I tried to imagine the Easter story in the Bible as if Jesus hadn’t completed what he came to do. What if he hadn’t died? How would that change everything?

The very first Easter, in my dream,
The Lord God didn't die
He lived on earth so perfectly
And then, I don't know why,
When he could have saved us all
And died there in our place
He just returned to heaven again
Vanished without trace

And on a hill outside the town
Two thieves were crucified
Justly punished for their crimes
To hang until they died
And on the ground between them
Was just a stretch of grass –
A whisper I'd heard of a saviour there
And nothing come to pass

Just two crosses standing there
And you and I are lost
We all pay justly for our sin
Our death must be the cost
Eternity without a God
Who made all that we see
All that's good, all that we love –
Gone eternally

I awoke to find this nightmare
Was wonderfully untrue
Once upon a time a cross
WAS found between these two
A man that they call Jesus
Was punished in my place
He rose to life
I can be saved –

The first Easter was grace