My life was full of dramatic and symbolic events.  I devoted my final years to spreading Father's message of love and eternal salvation, performing 'miracles' to get my point across when words alone didn’t.  After three years of these teachings, I gathered the twelve men who had faithfully supported my crusade together one day.

I asked these disciples to bring me a certain young donkey that had never been ridden before. When they found the animal, I mounted it and began riding towards Jerusalem.  A huge crowd followed along, singing songs of praise for what I had taught them.

When I neared the city, I openly cried.  The people there still didn't recognize me as their saviour, and they hissed and booed as I passed by.  Satan, who blended in easily with the angry mob, crept inside Judas Iscariot, one of my disciples.  Judas then wandered off unnoticed and conspired with the chief priests and captains as a crowd formed around me in the courtyard.

The powerful officials welcomed Judas' evil plot, and promised to give him thirty pieces of silver if he provided a time and place to capture me when I was alone.  I suddenly knew in my heart that my death was coming and got all the disciples together for a final Passover dinner.  I picked up some bread as we ate and blessed it, then passed each disciple a piece of it.

I said, "Take this and eat...it is my body, broken for you.  Do this in remembrance of me."  I took a cup and again blessed it, then gave it to them to drink.  "This is my blood of the new covenant, which I shed for the forgiveness of sins.  We will not drink wine together again until you join me in my Father's kingdom."

Everyone was speechless and stared at me with worried faces.  A disciple named Thomas said, "We don't know where you're going, but you won't be alone.  We have never left your side, and intend to stay with you for many years to come."  I forced a smile and let the matter drop, savoring the taste of my final meal.  When we were all finished eating, I warned the disciples of difficult times to come.  "If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first," I said.

After supper, I walked to a garden called Gethsemane to pray.  The disciples followed me to the secluded place and stood behind me in silence.  Just as I finished praying, the chief priests and elders of the temple showed up.  Judas, who had just eaten with me an hour earlier, was leading the group.  He approached and gave me a kiss of betrayal.

I looked past Judas and softly spoke to the growing mob, saying only, "I am."  I allowed myself to be tied up and taken to the high priest's house.  The temple officers made crude jokes and spit in my face.  They blindfolded me and punched my face and stomach, asking sarcastically, "So give us your prophesy, 'Holy Saviour'...which of us hit you?"

Early the next morning, a crowd followed as I was taken before the Roman governor, Pilate. "We found this fellow corrupting our Jewish nation," they yelled to the governor when we got close.  Pilate questioned me quietly, then raised his hands to hush the crowd.  "This man has done nothing to deserve the penalty of death.  I'll have him beaten and then released."

The people were outraged.  "That man must be killed," they yelled.  A chant moved through the mob: "Crucify him...crucify him!"  Pilate felt obligated to satisfy the people's wish and had me brutally whipped.  He then gave his 'keepers of justice' the go-ahead to have me crucified immediately.

Some Roman soldiers braided a mock crown of thorns and pushed it roughly down on my head. They put a purple robe on me and said, "Hail, King of the Jews!"  They beat me, laughing after each blow.  I was then led down the city's main road and forced to carry a heavy wooden cross on my back.  I was told to stop when we reached Calvary, also known as Golgotha.

In that same area, my Father had told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, his only son, years before. Some soldiers nailed my hands and feet to a huge cross, and I fought to remain conscious despite the pain.  When they had finished, I looked towards the sky and said, "Forgive them, Father...they don't know what they're doing."

Soldiers cheered and jostled each other for my clothes.  Some of them sat near my hanging body and gambled for my robe, which fulfilled the prophetic words once spoken by David.  Two criminals had also been crucified, and hung limply to either side of me.

The crowd watched me suffer for three long hours.  The city rulers mocked me, saying, "If he saved so many others, he should be able to save himself, too.  If he is who he says he is, why does he die helplessly in front of our very eyes?"  At that moment, a darkness crept over the land and stayed for another three hours, and the prophet's words were fulfilled yet again:  "The Lord will place the sins of us all on him."

I cried out as this burden fell on me.  "My God, my God...why have You forsaken me?"  But I knew that everything had happened as it was supposed to, and completed the predicted scriptures with the words, "I thirst."  The soldiers laughed and offered me vinegar, repeating, "If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself!  Turning this vinegar into water should be a cinch for someone as powerful as you."

