My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it,

may your will be done.

Matthew 26:42

I was the kind of kid who drove adults crazy with the ‘why’ questions.

“Why did Jesus have to die on the cross?”

“To save us from our sins?”

“But why couldn’t he just forgive us?”

“There was a penalty to be paid for your sins.”

“But he paid the penalty to God… and He’s God, so why couldn’t he just forgive our sins?”

“Because God is Just and hates sin, so there must be a penalty.”

‘But why?”

“Go ask your parents…”

The argument quickly became circular. There was no answer that sufficiently addressed the question, and there was always a why which could follow. I stopped asking questions altogether. I don’t have a specific memory around this. There was no traumatic event. I just learned it made people uncomfortable, and possibly irritated, to be subjected to this line of questioning.

As I get older, I have begun to question again. In doing so, the dead bones of my faith have begun to come alive.

Even as an adult, I kept coming back to the question: Why did Jesus have to die? Couldn’t he just forgive? The heart of the question is this: What was accomplished by his dying that the all-powerful God of the universe could not accomplish any other way? In Gethsemane, Jesus clearly wanted another way. If it is possible any other way… But it wasn’t.

I can give all the ‘adult’ answers, but they ring hollow to me. Recently, a thought struck me (which was a God-thing). What if His dying on the cross was not about appeasing God? What if the sacrifice was not meant to fix His side of the salvation equation (our sin plus His death changes how He views us (imputed righteousness) which allows us to be washed clean in His eyes, which imparts salvation)? What if, by dying, he somehow changed us?

A quick story:

I have the sweetest little dog. She would never hurt anybody. But when we first got her, she was terrified of me.  Even if I approached her with kindness in my voice and treats in my hand, as soon as I bent over to pet her or give her treats, she would roll onto her back and pee. Every time. She misunderstood the nature of the relationship.

To overcome this hesitancy, I had to get down on her level, and slowly approach her from far away. Better yet, I could get down to her level and let her come to me on her timeframe. Five years on, she never pees and will even come jump up on me with excitement.

Is it possible we are like the dog in this story? That we misunderstood God to be mad? Peter Enns says the violence we see in the Old Testament is because “God lets his children tell the story.” Maybe some of the things we attribute to God is a mythology of sorts. We often believe God loves us, but does not like us very much. That He’s angry with us. That He’s in a bad mood.

How was God to get close enough to us in order to show His love, when we were afraid of the light? If every time the light approached, we scattered like cockroaches, how was He to tell us he loved and liked us? How was he to get inside our barriers, without using force, to tell us that the celebration feast is ready for us?

He had to come down to our level. He had to become one of us so we wouldn’t run and hide. Jesus had to enter our darkness to accomplish His ultimate goal; to reveal the true love of the Father. And in revealing that love, he began the long arduous journey of reconciling the entire world to himself.

Jesus did not die on the cross to change God’s mind about us. Jesus came down and submitted himself to the worst humanity had to offer, to change our mind about Him.

I’m sure there is more to it than that, but for now, it is the first answer that sufficiently addresses the question of why.