Goodness Through Tragedy: On the Death of the Christ

The Roman spear tip went through the side of the torso piercing through the pericardium and into the heat, confirming the condemned was truly dead. No tricks. Nothing staged. Jesus died upon the cross. This is the grand anticlimax to the Four Gospels of the Bible wherein Israel’s long awaited Christ was put to death upon the cross during the rule of Pontius Pilate.

The agony of a slow death through crucifixion was just a part of the sufferings Jesus endured.

Blood filled sweat as the Son prayed to the Father in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Betrayed by Judas Iscariot.

Denied by Peter,

Abandoned by the rest of the Twelve,

Rejected by the religious leaders along with many others in Jerusalem who wanted nothing to do with the sort of messiah in the likes of Jesus of Nazareth.  

Mock, beaten and scourged.

Surprisingly, this was part of God’s plan all along.

No sooner after Peter declared Jesus to be the Christ that the Lord began to teach the disciples “that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again” (Mark 8:31, ESV). Stern rebuke was given to Peter who rebuked the Lord for saying such a thing. Christ mission to the cross was the way. Christ led the way. The disciples followed the way. This was the way they were going. So, Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34, ESV).

The cross was God’s way to set things right with everything that was wrong with Israel and the rest of the world. All of humanity since the days of Adam is fallen and apart from a right relationship with God. Jesus’ own death would be the sacrifice which provides the way for sinful people to enter into a right relationship with their Creator. Even Moses and the Aaronic priesthood could never make things right with all their sacrifices in the tabernacle and temple, but where they failed Jesus succeeded. The Epistle to the Hebrews tells us,

But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, ¹⁴ how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God (Heb. 9:11-14).

Christian sees the cross as the only way. It is the way of solving what is the basic problem of this world. It is though the crucified Christ that all people reconnect to their Creator, find their purpose, understand their place in this world, and make sense of the present suffering. It is though the crucified Christ that all people can learn the way to find the power and direction to bring something of value to the world’s conversation of what is going on and how to solve the problem. Denial of self, taking up the cross, and following Jesus is the way.

—WGN