I tasted the vinegar, then called out, "It's finished.  Father, into your hands I commit my spirit."  I bowed my head and released the grip on my inner spirit, and the pain was instantly replaced by overwhelming content.  As I died, the sun darkened and the earth was shaken violently by a quake; the thick veil of the city Temple ripped down the middle.

The Roman captain in charge stood staring up at me as everyone else panicked and ran away. "Truly this man was the Son of God," the captain said softly.  "What have we done?"  The soldiers returned when the quake subsided and broke the legs of the two men hanging beside me. When the soldiers saw I was already dead, they pierced my side with a spear instead, and the blood poured down on the ground below me.  Again, the scriptures had been accurate: "None of his bones will be broken; they shall look at him whom they pierced."

Later, when the soldiers had left, two believers named Joseph and Nicodemus took my body and wrapped it in linen grave clothes.  They placed me in a tomb and, as requested by the Jewish leaders, it was sealed and guarded by Roman soldiers.

Three days later, there was another great earthquake.  An angel appeared and rolled back the stone from my tomb's door, and the Roman soldiers standing guard screamed in terror and ran away.  Mary Magdalene, a woman who had come to anoint my body at the tomb, was the first person to find it empty.

Mary ran outside and cried, thinking my body had been stolen.  She saw me standing nearby and came to tell me the sad news.  She thought I was a gardener, but when I said her name and promised her everything would be fine she realized who I was.  Some followers of mine later came to the tomb and, seeing the stone had been moved, were confused.

A few men in expensive clothes approached them and said, "Why are you looking for the living among the dead?  He's not here...he has risen.  He told you he must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified, and on the third day would rise again.  Don't you remember?"

I appeared before my disciple friends later that day.  "Peace to you," I said.  They were scared, assuming it was my spirit standing before them.  "Look at my hands and my feet," I said.  "It's really me.  Touch me...a spirit doesn't have flesh and bones like I do.  Everything happened as I told you it would.  All the writings from Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms had to be fulfilled, and they were."

When forty days had passed, I announced to the disciples, "You shall receive power after the Holy Spirit comes within you.  You must tell others about me, both in Jerusalem and every other part of the world."  Then they watched as I was taken up into a cloud and disappeared from sight.  Two men dressed in white wandered by, and stopped beside the disciples.  "Why are you standing there staring upwards?  That same man who was just taken up into heaven will one day come back again in the same manner you just saw him go."

Some have suggested the disciples stole my body and fabricated the whole story.  When threatened with death later, however, they could have saved themselves by coming forward with the truth; they could have admitted my body was stolen, shown the authorities where they had put it, and their lives would have been spared.  Yet not one disciple changed his story. Others think the Roman authorities removed me from the tomb.  But why didn't they produce my body to silence the apostle's claim that I was alive?  Because they had no body to reveal.

Many people today don't give my death, or life, much attention at all.  It would be easier to convince them the Tooth Fairy was real than have them believe I willingly died for their sins. "It's the modern equivalent to Greek mythology," they say.  "Nothing more than a fantastic tale outlining valid social virtues.  The promise of a reserved seat in Heaven is very appealing to anyone unsatisfied with the cards they've been dealt in their physical life on Earth.  And then there's the notion of Hell, a convenient scare tactic that makes even the most vigilant disbeliever think twice about facing death without faith."

Those who do recognize my Father's role as creator of life and the world it flourishes in are no longer the majority they were centuries ago.  The Church, once the very foundation early settler towns were built upon, watched as Government gained more and more authority.  Lessons in morality I used to teach through Gospel and spirituality are now defined by laws and the penalties of breaking them.  There are more facts and fewer beliefs, more answers and fewer questions.

My name is Jesus, the most documented and recognizable man in modern history.  As the Son of God, I died to free his children of their sins.  My Resurrection gives hope to those who seek forgiveness and accept me as their saviour.  The importance of my death has touched the hearts of millions throughout the world, yet I share my annual holiday with an egg-laying rabbit.  Go figure.

Easter, regardless of how it's celebrated, symbolizes new life and fresh beginnings.  Noah found a good quote the other day: "Nature is the living, visible garment of God."

Happy Easter!

Jesus