Why Did Jesus Die?
It’s Good Friday.
Here’s the question we’re all asking…
Why did Jesus die?
This is the question that was on the cover of Time Magazine on April 12, 2004.
In that issue, there was a 10 page article striving to answer that one question.
If you ask the average person, why did Jesus have to die, they might say something like this…
Well, in the beginning there was the garden of Eden and God created Adam and Eve, but they sinned! That’s when sin entered the world and our sin separates us from God so God had to come up with a plan to save us so that one day, when we die, we can go to heaven to be with him forever.
Another Reason?
That’s what a lot of us grew up believing. The problem with that version of the gospel story is that it suggests that perfection was the expectation God had for Adam and Even and that God has for you and me.
And because we were unable to live perfect lives, because we have sinned and we have failed each other and we have failed God, God had to come up with a plan to save us. And that’s why Jesus had to die!
It’s one of the reasons so many of us struggle with always wanting to be perfect, to do everything just right… because somewhere along the way we believed the lie that perfection is the expectation.
It’s the reason so many of of us always feel like failures. Because we can’t be perfect. But no one has ever been perfect, except Jesus!
But what if perfection has never been the expectation?
What if the reason Jesus came from heaven to earth, lived among us, and willingly went to the cross wasn’t in response to Adam and Eve’s sin but was a part of a divine plan that started before God planted the garden of Eden?
What if Jesus came and gave his life not just so we could go to heaven when we die, what if there’s something more, something bigger, at work in what happened at the cross?
The Cross
It’s Friday, and I want to share part of this story with you. Because this is part of the story that changed everything forever.
This is what happened on Friday some 2000 years ago…
6 Now it was the governor’s custom each year during the Passover celebration to release one prisoner—anyone the people requested. 7 One of the prisoners at that time was Barabbas, a revolutionary who had committed murder in an uprising. 8 The crowd went to Pilate and asked him to release a prisoner as usual.
9 “Would you like me to release to you this ‘King of the Jews’?” Pilate asked. 10 (For he realized by now that the leading priests had arrested Jesus out of envy.) 11 But at this point the leading priests stirred up the crowd to demand the release of Barabbas instead of Jesus. 12 Pilate asked them, “Then what should I do with this man you call the king of the Jews?”
13 They shouted back, “Crucify him!”
14 “Why?” Pilate demanded. “What crime has he committed?”
But the mob roared even louder, “Crucify him!”
15 So to pacify the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. He ordered Jesus flogged with a lead-tipped whip, then turned him over to the Roman soldiers to be crucified.
16 The soldiers took Jesus into the courtyard of the governor’s headquarters (called the Praetorium) and called out the entire regiment. 17 They dressed him in a purple robe, and they wove thorn branches into a crown and put it on his head. 18 Then they saluted him and taunted, “Hail! King of the Jews!” 19 And they struck him on the head with a reed stick, spit on him, and dropped to their knees in mock worship. 20 When they were finally tired of mocking him, they took off the purple robe and put his own clothes on him again. Then they led him away to be crucified.
22 And they brought Jesus to a place called Golgotha (which means “Place of the Skull”). 23 They offered him wine drugged with myrrh, but he refused it.
24 Then the soldiers nailed him to the cross. They divided his clothes and threw dice[c] to decide who would get each piece. 25 It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him. 26 A sign announced the charge against him. It read, “The King of the Jews.” 27 Two revolutionaries were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left.
29 The people passing by shouted abuse, shaking their heads in mockery. “Ha! Look at you now!” they yelled at him. “You said you were going to destroy the Temple and rebuild it in three days. 30 Well then, save yourself and come down from the cross!”
31 The leading priests and teachers of religious law also mocked Jesus. “He saved others,” they scoffed, “but he can’t save himself! 32 Let this Messiah, this King of Israel, come down from the cross so we can see it and believe him!” Even the men who were crucified with Jesus ridiculed him.
33 At noon, darkness fell across the whole land until three o’clock. 34 Then at three o’clock Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”
35 Some of the bystanders misunderstood and thought he was calling for the prophet Elijah. 36 One of them ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, holding it up to him on a reed stick so he could drink. “Wait!” he said. “Let’s see whether Elijah comes to take him down!”
37 Then Jesus uttered another loud cry and breathed his last. 38 And the curtain in the sanctuary of the Temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.
39 When the Roman officer who stood facing him saw how he had died, he exclaimed, “This man truly was the Son of God!”
Why did Jesus have to die?
Jesus, the Son of God, became the Son of Man.
He lived on planet earth for some 33 years and he dwelled among us so that we could know that our God is with us. That nothing could ever separate us from His love for us.
The cross reminds us God is for us!
This plan, for Jesus to enter the story, become human, die a criminal’s death on a cross and to be buried in a borrowed tomb, was decided before time began.
The Apostle Paul says in Ephesians 1.4-5:
4 Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. 5 God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.
Did you hear what Paul said… BEFORE God made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes.
God decided IN ADVANCE to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ.
Why did Jesus die?
Because He wanted to restore relationship between God and humanity.
Because He wanted to heal us from the spiritual disease called sin.
Because He wanted to welcome us into unhindered relationship with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
The Cross Reminds us God is For Us!
Unhindered relationship with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit has always been the plan. So before God planted a garden God made a decision for redemption.
God knew sin would be a part of our story, but it would not be the headline of our story. Of His Story. The defining part of our story would be our redemption through Jesus so that we could be welcomed into relationship with the Divine Community.
All of that was not just made possible through His death, in order for this plan, for God’s plan to work Jesus would need to rise again.
And here’s the promise on Friday… Sunday is coming!
The best part of the story happens three days later.
I hope and pray you have or that you will find a church to celebrate with on Easter Sunday.
But today, may I remind of this truth:
The cross reminds us God is for us!
That God loves us.
