Reply #21: Jesus had a choice. He could have run [View All]

[DemBones DemBones]

away and hidden himself but he didn't. He wasn't suicidal, but was submitting to the will of God the Father. Before being taken prisoner, Jesus prayed all night in the Garden of Gethsemane, asking God to spare Him, but also praying "Thy will be done," knowing that meant he had to die for our sins. He was the one perfect sacrifice to redeem humanity.

Jesus was, as I hope everyone knows, a Jew. He preached to other Jews and all of his disciples were Jews. But he taught some things that were different from what the chief priests taught, threw the moneychangers out of the Temple, and often criticized the Pharisees. Worst of all, in the minds of the Jewish leaders, Jesus seemed to claim that he was the Messiah. He was pretty evasive about it, but that made him sound like Yahweh in the Old Testament.

So the Jewish leaders gave the disciple Judas thirty pieces of silver to betray Jesus, and Judas led the Roman soldiers to the Garden of Gethsemane, where they arrested Jesus. After he was tried by Pontius Pilate, Pilate wanted to let him go. He asked the crowd who he should set free, Jesus or the thief, Barabbas, figuring they'd say Jesus. But they shouted for Barabbas to be set free each time Pilate asked. So he asked them what he should do with Jesus, and they shouted "Crucify him!"

Now, the Jewish leaders were Jews, of course, and Judas was a Jew and presumably most people in the crowd were Jews. But Pilate and his soldiers, who actually executed Jesus, were Romans. So Romans as well as Jews were involved in killing Jesus, and I'd say that was part of God's plan -- to make it clear that it wasn't only his own people who killed him. On Passion Sunday (AKA Palm Sunday), when we read the Gospel account of this story, the Passion story, the congregation as a whole plays the part of the crowd (i.e., the Jews) and shouts "Barabbas!" and "Crucify him!"

It's always been my understanding that Jesus came to save us and we responded by killing him, that the fault was ours, not placed on "the Jews." Historically, of course, it was Jews and Romans who killed Jesus, but theologically we all share the guilt and it doesn't matter if some have Jewish or Roman ancestry and some don't -- everyone shares the guilt. We aren't supposed to get weighed down with guilt but rather accept the sacrifice that was made for us.

Does that help? I made the answer long so it would (I hope) be clear to everyone, knowing there are people here who have little or no experience with what Christians are taught, though that didn't seem to apply to you. I might have been able to answer what you wanted to know with "Yes, Jesus had to die for our sins." There was no other option.