IT IS FINISHED...

"It is finished" is how it started. Up until then, this mystery carpenter turned philosopher was intriguing but not extraordinary. Others had come with good stories, ideas and tales of freedom. Others had even done some mighty miracles. But the cross seemed to suggest another dimension of delusion. A man of grace being surrendered to a death of destruction. The collage of confusion that raged that day, seemed to suggest something else was brewing.

The whipping was particularly brutal. The marriage of tears and taunts were particularly troubling. The dying seemed to be particularly speedy. But it was the darkness that rolled in that carried more than moisture. The hairs on our arms rose as if to defy an evil that slipped through the gaps of heaven. It seemed as if demonic cackles filled the blackened skies to announce a naked victory. As the darkness enveloped him, he glanced once more as his weeping mother through bludgeoned eyes. And then he breathed his last.

Two men lowered him to the ground. These normally rough and rowdy occasions, were now contrasted by a deafening heavenly silence. The weight of injustice hung wearily like a deepening mist across that forsaken hill. Yet their love was loaded and their affection fiercely public. This broken naked frame was soon robed in regal dignity. What butchery did not afford him, surely his burial would. The setting sun chased the pain of burial as a wealthy tomb seemed somehow fitting for a man of no known means.

By Sunday night the rumors were rife. The cult followers had stolen his body said some. The pub conversations were intense as others in turn denied this passionately saying that death had been avoided and he had been revived to walk back in to the city. Of course who could believe it all anyway? After all a woman had run in to town to announce the impossible. Such delusion. Such deception.

There I sat in deep reflection. A broken heart and despairing mind. Then he was there. I knew it yet could not open my eyes. He was there and touched my sagging shoulders. I had never believed him. I found his words so rare and idealistic but this time his voiced pierced my soul as he called me "brother". That was all. Then I knew. I fell to my knees and wept. My brother was the messiah and now I knew. His tender touch held me as I heard his voice call my name. It was the beginning...