Our human inclination is to survive, and we build mindsets for this survival, we have expectations not only about how to survive, but have expectations for everything. We expect the strong to survive and the weak to fade, the old to wrinkle while the young rise. Birds take to the sky, fish glide through water, and mighty kings to possess great power. Our nature leads us to believe that if a man doesn’t have power, he ought not be king, and if he holds no power, why should he be king? But we are ignorant of God’s systems. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts; His ways are not our ways.
Christ understood He was hanging on a cross for the different reason the soldiers, Romans, criminals, and Jewish leaders believed He was. In their minds, He was there because He was weak, because He was wrong, because He had broken their rules. But God’s purpose and power are deeper, higher, longer, and far more complex than our finite understanding. If they were correct—if Jesus were crucified because He was weak and ineffective—then their demand for Him to save Himself would have made sense.
But that is not why Christ was put to death.
35 And the people stood by, looking on. And even the rulers were sneering at Him, saying, “He saved others; let Him save Himself if this is the [k]Christ of God, His Chosen One.” 36 The soldiers also mocked Him, coming up to Him, offering Him sour wine, 37 and saying, “If You are the King of the Jews, save Yourself!” but Jesus was saying, Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” One of the criminals who were hanged there was [l]hurling abuse at Him, saying, “Are You not the [m]Christ? Save Yourself and us!” Luke 23:35-37
He wasn’t there because He was weak; He was there because you and I are weak. He wasn’t there because He couldn’t save Himself; He was there because we couldn’t save ourselves, but He could. . His purpose was not to prove His power But prove his love.
The world defines strength by what a man is able to do. The world of men operates on an if–then logic. If He can save Himself, then He proves his strength. If He can prevent the Holocaust , then He is a good and loving God. But we create our own criteria to prove our own beliefs—according to our limited knowledge and maybe sometimes to remain in the self existing beliefs we already hold. could we be wrong, does God have his own criteria for what he does and does not do that far exceeds and trumps our own?
The rulers, the soldiers, and even the criminal beside Jesus had all created the same standard: If He can save Himself… then He is the King… if He is the mighty Messiah… then he will come down off the cross. But who ever said that a mighty King or Messiah exists to save Himself? Whoever said the greatest act was escaping the cross? Perhaps the far greater act was choosing the cross.
We do this every day when we say, If God were powerful or loving, He would get rid of all sickness…or a thousand other “if’s: When we do this, we make gods of ourselves. when we decide the IF / THEN logic, We live by our own set of commandments making ourselves the final word. Why do we get to decide what a god is or isn’t? Why do we assume that if God were all-powerful, He would act according to our expectations?
When I say, God, if You loved me You would deliver me from this work situation… You would give me a child… You would save my husband… You would help me overcome, it doesn’t necessarily show that I don’t trust Him—it more often reveals that I don’t know Him. Just as those who demanded Christ prove He was the Messiah by saving Himself simply did not know Him or why he came, they didn’t know what love and power looked like.
Saving Himself from the cross would not have proven Jesus was the King—because a true King does not save Himself. He chose to die to save his people. A King in God’s economy is not self serving. His life in his eyes is not the priority; that is a king I can follow after, that is a King I can serve and love. A king that doesn’t save himself at my expense, but saves me at his own.
My Faith Place 