Why Did Jesus Have to Die?

 

[The following is a manuscript of my meditation delivered at Pilgrim Reformed Church on Friday afternoon, the 3rd of April, 2026 - Good Friday.  If all went well, a recording of the service may be available on our YouTube streaming channel: 

https://www.youtube.com/@pilgrimreformedchurch1992/streams for the older services or https://www.youtube.com/@pilgrimreformedchurch3115/streams for later services.]

Yesterday afternoon, we shared the Passover meal with Jesus and His dearest friends, His chosen disciples.  Jesus, their Lord and Master, took advantage of their time together to give them one last lesson, one final example of humility and servitude.  And then, one of those seated at His table with Him, one of His friends, one He chose, betrayed Him.

What followed are the darkest hours in the history of mankind.  During the night and into the day, Jesus was not only betrayed, denied, and forsaken by His own followers, He was also humiliated, ridiculed, tortured, beaten, and whipped, first by His fellow Jews and then again, more severely, by the Romans.  Throughout all this, He remained mostly silent, answering false accusations with the truth.  Today, at about this time, He will be nailed to a cross, where He will take His last breath around three this afternoon.  All of this leads to the question that has been asked ever since that day:  Why did Jesus have to die?

Of course, the best place to turn when we have a question like this is our bible.  For this one, I was drawn to a letter written to the Jewish converts - those Jews who believed in and accepted Jesus as the Christ.  Like a few other books and psalms of our bible, we’re not exactly sure who wrote this letter.  For the longest time, people thought it was authored by the Apostle Paul, but more intense scrutiny in the last few decades leads scholars to believe it was not Paul, but maybe one of his scribes or students, or even someone else entirely.  It just doesn’t sound like Paul – it doesn’t match his other writings.  But no matter the author, the words are clearly God-inspired and extremely insightful and important to us.  Please listen and follow along to all of chapter 9 from the Letter to the Hebrews, and I’ll be reading from the New Living Translation of our Holy Bible...

1 The first covenant between God and Israel had regulations for worship and a place of worship here on earth. 2 There were two rooms in that Tabernacle. In the first room were a lampstand, a table, and sacred loaves of bread on the table. This room was called the Holy Place. 3 Then there was a curtain, and behind the curtain was the second room called the Most Holy Place. 4 In that room were a gold incense altar and a wooden chest called the Ark of the Covenant, which was covered with gold on all sides. Inside the Ark were a gold jar containing manna, Aaron’s staff that sprouted leaves, and the stone tablets of the covenant. 5 Above the Ark were the cherubim of divine glory, whose wings stretched out over the Ark’s cover, the place of atonement. But we cannot explain these things in detail now.

6 When these things were all in place, the priests regularly entered the first room as they performed their religious duties. 7 But only the high priest ever entered the Most Holy Place, and only once a year. And he always offered blood for his own sins and for the sins the people had committed in ignorance. 8 By these regulations the Holy Spirit revealed that the entrance to the Most Holy Place was not freely open as long as the Tabernacle and the system it represented were still in use.

9 This is an illustration pointing to the present time. For the gifts and sacrifices that the priests offer are not able to cleanse the consciences of the people who bring them. 10 For that old system deals only with food and drink and various cleansing ceremonies — physical regulations that were in effect only until a better system could be established.

11 So Christ has now become the High Priest over all the good things that have come. He has entered that greater, more perfect Tabernacle in heaven, which was not made by human hands and is not part of this created world. 12 With His own blood — not the blood of goats and calves — He entered the Most Holy Place once for all time and secured our redemption forever.

13 Under the old system, the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer could cleanse people’s bodies from ceremonial impurity. 14 Just think how much more the blood of Christ will purify our consciences from sinful deeds so that we can worship the living God. For by the power of the eternal Spirit, Christ offered Himself to God as a perfect sacrifice for our sins. 15 That is why He is the one who mediates a new covenant between God and people, so that all who are called can receive the eternal inheritance God has promised them. For Christ died to set them free from the penalty of the sins they had committed under that first covenant.

16 Now when someone leaves a will, it is necessary to prove that the person who made it is dead. 17 The will goes into effect only after the person’s death. While the person who made it is still alive, the will cannot be put into effect.

18 That is why even the first covenant was put into effect with the blood of an animal. 19 For after Moses had read each of God’s commandments to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, along with water, and sprinkled both the book of God’s law and all the people, using hyssop branches and scarlet wool. 20 Then he said, “This blood confirms the covenant God has made with you.” 21 And in the same way, he sprinkled blood on the Tabernacle and on everything used for worship. 22 In fact, according to the law of Moses, nearly everything was purified with blood. For without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.

