Did God will the death of Jesus in order to save us?

Palm Sunday ushers the Holy Week, the commemoration of Jesus’ passion, death and resurrection. As we contemplate the Paschal Mystery of Jesus Christ, permit me to share some reflections about Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross in relation to God’s salvific will.

In Christ crucified, God embraces our suffering. Jesus on the cross is God’s most eloquent and personal response to our incessant questions about suffering and evil. In general, we ask, how can God allow innocent people to die in wars not of their making, such as blameless civilians in Gaza, Iraq, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan? How can God permit innocent children to die of starvation in Darfur, Somalia and North Korea? How can God tolerate extra-judicial killings by the Left, terrorists and the military in the Philippines? Suffering and evil become more confounding when they touch us personally and rob our loved ones of life: Why did God allow my nephew to die of dengue fever? My cousin to be slain by a drug addict-holdupper? My grandmother to writhe in pain for years from bone cancer?

God’s reply to our innumerable questions regarding suffering and evil is not a proverb, not a proposition, and not a philosophical treatise. As we know from our experience of consoling the bereaved, no words suffice. Moreover, in God’s mysterious ways, the omnipotent God does not spare us from suffering by abrogating evil and abolishing sin. Instead, God replies to our disconcerting questions about suffering by appropriating upon Himself the consequences of sin and evil, by embracing our torment and anguish, our despair and death. Jesus, broken, bent, and bloodied, torn apart, twisted and tangled, stripped naked, numbed by pain and nailed to a cross is God’s mute yet unsurpassable response to our gnawing questions about suffering. In Christ crucified God has freely chosen to become a victim of sin. In Christ crucified God has freely made our suffering His own, in order to be one with all of us who are betrayed and forsaken, accused and convicted unjustly, despair and writhe in pain.

In facing death on a cross, Jesus reveals that love is indomitable. Did God will Jesus’ death on a cross? Certainly not. God never intends the destruction of any of His creatures. Rather, God desires fullness of life for all. In relation to Jesus, God did not design from all eternity and carry out in history His death. The Jewish leaders and representatives of the Roman Empire connived to put Jesus to death. What God willed from eternity was the Son’s incarnation and embodiment of God’s unconditional and inclusive love, not Jesus’ rejection and execution, nor His torture and torment.

Could Jesus have avoided the cross? Most certainly. By taking back all He taught and preached about God’s mercy towards the repentant Zachaeus and the woman caught in adultery. By keeping his mouth shut regarding the corruption and hypocrisy of the Pharisees and Sadducees. By fleeing to a distant village and leading a quiet life. In a certain sense, Jesus, by embodying the God’s love and justice and by denouncing self-righteousness and injustice, courted persecution and death. And when the cross loomed over Him, He did not shirk and cower in fear, apostatize or apologize, but instead submitted Himself to it.

Jesus’ confrontation and acceptance of His cross reveals that fidelity — to the Father, His people, the downtrodden especially — is mightier than the fear of suffering and pain. Jesus’ submission to carry the cross reveals that conviction not cowardice has the last say. Jesus’ embrace of the cross reveals that love and mercy, not bitterness and violence, are the ultimate ground of our existence.

In and through Jesus’ death on a cross, God redeems all creation. How odd that God opted to redeem the world by permitting us to crucify His only begotten Son. While God could have redeemed us through a less bloody and violent economy or plan of salvation, God chose not to save us from afar, apart from our troubled history. God freely chose to enter and immerse Himself in our violent world. God invested Himself personally and allowed Himself to be victimized by human sin and to be calumniated by human pride. God in Jesus Christ became falsely accused, unfairly convicted, brutally scourged, humiliatingly stripped naked, and ingloriously nailed to a cross.

How does such a horrifying and repelling death redeem us? How does such an ignoble end to Jesus’ life of compassion and mercy save us? By embracing the depths of our despair, God is telling us that there is no darkness that His light has not penetrated; no pain that is alien to God’s heart; no forsakenness that God Himself has not experienced. In sum, there is no realm of human existence, be it physical agony, emotional despair, or spiritual darkness, which remains unknown to God. Hence, death is no more; despair and darkness, too, are no more. In the end, there is only God who is all and in all. In the end, there is only God who is Emmanuel, God who is with us in our living and our dying. In our deepest despair and most wrenching death, God remains the God who is ever with us.

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