No matter how good or long the story there comes a point in every show when the curtains close for the last time. The actors have taken their final bow and the audience clapped and cheered their approval. But then the theatre empties and everyone returns home to the lives that they left behind. The story fades and becomes just a memory.
And so it seemed that it would be for the friends of Jesus. They had hoped that the story in which they had been caught up still had some scenes to play out, but then suddenly and abruptly the curtains seemed to close for the last time as they watched Jesus hanging on a cross and his last breath slip from his lips.
Assuming the show was over they, like every audience who sense there is no more to come, slipped away and tried to return to the lives they had known before. Like every story they were sure that this one would now fade and become over time a distant memory.
But this was a different story with a different ending. What seemed to be the moment when the curtains closed was in fact the moment when they finally opened, never to be closed again. As the prophet Isaiah foretold ‘of the increase of his government there will be no end.’
