Daily Post: Trace
Jeffrey Deaver has written 13 novels about Lincoln Rhyme, a former NYPD Homicide Detective turned Forensic Consultant, who left the NYPD when he became a quadriplegic after an accident on the job. Partnering with Amelia Sachs, a former model turned investigator now working with NYPD, she tall, fast driving, nail biting detective “walks the grid” in search of trace evidence to solve complex crimes. The science behind Crime Scene Investigation (CSI) is not fiction however. This process involves meticulous observation and documentation of the scene – photography, identification of physical evidence and collecting it, including fingerprints, footwear impressions, hair, fibers, biological fluids, and DNA for analysis. All this information combined with careful reasoning of the facts surrounding the crime, often aid in solving the “who done it,” which makes fiction authors so famous. “Stranger than fiction?” Often not, in real life.
There is one mystery today that remains solved but unresolved, for those who study the facts of it. Since we only have trace evidence in the matter, and that only a smattering of documentation compared to what is being collected at crimes scenes today, we must trust in the veracity of said documentation. The narrative is as old as time itself, in terms of motive. The scene of the crime was one of power, and an expression of what happens when you cross the sovereignty of the State. The characters in the story are countless, including perhaps on some level all of mankind itself. The weapons, still not in evidence today: three nails and a spear.
The Jewish leadership determined that rather than let the people perish at the hand of a hostile Roman overlord, which they deemed would occur if something wasn’t done, agreed to hand over Jesus Christ of Nazareth as their sacrificial lamb, in an effort to restore sanity back to heir jurisdiction. The puppet king Herod, laughed his way through the proceedings, expecting Jesus to perform miracles to entertain him. The powerless procurator, Pilate, tried cunningly to outwit the Jewish high priests, but in the end came up with a plan to free Jesus, whom he thought was an innocent, which backfired, releasing the murderous Barabbas instead.
In the end, not only Judas, but all of Jesus’ closest followers ran from his arrest and hid themselves. Historically the brutality of crucifixion is well documented through secular documents as well as the Bible. The horrific nature of this kind of death, and the reasons why the Roman government employed it, are not lost at all. Yet the mystery remains unresolved in many people today.
Some read the story as a fictional narrative, believing in their hearts that most of it is made up, just like Noah’s Ark, the crossing of the Red Sea, or the walls of Jericho crumbling to the ground. All we have left of any of these stories is the trace evidence. A document which has lasted so long as a validated, historically accurate, evidentiary exhibit, that the truths it holds cannot be challenged. When God documented what he determined would happen, it happened. Including offering up His own Son, His only Son, as a sacrifice for the Sin of the world.
Yet the mystery remains. Why?
Why would God, “so love the world?”
Why would God see this death as the only way to redeem us?
Why would Jesus allow Himself to be used in this way?
Why?
We could search for the rest of our natural lives to answer this question, but human minds cannot reason with the unmistakable truth of it all:
Romans 5:6
For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.
Why did He do it? He did it for me.
Why did He do it? He did it for you.
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As I was saying... 