In the first chapter of Genesis, the very first book in the Bible God speaks and brings the world into existence. He places all things where he wants them. At the end of his creative work God makes us. He makes humankind, male and female. He makes us after his image. And what we read there, right at the very beginning, is that the first thing that God after making us is to bless us. “And God blessed them.” We are made for God’s blessing – it is what we each long for. It comes to us in Jesus.

After the long Emmaus road resurrection narrative where the Cleopas and his companion have burning hearts for God's Word and their eyes opened by the broken bread of Jesus, Jesus appears to the eleven disciples and he leaves them with a commission that they would take the news of Jesus from Jerusalem with the aid of the Holy Spirit, the "power from on high"! But what news of Jesus are they to take? What is the core of the message that they are to proclaim? Christ's death and his resurrection, his suffering and his glory! And because of that suffering on the cross and because of that glorious resurrection the door is open for repentance and the forgiveness of sins. When Jesus sums up what they are to say he sums it up with suffering and resurrection for the forgiveness of sins and it is to be proclaimed to all people!

It is very easy to get lost in the theological ramifications of Jesus’ death and miss the perspective of those who witnessed his crucifixion in all of its gory spectacle. As they walked home from Jerusalem, after Jesus’ death, Cleopas and Mary were most likely emotionally overwhelmed. Despair was their companion when they meet one whom they did not at first recognize. In describing Himself in the scriptures He would enter their despair, and showing them what a “body broken” means.