OPINION — Easter is not built on sentiment. It begins with a report.
A Roman governor writes to the emperor: a Jew named Jesus of Nazareth has been crucified. But the execution did not unfold as expected. During his slow death, the sky turned dark in the middle of the day. At the moment of death, the earth shook violently. These were not rumors. They were reported by Roman soldiers.
Pilate had a duty to record what happened. Rome was meticulous. Empires run on records, not rumors. What followed would have been documented and sent to Emperor Tiberius—including the events and the unsettling reports that followed: the disappearance of the body of the condemned man and the tomb, sealed under Roman authority, found empty.
