Why Should Anyone Believe in a Crucified Messiah?

An innocent man suffers. He is mocked, tortured, and murdered.

We may feel a deep sadness.

Perhaps even shed a tear or two.

We might draw some moral courage, or be inspired to live a better life.

We may even be moved toward deeper piety.

But is that all there is?

If Christ’s life ended with death, then His story is just another beautiful yet

tragic reflection of earthly life — admirable, moving, but ultimately ending in

defeat.

Nothing more.

In Dostoevsky’s The Idiot, there is a moment where a prince and his companion

stand before a painting of the crucifixion. The companion says, “Don’t you know

that people have lost their faith in God looking at this picture?”

The prince replies, “Sadly, that is happening to me too.”

If the story ends at the cross, if death has the final word, then goodness does

not triumph over evil. Christianity would become little more than a cemetery of

ideals.

We would be left enslaved to despair, walking into Tenebrae’s night —we grope

our way through endless darkness.

At the end of it all, "from dust you came, and to dust you shall return."

Good, evil, love, sorrow — everything would finally be... dust.

But Jesus rose from the dead.

He overcame death.

He shattered the finality of the grave.

He established a new order of reality: His resurrected body is the first sign of

more to come (1 Corinthians 15:20–21; John 14:19).

His resurrection validates His teachings and claims (Mark 8:31).

It justifies His life, His teaching, His promises.

Good Friday is only "good" because of Easter Sunday.

As St. Augustine said, "The face of Christianity is the Resurrection of Christ."

Almost everyone acknowledges that Jesus died.

Many believe in Good Friday.

But not all believe in Easter.

Easter draws the line between belief and unbelief.

Easter changes everything.

A novelist once captured it perfectly: when describing his arrival in the empty

hallway of a monastery, he wrote,

"There is an impression of intense activity elsewhere."

That was the feeling at the empty tomb on Easter morning.

It is done. It is finished.

The women came to the tomb but were told, “He is not here. He is risen.”

No more striving.

No more unfinished work.

Jesus has completed it all.

Now it is for you and for me — not to achieve, but to trust.

Not to labour, but to rest — in what Jesus has done for us.