Once we saw grace. It seems so long ago now. How could any love so perfectly welcome the company of the broken and alienated? Truly he had come from a place that was greater than ours.

No one could forgive the adulterous harlot, caught in the act… but he did.

No one could look a career criminal in the eye and speak a blessing over the scoundrel… but he did.

No one, certainly, could know the heart of his betrayer and still embrace him and welcome him to the table for a final meal together… but he did.

This world isn’t ready for his message. It doesn’t want its carefully constructed social strata torn apart by such a revolution. The powers scoffed. This man was a hero only to the lowest of the low, they said, a silver-tongued sycophant parading the illusion of equality for lepers and Samaritans… with Pharisees and kings!

A rabblerouser to be made example of.

We are crushed, still. How can we go on? Once again, the world has proven its own darkness, killing its only hope. Today our despair knows no end.