Alternate Easter

What if he did come down from the cross, and what if they believed as they said they would?  What then?  In what would they be believing?  In someone who didn't have to die, in someone whose word and deeds up to that moment had meant nothing?  And what could he say to them or do, having come down and avoided death for them?  Could he say it all over again, another sermon on a different mount?  But he didn't come down, and they didn't believe.  It was as it had to be.