Winners or Losers?
Let's go just a few years forward from Calvary. Another man in the prime of his youth, arrested for heresy by the Jews, a witness to Jesus, Stephen, the first deacon, was dragged out of the gates of Jerusalem and stoned, even as he forgave his murderers. The persecution that ensued just made more Christians. The blood of the martyrs is the seedbed of the Church. Winners, or losers? In the eyes of their killers, Stephen and Lawrence and Cecilia and Lucia were the biggest losers. But they see the face of their Lord eternally, and that makes them winners.