There are two ways to tell the story—
two levels on which death can be thought.
One is sweat and struggle,
politics and betrayal,
the kind of death you can reconstruct
with names and timelines,
a corrupt priesthood guarding its place,
a Roman governor playing at peace
while fearing a riot.
Crowds sway like reeds in a storm.
This is the death
that history books can footnote—
Josephus nods,
Philo records.
It happened.
But the other—
no less real—
was told by those who
walked with him.
John, who heard him explain in private.
Peter, who broke and was restored.
Mark, who gathered memory
like pieces of a shattered jar.
They knew
what history cannot fully hold:
that the man who died
was not merely man.
They knew
that this death was not just a tragedy
but a gift,
a movement of God toward us,
a pouring out
that had always been coming.
They saw in him
the mystery of love
made visible—
the Word who spoke stars into being
now speaking peace into fishermen,
and touching the untouchable,
and calling the dead by name.
This is the deeper level—
not above history,
but within it,
through it,
beneath it.
This Jesus
was the incarnate Son of God,
come not to condemn,
but to teach us,
to love us,
and ultimately to die for us—
so that in his rising,
we might be drawn
into the life
of the great God of the universe,
not as strangers,
but as children
held fast
in an eternal embrace.
Based on John Dickson with Paul Barnett and Eckhard Schnabel,
Undeceptions Episode 150
https://undeceptions.com/podcast/jesus-trials/#1734665463780-c78bd559-e148
The Afterword 
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