His death on the cross, too, has often been called "the great equalizer," because he died for all, thus showing that we're all equally human with equal worth in God's eyes.

While skeptics just love pointing out that people die for lies all the time, we never find people dying for lies they made up themselves.

Jesus knew his mission required truly committed and trained followers, not casual bread-seekers.

In his passion he displays perfectly the paradox of power expressed in humility explainable only by his purpose, to die for our sins.

Everything Jesus did, he did brilliantly. Yet in almost every case, he did it in ways unlike the rest of us would.