There's a lone soldier on the cross …
In the final end he won the wars
After losin' every battle
Bob Dylan, Idiot Wind
A friend recently asked me why Jesus had to be crucified. Aren't Jesus’s moral teachings and the example He set enough? Why have that whole episode of humiliation, torture, and death on the cross? Why not just focus on what the Man taught and try to live good, wholesome lives?
I was unable to answer this question in any meaningful way. But, to my surprise, I felt compelled to insist on the crucifixion as the cornerstone, the very heart of Christ’s message. As I record this, I am no closer to a final answer for my friend, nor do I think a final answer is possible. But recent experiences have given me a new perspective on Jesus’s suffering and why it may be His greatest work for humanity. Here, I’ll share some personal reflections on this, being no theologian myself, no expert, only one who loves Christ.
So, why was Jesus crucified?
About a year ago, my cousin received the worst phone call of his life. There had been an accident. A driver had fallen asleep behind the wheel and had crashed into the car my cousin’s wife and daughter were in. It was bad, especially for the little girl, whose injuries were so disturbing that I would rather not describe them. It was unclear if she was going to make it. This remained unclear for months, as our country’s best surgeons kept trying to piece her back together, one surgery after another. It was during these months that my cousin started going to church.
So, why was Jesus crucified? Could it have something to do with my cousin in the hospital waiting room, praying his little one will live? I think it does.
Christ’s moral teachings, His parables, His mystical sayings… These are all profound and inspiring, like those of other great sages. But what good is all that in the face of your child’s suffering? What good is it on days when you “watch the things you gave your life to, broken”, days when you find yourself a plaything in the hands of fate, when the world’s indifference slaps you in the face?
Many of us have had such days, and should we live long enough, we are all bound to have them in the future. Like light, darkness too comes in different intensities, and there are depths of it no light seems to be able to reach: no meaning, no hope, no love... “Hell” is the word Christians use for it.
Faced by the full extent of evil and injustice, even Christ, the God-Man, reached His breaking point. Nailed to the cross by the ones He came to save, He cries:
My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?
Matthew 27:46
There is no answer.
What greater image of despair do we have than that of the bleeding Saviour, tortured and forsaken by those He came to save, forsaken even by the One who sent Him? Betrayed into “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune”.
But why celebrate this ultimate despair? Why wallow in the gruesome details of Christ’s Passion? Why make the crucifix the central image of the tradition, fetishizing suffering as it were?
One answer is that each of us will one day face the equivalent of that phone call my cousin received. Each of us will one day be crucified, Christian, atheist, or otherwise. The measure of a religion, philosophy, or way of life, as I see it, is whether it can accompany us down the road to Hell, preserve us there, and guide us on the way back. This is a journey we all have to make in life, and more than once… I am sure you know what I mean.
I see Christ’s willing submission to evil, injustice, and despair as His greatest and most lasting work. It is also His most human work, for the hurt and vulnerability He took on. And Christ faced suffering not as a supernatural being, but as the Son of Man, as someone who could just as easily be my brother, or your brother, or our son. Remember His prayer:
My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.
Matthew 26:39
What words better capture the tragedy that is human life?
Let me share another story. I was flying back to Bulgaria some years ago, and as we neared Sofia Airport, the plane started shaking violently. “We are experiencing mild turbulence”, the air hostess said, but that did nothing to calm the man sitting next to me, who was obviously nervous.
The plane started descending, but we were quickly gaining altitude again. The voice of the hostess, buzzing out of the onboard speakers, said, “Our landing attempt was unsuccessful due to the weather conditions. We will now circle the airport and make another approach.” I was trying to project calm, seeing how the man next to me was starting to panic, but I was also getting nervous myself.
