Why Did He Have To Die?

Why did Jesus have to die so brutally, so painfully, so dramatically? 

Had he worn out his welcome in the holy city of Jerusalem? True, everyone anticipated a King
was coming to save them, a King with a capital K, not a lower k.  But a scruffy, common man with dirty sandals and a limited wardrobe, who walked from door to door when such doors opened and gave him a spot to spend the night and to share his story, the why of Him being there, the who He was. Was no one paying attention? 

We know his followers were so frightened by authorities, so embarrassed that this man, who claimed to be the Son of God, the Savior for all mankind, the so-called King that had been promised them, had very few of the characteristics that should company such a royal person. I mean, he didn’t even have a chariot or an attire like Nero or the golden crown that should have marked him as the true King. Jesus came as a king but with thorns in his crowns, and dirt on his flip-flops that carried him on foot from town to town as he healed and encouraged all those who saw hope in this man who could do miracles.  He had companions, who smelled like fish, and might have been considered crooks if they were tax collectors, but not the type that would surround a King of the type of people who believed in royalty in those days.  Whatever group Jesus had gathered, they all scattered when the worst happened to Jesus, when things got dangerous, confused, and not good - and that spoke of the kind of friendship and loyalty walked with him.  They really didn’t know who He was, and they were not going to risk their lives by being near him. 

It doesn’t always work nor was it a sign of the times. The people who hovered around the wooden cross lifting the Savior high off the ground were women, his mother, and a number of Mary’s and surely Mary Magdalene and the wealthy Joseph of Arimathea. Who just had a bump in his heart that this man being killed on a crude cross with a pair of criminals was certainly someone special, who basically swore that He was the Son of God, though no one believed him nor wanted to believe him as it would shake up the religious scripts and habits of the time? 
We, today, swarm around holy people, victorious people (think sports heroes), wealthy people who donate needy causes, or sometimes just a simple woman putting her last coin in the plate at church. It happens. 

Now Jesus, He believed in simplicity. He dressed like a common poor man, and he walked wherever he went in sandals, yet he had been such a symbol of hope and love and peace just from his carinoso spirit and his attention to the lowest of the lowest who needed to be heard and helped and blessed. Plus, He knew so much of history, of the earth, of the ancestors, and He had a humility about him that made it easy to chat with him, and even more amazing, to love him as He healed and gave hope to each and every one, be it a wayward man, a woman with too many husbands, or a soldier who was so curious he could believe that maybe this young man - because Jesus was always a young man dying at age 33 - did know God and love and how to embrace all kinds of people wherever they were, on the dusty roads, in synagogues, and rocking in fishing boats. 

You might say God the creator has nothing in common with us and yet has everything to do with us because without Him we don’t exist nor have hope of becoming “love”, when we stumble and fall at trying to own, create, share, feel. We must love not the easy sides, the good ones, or our own, even though we might groan about how tough it is. But the God love style is not only for us completely in the realm of good, but also for those who are impossible and completely different and out of our comfort zone or imagination. Maybe that’s why I married outside my environment - first in Africa, then in Uruguay. There is such a longing, a pandamia to love, to feel, to want to be near and learn with the toughest of all - criminal abusers, rapists, our prisons are packed with the loveless ones who need to be loved and understood and encouraged and not give up upon.  My heart sinks when I discovered a man in prison for life for something he did not do but was victim of white prejudice because he was a black man too close to the scenario and tortured by racial judgment like the Jews were just because they were Jews. Judgments consumed lives of brilliant and creative men and women, as it still does today on the streets of giant cities where everyone has everything and tosses up power into the sky to build up or tear down - just because. Just because I sneezed or screamed or turned away or stepped into a puddle of rainwater or cheered the magnificent Grizzlies basketball team. 

I tend not to be rooted in a community lifestyle and I come in and out and bypass and step into but quickly withdraw because I have my rules, my heart that only God can control. Can’t sit in a chair and watch the world go by - sit and complain, sit and demand servants, sit and glue to TV operas or violent no-goodness. Or to appoint and shout at those around me to do this or that, make this happen and sign. I’m going to take a rest. Is some Angel present?

Worry beads - When I walk my daily miles  in Carmelo, along the narrow salt- how I miss the simplest of nature - the flowers that bloom in crevices and corners and on muggy hill sides or over old fence that has no more use except to be a base for climbing purple day flowers - they are God sent because there are no gardens and a sloppy cliff or a crude Rembrandt of some fence or corner becomes basis for plants to survive and twist and shout about their own beauty although not many humans would really see them. God sees them, just like He sees us. Just as He saw his son on a crude cross, while so many didn’t.

I wonder if Jesus watches soccer from above? or the NBA or the Super Bowl or the Soccer World Cup (British’s Chelsea vs Brazil’s Palmeras.) I wonder why He had to die so young. I wonder how He will be able to greet the billions as they leave this earth and knock on the pearly gates, thinking he or she deserves to be at the front of the line: will there be a line - will there be room for us all? Or am I anticipating that somehow each one of us will have a home with lilies in the field and that peace knowing we would never have to suffer anymore, and Jesus will be teaching us how to love and get along and maybe establish a paradise of goodness and love with no pain or death.  Amen.

 ~ Rev

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audrey@audreytaylorgonzalez.com
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