Jesus had resurrection power .

I cannot understand crucifiction and how that is so celibrated. I cannot comfortably throw my grief onto Jesus as there is something cruel about all this.

I agree that we are undeserving. I never assume that another entity will necessarily carry my burden. Every Easter for me it is a depressing time. There is a mean nature to humanity and what they did to Jesus reminds me of this. To make the quantum leap to celebration to me just never really made sense. Perhaps I liked Jesus too much, and feel jealous that we are left here to fend for ourselves. Some Christians are so fast to glow at his suffering, and for some reason, to me, they take the role of the Romans. I can still hear the crying and suffering that it all represents.

There is something incomprehensible for all of this for me to fathom, and lets face it I am only human. My tag suggest I am a saint but that is just human irony.

So I guess that's my problem, not the Church or Christianity.

Dear Fletch
may I recommend a course of action ?

Read one of the Gospels.. say Luke, (for detail and history) or Mark (for action movie) or Matthew (for Jewish slant) or John (for the warmth and compassion) ..but which ever you choose, try to grasp the real person there.. the Jesus of reality, and notice how it is abundantly clear that at any time he could have averted his ultimate fate on the cross.

Notice how the disciples were in many ways like you, (not being critical here) they could not comprehend a "suffering" Messiah, -Its noteworthy that ONLY after Jesus extracted the confession from Peter "You are the Christ" did he begin to teach them about his true role of death and resurrection. (See Mark 8:27ff and 9:31, 10:32ff)

Mark may be divided between Chapters 1-8 "Who am I" and from the 2nd half of 8 to the end "Why did I come"

But back to the strategy.. when you enter into the emotion, journeys, encounters, healings, oppositions.. then.. just as Andrew and John are muttering about who will have the best seat in Glory (they were rather thick headed and self centred) Jesus 'crunches' them "Oh..guys.. by the way..what were you discussing on the way" ? hah ! busted.

So.. he is in COMPLETE control, all knowing..all powerful ....

THEN.. it all changes. They reach Jerusalem, and it looks like evil will and has triumphed, the usual human machinations take over.. 'get rid of this political/religious pest' and for a few days it seems like they got away with it .......It was friiiiiiday.. Darkness was winning, but as many a black preacher has passionately said "Sunnnnnndays-a-comin" (Tony Campolo Sermon) and when it came, glory of glories.. HE HAS RISEN.
History was changed forever, lives transformed, people renewed, such that we have the Halelujah chorus by Handel, and many other artworks praising our Saviour.
We are lifted up to the heavenlies in Christ. OH what a contrast to Friday...

Oh what a difference three days can make .

I know I must sound like a broken record on this, but every so often there is a post here that reminds me of it.

>>Jesus was killed because he had become a leader and was developing a huge following<<

If this was the case, why is there no contemporary record? As sharkfin points out:

"an emerging leader who has the power to control huge groups of the population is always a threat to an occupying army"

Yet of this particular one there is absolute silence.

It is as if future historians had heard of this Osama bin Laden chappie from accounts claimed to have been written thirty years after his death, but when they looked for corroborating evidence from contemporary sources, there are none to be found.

How likely is that?

It seems to be such a big hole in the entire story, yet none of the Christians on this forum seems to have the courage to acknowledge it.

To me, it is not a problem in itself. Everything we do in this world revolves around what we believe, even if that in turn is guided by the work of Alan Jones or Karl Marx.

The problem is that the boosters of the conventional Christian view of the Bible consider it to be "the gospel truth" - which unfortunately allows them to denigrate any other work that claims the same status, but differs from their opinion.

But that's religion for you, I guess.

No room for doubt.

But very specifically, no room for questions.

Pericles, the Bible is the Gospel truth. That some don't believe that the gospels are the word of God, or that some don't trust the written accuracy of the gospels doesn't negate the truth the gospels denote.