23 That is why the Tabernacle and everything in it, which were copies of things in heaven, had to be purified by the blood of animals. But the real things in heaven had to be purified with far better sacrifices than the blood of animals.

24 For Christ did not enter into a holy place made with human hands, which was only a copy of the true one in heaven. He entered into heaven itself to appear now before God on our behalf. 25 And He did not enter heaven to offer Himself again and again, like the high priest here on earth who enters the Most Holy Place year after year with the blood of an animal. 26 If that had been necessary, Christ would have had to die again and again, ever since the world began. But now, once for all time, He has appeared at the end of the age to remove sin by His own death as a sacrifice.

27 And just as each person is destined to die once and after that comes judgment, 28 so also Christ was offered once for all time as a sacrifice to take away the sins of many people. He will come again, not to deal with our sins, but to bring salvation to all who are eagerly waiting for Him.

--Hebrews 9 (NLT)

Let us pray… Father God, this afternoon we remember the darkest day in all of Your creation – the day we tortured and executed Your Son, nailing Him to a cruel cross.  Jesus came to offer us salvation, but the world refused Him.  We drove nails into the hands He stretched out to save us.  We cursed Him, spat on Him, beat Him, killed Him.  But You knew all this had to happen.  You knew that only the blood of the one true Spotless Lamb could wash us clean and atone for our sin.  Thank You, Father, for Your great love and mercy.  Thank You, Jesus, for Your sacrifice.  Burn this day into our hearts so that we might understand just how important this is to us and to others, how critical it is for our eternal life.  This we pray in the name of the Lamb, Your Son Jesus.  Amen.

To have some idea of what Jesus went through for us, I believe we need to better grasp what was done to Him.  We know He took our punishment, bore our stripes, as the prophet Isaiah put it, but do we understand to what degree this poor Lamb of God suffered?

First the scourging.  This involves whipping the subject with a cat-o’-nine-tails, a short whip of leather straps that have bits of broken pottery and iron tied in to the ends of the straps.  The effect is brutal, with the pottery shards and iron bits cutting into the flesh with each blow.  The blood loss is immediate and heavy.  This is why Jesus was too weak to bear His own cross.

Then the crucifixion itself, an absolutely horrible method of execution.  It wasn’t the blood loss from the beatings or from being nailed to the cross that killed the person.  They didn’t die from starvation or dehydration.  They died, very slowly, from suffocation.

In crucifixion, nails are driven through the subject’s wrists just below the palms, one through each hand as their arms are held outstretched.  And then their feet are brought together and one nail is pounded through both of their ankles.  When the cross is stood up on end, they are not holding on to anything or standing on a little ledge.  Those three nails are holding them in place.  It hurts, a lot, but if they let their body slump, giving in to the pain in their ankles and legs, then their lungs can’t fully expand because of their outstretched arms.  So after a while of struggling just to catch a breath, they force their weight back on to the nail through their ankles.  Eventually they tire of this and slump down again, restricting their lungs once more.  This repeats, over and over, often for days until they finally can’t stand any more and they slowly suffocate.  If they take too long to die, the Roman guard will take a heavy hammer and break their legs so they can no longer stand, speeding up the suffocation.  I guess we could say it’s fortunate that Jesus suffered like this for only a few hours before giving up His spirit.

But this was the pain He endured for us.  This was our punishment He took so we wouldn’t have to.  I wonder, though, if the greatest pain might have been emotional rather than physical.  I mean, Jesus was fully human while fully God.  He had emotions, could feel emotionally as you and I feel.  He knew sorrow and He knew happiness.  Couldn’t rejection by the very people He came to save have caused Him intense suffering?  Would not taking all our sin upon Himself, He who had no sin of His own, bring great emotional pain?  For any of us, under those circumstances, with all the physical and emotional pain, death might actually be a blessing.

The author of our letter starts out with an explanation of the early Tabernacle and the ritual practices carried out there.  And since the Temple was a more permanent representation of the Tabernacle, this also applies there in the author’s time.

The author goes into great detail about the physical nature of the place of worship, what artifacts were found where, and the duty of the high priest.  But the two main points that are of significance to us are, first, that the high priest had to perform the ritual offering of an animals blood in the Most Holy Place once a year, every year.  The second point is that it was necessary to offer blood for his own sins and for the sins the people committed in ignorance.  But even this annual ritual was not sufficient to cleanse the consciences of the people.

So then came Jesus, sent from God, who returned to heaven and entered the true, perfect Tarbernacle there as our great High Priest.  He entered the authentic Most Holy Place once, for all time, and with His own blood washed us clean of our sin.  With His own precious blood, not the blood of calves or lambs, He cleansed our consciences from our sinful ways and deeds so that we can stand before God and worship Him with pure hearts.  Jesus offered Himself as the perfect sacrifice for our sins, to reconcile us with God.

