"We live life forward and understand it backwards". I heard those words, and a lightning bolt ran through my core. A truth you've always known but never heard put so succinctly.

"What is, has been and will be" The preacher spent most of his ministry delivering messages of doom. All he had to tell the people was the judgement they had coming if they refused to stop their evil ways.

Even when he attempted to deliver messages of hope, it had to come with some pain. Like telling the woman, she would go through the pains of childbirth before experiencing the smile of her newborn. Or telling the nation they would go through slavery before they could experience peace.

Any wonder there were only a handful people in the church? Who wants to keep hearing all gloom and doom? I mean, life is hard enough without the prophet adding such messages.

Papa would hold my tiny hand, and in the best way he could find, reassure me that I was not to fear. My father was near and would protect me. I feared that the dead bones, though trapped beneath the tombstones, might, by some stroke of luck, gain strength and life and make an escape. And because they were afraid of being stopped again, the escape would be swift, and perchance bystanders or wayfarers were in the way, they would get pushed aside. Should there be a search for substitution, how would they find the person? Imagine someone was leaving the tomb on the condition that they brought a replacement, and I happened to be around.

The wild imaginations of a curious little mind. I did not need to worry about pictures playing out in real life. Papa was strong enough to ward them off. But wait, he was human and needed cover from my fears too. No, there is a more significant and more potent answer. Calvary covered it all.

The predictions of a substitutionary death of the sinless lamb of God came eons before the event. The main character came prepared, but no prepping could take away the agony, sorrow, and pain.

The book of Mathew is replete with the phrase 'as the prophets foretold it"; One such was documented in the chapter that can be described as the No 1 chapter in the whole bible. Isaiah 53 trumps every other as it summarizes the essence of Christianity. Jesus left His glory, came to earth, died a shameful death, paid the ultimate price for the sins of humanity, and returned to heaven, where he would come back to judge the living and the dead. When He returns, all eyes will see and acknowledge Him.