Saturday of Holy Week

Why did Jesus Die?

Saturday of Holy Week—Why did Jesus Die?

Why did Jesus die? This question can be approached from both a short-term and a long-term perspective. From the perspective of the day after his crucifixion, it is important to note that Jesus didn’t just die—he was killed. He wasn’t lynched by a mob or murdered by an assassin; he was executed by the state according to the laws of the land. Furthermore, he wasn’t put to death by just any means—burning, stoning, or beheading—but by crucifixion, a form of execution reserved by Rome for particular crimes and people: disobedient slaves, thieves and bandits, and insurrectionists—those who sought to overthrow the government.

Jesus was not a slave. He was not accused of theft, like the bandits crucified on his left and right. He was crucified because he was seen as a threat—to both civic and Temple authority and the system they upheld. The sign nailed above his head, “King of the Jews,” was more than a charge—it was a warning to anyone else who might dare follow in his footsteps.

As Larry Hurtado, professor emeritus at the University of Edinburgh, notes: “Urging people to be kind to one another, or advocating a more flexible interpretation of Jewish law, or even condemning the Temple and its leadership—none of these crimes is likely to have led to crucifixion.”

Perhaps that single line in the Nicene Creed—“crucified under Pontius Pilate”—says it all. Jesus was not merely a religious figure; his challenge to the Temple’s policies and practices directly threatened the socio-economic and political order upheld by Caesar’s rule, making him an enemy of the state. The historian Josephus records that the High Priest during Jesus’ final week had been appointed not by his fellow priests, but by Rome—by Pilate’s predecessor, Valerius Gratus—underscoring the deep entanglement between Temple and Empire. In exposing injustice, Jesus implicated both religious and political authorities. And for that, he was deemed subversive and executed.

The longer answer to Why did Jesus die? requires a deeper theological response—one revealed in the years after his death by Paul, the Gospel writers, theologians, scholars, and by every preacher who must make sense of Good Friday. The most popular answer (at least since the 16th century) has been “Jesus died for my sins.” Certainly, Jesus’ death is deeply connected to human sinfulness, but his life cannot be reduced to a mere prelude to his crucifixion. If the sole purpose of his existence was to die for our sins, then salvation could have been achieved 30 years earlier—if Herod, in the slaughter of the innocents, found Jesus and dispatched him an innocent baby.

Thirdly, the Psalmist reminds us that divine grace and forgiveness were not new realities ushered in solely by Jesus’ death but were already deeply embedded within Hebrew scriptures and Jewish spirituality. The Psalmist writes, “As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our sins from us.” This particular psalm, likely composed in the exilic or post-exilic era (around the 6th–5th century BCE), predates Jesus by approximately five to six hundred years. The psalmists meaning here is poetic but unmistakable. If the distance between east and west is infinite, and God had already infinitely removed our sins from us, then divine forgiveness did not begin at the cross—it was already profoundly at work. Recognizing this earlier foundation of grace embedded within Jewish spirituality invites us to radically rethink the significance of Jesus’ death on the cross.

To draw this distinction even more clearly in a contemporary example: imagine someone unfamiliar with Martin Luther King, Jr. asking why we observe his life every third Monday in January. Think how absurd it would be to answer, “MLK is important because he was assassinated on April 4, 1968, just after 6 p.m. on the second-floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel, in Memphis, Tennessee, when a sniper’s bullet struck him in the neck. He was rushed to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead about an hour later, at the age of 39.” This factually correct answer includes details about King’s death—but it says nothing about why he mattered. It ignores his life, his preaching, his passion, and the vision of the world for which he lived and sacrificed.

Jesus advocated for a vision of the world he called the Kingdom of God—a reality in direct contrast to the Empire of Caesar. His parables described it, his table company revealed it, and his life embodied it. If his story is reduced merely to his death—detached from the justice he championed and the power structures he challenged—then its true impact is lost. Jesus did not simply die, he was executed for confronting systemic oppression, for reimagining human relationships beyond hierarchy, exclusion, and domination. “Love one another,” he commanded at his last supper, “just as I have love you.” The particular word in Greek used here is agape—unconditional, self-sacrificial love.

Tomorrow the women will go to the tomb with spices to care for the dead body of Jesus and lament the end of his ministry…