Each one of us will someday die, and, after that, stand in judgment.  Jesus also had to die, in human form.  But He was offered once, and only once for all time, as the perfect sacrifice to take away our sin, the sins of many.  And though He died, He was given new life by God, whom He rejoined in heaven.  One day, though, He will come again, not to deal with our sin, but to bring salvation to all believers, to all who eagerly await His return.

Does this answer that pesky question: Why did Jesus have to die?  Put simply: because He had to!  He had to in order to carry out God’s plan.  He had to because only the blood of the Spotless Lamb could wash us clean of our sin.  He had to die!

But as a bonus, we know what followed after Jesus was crucified, dead, and buried.  We know the rest of the story.  We know that in just a couple of days, Jesus will conquer death, rise from the grave, and walk among us again.  Hundreds of people will see Him alive and in the flesh again, and not one will ever refute it.

Our Lord’s life did not really end there on the cross.  No, it was on that cruel cross that Jesus completed His part in God’s plan for mankind’s redemption.  By His selfless sacrifice upon the cross, by His precious blood shed, we are washed clean of our sin in the sight of God.  And Jesus let Himself be seen and witnessed after His resurrection so we can believe in the promise of our own resurrection and new life.

Now, we know that we’re all sinners, all have fallen, all come short of God’s glory.  So God gave us a wonderful gift.  If we will believe that Jesus is the Christ, the one true Son of God, and if we follow His commands, accepting Him as our Lord and Master, then we will stay clean, and our sins will be forgiven and forgotten when we stand before God.  All we have to do is believe, truly believe, and in our belief, live as Jesus would have us live.

Before going back to heaven to be with God, Jesus gave us a new commandment and a mission.  We are to love one another just as much as we love ourselves, just as much as Jesus loves us.  And we are to go into the world making disciples, telling people all about Jesus, about what He has done and everything He said.

God set His plan in motion to reconcile mankind to Himself.  He wants us all to be with Him again, like we were in the very beginning before we sinned.  Jesus did His part to make that happen.  He gave up His own life one Friday long ago, and we who believe are the beneficiaries; we are saved.  But there are way too many out there who have not accepted Jesus as Lord.  And this is where we come in.  It’s our job to help the lost come to salvation.  Jesus completed His part.  Now let’s get out there and do ours.

On Sunday we will celebrate our Lord’s resurrection and the promise of our own new life.  But today, let us remember all that Jesus went through just for us.  Remember that He took the punishment we deserve.  Remember that He suffered at the hands of those He came to save.  Remember how the Spotless Lamb was sacrificed so that our sin would be forgiven and we would be spared eternal death.

Sunday we can rejoice, but today let us weep and reflect on what happened that Friday many years ago.  In the blessed name of Him who died so that we might live, in the name of Christ Jesus our Lord.  Amen.

Let us pray…  Lord Jesus, You came to us holding out the arms of God’s love.  You came to us when we were lost in our sin, reaching out Your hand to us, offering to redeem us.  You came to break the chains of sin that hold us captive to this world.  You came to save us from ourselves.  And how did we react to all this mercy and grace?  We refused to accept You.  We tortured You and nailed You to a cruel cross.  You forgave Your followers who fled for their lives in fear when You were arrested and executed.  You came to them after Your resurrection and brought them back to You.  Yet still, to this very day, even we who are called by Your name, we also abandon You from time to time.  We fail to witness for You, we fear speaking out for You, we hesitate to go out helping the lost find their way.  We believe in You and Your goodness, but the world has too strong a grasp on us, and we are afraid to let it go.  We judge others based on their looks or their background or the color of their skin, without taking the time to see what is in their hearts.  Forgive us, Lord, because sometimes we just can’t force ourselves to do what is right.

Lord Jesus, every step of the way, You knew what was coming.  You knew how the events of each day would play out, including that one Friday when You lived Your last day as a mortal man.  You knew exactly how God’s plan would be accomplished, and when Your part would be completed.  You knew why it was necessary for You, the Spotless Lamb, to be sacrificed for the atonement of our sin.  You knew the truth.  Help us, please Lord, to fully grasp the importance of Your sacrifice.  Help us realize that Your greatest suffering might have come not from any physical pain, but from having to take all our sin upon Yourself.  Forgive us when we fail You.  Forgive us when we won’t listen to Your voice, when we don’t live as You would have us live, when we hesitate to speak out in Your defense, when we deny You by our actions and our inactions.  Forgive us when we fail to love selflessly, sacrificially, unconditionally, as You love us.  Help us be worthy of Your great sacrifice.  Help us to always be humble in our service to You and others.  In Your precious name, Lord Jesus, we pray.  Amen.