Resurrection Sunday is the wonderful reminder that the crucified Jesus is now alive. This is the greatest reversal and victory in history. But only because of what happened on the cross. Jesus was no mere rabbi who got caught up in a political riot and ended up dying for a cause. Something cosmic happened for all people and for all of creation on that weekend.

Some 700 years before Jesus died on the cross, God gave the prophet Isaiah a mental picture of this event, revealing a king who is rejected and dies a violent death, yet his death is for His people, in their place, for their sin. We needed a substitutionary sacrifice and Jesus’ death on the cross provided it. No person ever understood this truth more than Barabbas, a condemned terrorist awaiting execution. Yet, in an odd twist of fate, because Pilate was seeking to set Jesus free, Pilate offers the crowd an option, and Jesus ends up literally dying on the cross prepared for Barabbas. His story is our story and here we find the beautiful truth that Jesus is our sacrifice.