.

Then an explorer called Vasco da Gama decided he was going to try again. He succeeded. Ever since he returned to Lisbon it could never be doubted again that it could be done. He proved that to use that treacherous way wasn't inevitably disastrous. The Cape of Storms eventually became known as the Cape of Good Hope.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Jesus has done that for death. The treacherous route has been transformed. Jesus suffered and went through death and rose victorious. This means that his people follow, and likewise the storms of death hold no fear for us. He has conquered.

Pastor and author J.D. Greear writes:

I remember a Muslim asking me when I lived in Southeast Asia, why would God need somebody to die in order to forgive our sin? He said, "If you sinned against me, and I wanted to forgive you, I wouldn't make you kill your dog before I forgave you. Why would God require some kind of sacrifice to forgive?"

Here's how I answered him:

Choosing to forgive somebody means that you are agreeing to absorb the cost of the injustice of what they've done. Imagine you stole my car and you wrecked it, and you don't have insurance and or the money to pay for it. What are my choices? I could make you pay. I could haul you before a judge and request a court-mandated payment plan. If you were foolish enough to steal my $1.5 million Ferrari (No, I do not actually own a Ferrari), you might never pay it off, and you'd always be in my debt.

But I have another choice. I could forgive you …. What am I choosing to do if I say, “I forgive you”? I'm choosing to absorb the cost of your wrong. I'll have to pay the price of having the car fixed. ... You have no debt to pay—not because there was nothing to pay, but because I paid it all. Not only that, I'm choosing to absorb the pain of your treatment of me. ... I'm choosing to give you friendship and acceptance even though you deserve the opposite.

This is always how forgiveness works. It comes at a cost. If you forgive someone, you bear the cost rather than insisting that the wrongdoer does. And that is what Jesus, the Mighty God, was doing when he came to earth and lived as a man and died a criminal's death on a wooden cross.

In her book Ten Fingers for God, Dorothy Clarke Wilson writes about Dr. Paul Brand who worked with leprosy patients in India.

Sometimes they would all gather together in fellowship. One evening, Paul joined them, and they asked him to speak.

Dr. Brand had nothing prepared, yet he willingly stood up, paused for a moment and looked at their hands, some with no fingers, and some with only a few stumps. Then he spoke: "I am a hand surgeon, so when I meet people, I can't help looking at their hands. I would like to have examined Christ's hands. With the nails driven through, they must have appeared twisted and crippled. Remember, Jesus, at the end, was crippled too."

The patients, on hearing this, suddenly lifted their poor hands towards heaven. Hearing of God's response to suffering had made their suffering easier.

Author Russell Moore writes:

A few years ago, I stood at the grave of Thomas Jefferson, and I was prompted to give thanks for his life and legacy. After all, if it weren’t for Jefferson and his majestic Declaration of Independence, there might not even be a United States of America, and certainly not a country quite like it is now.

But standing at Jefferson’s grave prompted me to realize that Jefferson is, well, in a grave. Jefferson’s anti-supernaturalism is seen in visual form in his famous Bible, with the miraculous parts cut out, most significantly the bodily resurrection of Jesus. I love Jefferson for standing up against King George, but not for standing up against King Jesus.

And yet, two hundred years later, belief in the resurrection of Jesus persists. Just days after I was at this hero’s grave, Christians from all over the world, despite all this science and all this progress and all this technology, confessed what the earliest believers in the catacombs of Rome cried out: “Christ is risen indeed.”

Thomas Jefferson is still dead. I thank God for him, but standing at his grave reminds me how limited even his legacy can be in the grand scheme of trillions of years of cosmic time. It also reminds me of the contrast with (the One) whose monument isn’t a house or…even a simple grave-marker. It’s instead a borrowed tomb that isn’t filled anymore.

That empty tomb is, itself, a declaration of independence. By raising Jesus from the dead, God declared him (and all who are in him) to be free from death, free from the curse, free from Satan’s accusation. I suppose you could say that Jesus was endowed by his Father with certain unalienable rights, among these life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness … except that these blessings don’t end in a graveyard.