Sometimes the things that are hardest to understand about Christianity are the things that make me believe it even more. The cross is like that for me. In a strange way, part of why the cross makes sense is that I don’t think any of us would have come up with it.
If someone had asked human beings to come up with a plan for God to rescue the world, I don’t think any of us would have written this story. We probably would have imagined something that looked a lot more like victory as we understand it.
Power. Judgment. Evil defeated in plain sight. God unmistakably in control.
Instead, we get Jesus Christ on a cross.
And strangely enough, that is part of why the cross makes sense to me. Not because crucifixion itself makes sense. It doesn’t. But because God’s answer to our sin is so different from the answer I think we would have invented.
A Plan That Looks Like Foolishness
The Bible doesn’t try to hide how strange the cross appears from a human point of view. Paul says it plainly:
“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”
— 1 Corinthians 1:18 (NIV)
That word foolishness catches my attention.
God could have demonstrated His authority in ways nobody could question. Jesus could have come as the kind of king people expected—a ruler with armies and visible political power.
Instead, He came into this world in humility. He lived among ordinary people. He touched people others avoided. He served. And eventually, He allowed Himself to be arrested, mocked and executed.
That unexpected humility wasn’t limited to the cross. From the circumstances of His birth to the ordinary people He lived among, Jesus never fit our usual picture of an earthly king. I explored that more in: The King Who Came Without Earthly Status
From the outside, that doesn’t look like God winning.
It looks like God losing.
But Scripture tells us something entirely different was happening.
Why the Cross Makes Sense Differently
One of the hardest things for me to comprehend is not simply that Jesus died. It is who died, and for whom.
Peter wrote:
“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.”
— 1 Peter 3:18 (NIV)
The righteous for the unrighteous.
That reverses the way I normally think about responsibility. I’ve spent much of my life in situations where responsibility mattered. Actions had consequences. Decisions mattered. When something went wrong, figuring out why it happened and who was responsible wasn’t some philosophical exercise.
Yet at the center of Christianity stands an innocent man accepting the consequence that belonged to the guilty.
And Scripture goes even further. Jesus wasn’t simply a good man caught in a terrible injustice. The Gospel of John identifies Him as the eternal Word who was with God and was God, and then says:
“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”
— John 1:14 (NIV)
That is where the cross becomes almost impossible for me to get my mind around.
God did not remain at a safe distance from the human condition.
He entered it.
He Didn’t Wait Until We Were Worth Saving
There is something else about God’s plan that runs against our instincts.
Most of life teaches us that something has to be earned. Trust is earned. Respect is earned. A paycheck is earned. If we make a mess, we’re expected to clean it up.
So it would seem reasonable that getting right with God should work the same way.
Do better. Straighten yourself out. Become a better person. Maybe eventually you’ll be good enough for God.
But that isn’t the gospel.
Paul writes:
“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
— Romans 5:8 (NIV)
While we were still sinners.
That changes everything.
God’s rescue did not begin after humanity cleaned itself up. Christ did not die for a group of people who had finally become worthy of Him.
He came for sinners.
I understand earning something. Grace is harder.
The Man Who Had Nothing Left to Offer
Maybe nowhere is that clearer to me than in the criminal dying beside Jesus.
There isn’t much time left for this man. Whatever brought him to that cross is already behind him, and there is no future available for him to build a better record.
He can’t spend the next ten years doing good.
He can’t undo his past.
He can’t impress anybody with what he will become.
All he can do is turn toward Jesus.
“Then he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ Jesus answered him, ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.’”
— Luke 23:42–43 (NIV)
I’ve read that passage many times, and it still stops me.
The man has nothing to bargain with.
He simply recognizes something about Jesus and places his hope there.
And right beside him is another man facing the same death, looking at the same Jesus, who responds differently.
Same hill. Same moment. Same Christ.
Two responses.
There is something deeply honest about that scene.
What Looked Like Defeat Wasn’t
Life teaches us to recognize strength in certain ways.
I’ve seen enough difficult situations over the years to know how quickly appearances can fool us. Something can look completely out of control from one vantage point while someone who understands the larger picture sees something very different.
Calvary has that quality on a scale far beyond anything in ordinary life.
To those watching, Jesus appeared powerless. Rome still had its soldiers. The religious authorities had gotten what they wanted. Jesus was dying.
Yet Scripture describes the meaning of that moment very differently.
Speaking of Christ’s work, Paul writes:
“And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.”
— Colossians 2:15 (NIV)
Triumphing over them by the cross.
Not despite the cross.
By the cross.
The place that appeared to demonstrate Christ’s defeat became the place of His victory.
I don’t think I would have written it that way.
Maybe That’s Part of the Point
If I were inventing a religion, I suspect I would make the path to God more understandable.
Good people would earn their way in. Bad people would be kept out. The hero would look powerful. Victory would look like victory.
Christianity gives us something far more unsettling.
The King becomes a servant.
The righteous One suffers for the unrighteous.
God comes looking for sinners before sinners have anything worthy to offer Him.
A dying criminal reaches the end of himself and finds mercy.
And the cross—an instrument intended to shame and destroy a man—becomes the place where God reconciles sinful people to Himself.
I still don’t completely understand why God chose to save us this way.
Maybe I’m not supposed to be able to reduce it to something neat and reasonable.
But after living long enough to see how human beings usually operate—including myself—the cross doesn’t strike me as the kind of salvation story we would naturally invent.
It looks like something only God would do.
And maybe the question isn’t whether I would have written the story this way.
Maybe it’s what I make of the One who did.
More Straight Talk on Faith
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