First Effect

The first effects of the blood of Christ on Calvary were manifest to those who were absorbed in the recognition of who it was that was dying on the cross. There was something like the startling recognition of a great, long lost friend - or brother. Moved to pity, and refusing to deny truth revealed in love crucified, they allowed their hearts to be moved in tender and fervent proclamation, in confession, and in penitence. They allowed their heretofore self-occupied and set assumptions about the world, in a moment, to roll away into the scraggly bushes shivering on the hillside. Even while the recognition was not entirely articulate to them, the good thief St. Dismas recognized Christ the Innocent Victim; the centurion St. Longinus recognized Christ the Priest and King. They were instantly converted. One of them was the first mortal to enter Paradise.

But those people absorbed in the demand for concrete, watertight, objective, working evidence of effects and results, of the assurance of their own tests being requited, of valid credentials necessitating the truth of the Messiah come in the flesh, were those who derided Christ, saying to Him, "If you are the Son of God then come down from the cross and save yourself."

And so it is to this very day.