Sin

Julian, the Emperor of Rome, was a great enemy of the Christians. Once, when he was about to pronounce the death sentence on a group of them, he said derisively, “Where is your Jesus Christ now?” One of the Christians shouted back defiantly, “He is fashioning a coffin for your Roman Empire.” That man was sentenced to die in tortured agony, slowly. But the man was right. The years went by and things went from bad to worse for Julian: in domestic affairs, in military affairs, in affairs of the Empire. Emperor Julian ended up stabbing himself to death and, according to the historians, when he started to fall he cupped his own life’s blood in his hands and shouted, “Oh Galilean. You have conquered after all. You have conquered.” That is the spirit of the New Testament authors: Sin and death and evil push in on us and threaten us but the Galilean has conquered both.