The Romans tortured and killed him. He suffered and died. How puny was the God of the Christians! How unlike the God of the Jews. The God of the Jews was a mighty God who defeated the Egyptians and liberated the Jews from bondage! The God of the Christians failed to liberate them from the Romans. In fact, the Romans sacked their capital, Jerusalem, in 70 A.D.
The God of the Jews is the same God as the God of the Christians. There is only one true, God.
What gives?
In his encounter with the Egyptians, God proved his omnipotence.
In his encounter with the Romans, God proved much more - much, much more. God proved something better than omnipotence. God proved the genuineness of his love for us.
At Bethlehem, the most Holy Trinity hand delivered to us a love note. Imagine. A love note from God to us. It was a most unusual love note. It was not cold ink written on dead paper. It was the word of God written on life itself. It lived and breathed. It was alive. Jesus, the Son of God, was the love note.
At Calvary, God gave us a guarantee of the genuineness of the love note. If the love note were counterfeit, his love for us would have faded as we tortured him and died when we killed him. But it did not. It survived. That his love for us survived the boiling cauldron of suffering into which we baptized him guaranteed the genuineness of the love note.
God used the Egyptians to prove his omnipotence.
God used the Romans to guarantee his love for us.
We tortured and killed him. He suffered and died. Yet, he did not stay dead and he did not stop loving us. His love for us is the ingredient that makes paradise sweet. Rational people seek the sweetness of paradise (and flee the sourness of godlessness). It would be crazy to do otherwise.