Our second landing attempt was also unsuccessful, and the plane kept shaking. Then the strangest thing happened, like a scene from a movie. The man next to me, now sweating, his hands shaking, got out his wallet, pulled out the photo of a baby, and showed it to me. He looked straight into my eyes with such despair as I have never seen before or since in my life. Then, he started speaking quickly, like he was rushing to get the words out in time. He told me that was his newborn daughter in the photo. She had been born while he was working abroad, and now he was flying back home to see her for the first time. He didn’t say anything else. He didn’t need to.
I tried my best to keep my composure, and I told the man his daughter is beautiful. I told him not to worry, as we’ll be landing soon and he’ll be with her.
Our third landing attempt succeeded, and I never saw the man again. But I will never forget the way he looked at me, the way I could see his very soul behind his eyes, naked and afraid.
Why was Jesus crucified? Could it be so that that man, fearing he will never get to hold his daughter, doesn’t need to face the dark alone? Could it be so that none of us ever needs to face it alone?
I have no final understanding of Christ’s crucifixion. But the little life I have seen has shown me that to live is to be crucified. To live is to be exposed to cosmic forces of evil, injustice, and destruction, forces no individual can contend with. Yes, of course, life has great joys as well, but the very fact these joys coexist with, say, the genocide in Gaza, makes you wonder whether happiness is not fiddling while Rome burns.
Suffering and injustice do not constitute Hell. In the midst of them, one can live a meaningful and fulfilling life. Hell, I believe, is when suffering and injustice mold us into vessels for the dark. When our “rage against the dying of the light” turns into rage alone, and there is no longer light. Dostoevsky writes:
“What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.”
Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
Theologians give different interpretations of what Christ, “the Saviour”, came to save us from. Original sin, temptation, death, etc. What I’ve found in my life is that Christ’s salvation is salvation from Hell.
Jesus of Nazareth, the story goes, the most good, true, and beautiful, suffered at the hands of those He loved and died forsaken by the Father Who had sent Him. What does this mean? One thing it means is we are never alone in the hurt we carry. Even when it feels the whole world is on our shoulders, we can know another has been here before us. What’s more, that other did not turn resentful, did not curse at the hands that betrayed Him, nor did He try to make His hurt known by hurting others. He accepted His total defeat, He cried out in despair, and He died. And He didn’t die for show, nor did He remain alive in some mystical, hocus-pocus way. He died. Kaput. Dead as my grandmother, dead as my grandfather, no longer here, swallowed “in the heart of the earth”, as Matthew writes.
And here is the miracle to top all miracles. Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Man, in taking on suffering, injustice, and death, was not defeated. Or rather, His utter defeat became His complete victory. His mutilated, dead body, displayed for all to see on Golgotha, was not the sight of humiliation His enemies had planned. It was the sight of the ultimate human potential realized. The sight of an individual who had gone through the worst this world can offer, and had remained in light. In love.
Remember, Christ’s last plea to God was for the sake of His torturers:
Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.
Luke 23:34
To my understanding, this is why Jesus was crucified. To deliver the Good News. To walk the path of love all the way and back again. To preach love as the only true victory over the world, the ultimate rebellion and only shelter in the face of fate.
Christ went to the cross as a man, being mocked by His enemies:
Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!
Matthew 27:40
But He did not come down from the cross, knowing the cross is where love must make its stand. Knowing that only by taking love into the heart of darkness can He prove love’s immortal light, light which can illuminate even the deepest descent into the dark. This, Jesus knew, is not something you teach through parables, but by living through it, suffering through it, and dying through it. The way we all must.
After countless surgeries, my cousin’s little girl was back on her feet. The wonders of modern medicine saved her from certain death, and Christ saved her father from Hell. To me, this is why Jesus went to His cross: to save us from “being unable to love”, from Hell. To show us the way, the truth, and the life. To teach us love as the only true victory and salvation.
Thank you for reading, my friend! To see Christ’s teaching on love in dialogue with the Buddha’s teaching on non-attachment, I invite you to my earlier essay on this. Remember: what you seek is seeking you.
See you next time!
