I'm rather agnostic when it comes to religion, but when exposed to the right sermon I often find myself greatly moved. The themes behind Christianity are quite powerful, and sadly many of them remain as revolutionary today as they were 2000 years ago... We've yet to really master empathy, forgiveness and compassion, or to accept that we could be loved even when we do not love ourselves.
I do wonder if this is at least partly due to organized religion becoming *too* organized. Ritual worship can often strike me more as a task than a time of contemplation. It becomes a duty, and like many such duties, one expects to be rewarded for the time one puts into it. "I've gone to church every weekend, so I'm going to heaven" becomes as complicated as it gets for some people, and the idea that the message is the reward gets lost. (It certainly doesn't help when a church service is about as engaging as a Monday morning office meeting that goes overly long).
I think a fictional prose approach like the one you took for this story is quite valuable, as a result. It breaks the reader from the ritual observance of the story, and offers a chance to reengage the themes and messages of it. Additionally, it encourages them to challenge the assumptions within it, to question whether the author got it "right". In this case, it also allows us to make connections between ourselves and the characters from the gospels, which encourages us to see how the messages could be implemented in our own lives.
Well done, and a happy Easter to you and yours.
