The other point....

We make much of the death of Jesus, it was such a horrible ordeal and he did suffer terribly. Many here still suffer horrible, painful deaths. We seem to forget that the point of the story is that He did NOT "die" - He continued to LIVE.

It is not (to me) his death that changes each heart, not that He died for us, but His living love for us. He loved us enough that HE CAME BACK for us to SHOW that He lived on and that WE will live, too.

It is His living presence in our lives, his willingness to love us as we are, even as we continue to ignore, reject or disbelieve in Him, that gives us proof of His Divine Love; And it is his return that proved to us the reality of Eternity.

While He was alive, as we know alive, He changed hearts, healed and taught - and He is STILL Alive, doing the same.

Death doesn't count any more...not for Him and not for us. It's just a stepping stone to another way to live and love...People don't seem to see that. Jesus, by living beyond the death of His body, has opened up Eternity to each of us.

Even though His body here was killed, He lives, loving us still, and He SHOWS us that...proving His love to each of us here as we reach for it, and giving comfort to each heart that loses a loved one, that we will be with them again forever - where death can never separate us again.