Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life.

In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller.

Jesus was an abject failure. Or at least he must have seemed like that on the day of his death.

The regions of Galilee and Judea, they were

famous for having failed messias. He wasn't the first failed Messiah, and everybody assumed he

wouldn't be the last. He wasn't even the first person crucified named Jesus. And the story with all

of these failed messias was always the same. There was a charismatic leader who rose up from the populace,

and he gathered a grassroots following from the people.

Then he came to Jerusalem, he took on Rome,

only to be crushed under Roman boots, nailed to a Roman cross,

and then hung outside the city gates on a major road

so that everybody who passed by would hear the message.

Anyone who stood up against Rome would die on a cross. So when Jesus arrives in Jerusalem

mounted as an Israelite king on a donkey, the script repeats with one small hitch. Jesus never takes

on Rome. And ironically, this infuriates people so much that

they give him to Rome. They say that he's a king threatening Caesar's throne. And so the Roman governor

does what many before him did. He spills torrents of would-be Messiah blood. After his death, Luke records how the people respond.

In Luke 2348, we read,

When all the people who had gathered to witness this sight, Jesus' crucifixion,

when they saw what took place, they beat their breasts and went away.

But all those who knew him, including the woman who had followed him from

Galilee, stood at a distance watching these things. No one looking at the cross declares,

...