After watching the passion and crucifixion scene in the movie, “Jesus of Nazareth,” one of my 6th grade students asked, “Why did Jesus have to die on the cross for our sins? Since God is God, he can do anything. Couldn’t he have found another way to save us so that Jesus didn’t have to suffer and die like that?” My team teacher and I discussed it with the class and gave some answers including:
To show us how much He loves us;
From the time of Abraham, we were told that God would provide the sacrifice
It is part of the mystery of our faith
However, that doesn’t really answer his question and I must admit–it is a really good question. I searched your site, You Cat, and Did Adam and Eve Have Belly Buttons for better answers and I can find none. Do you have another way I can answer this? Thanks!
Your answer is correct. God could certainly have chosen any method He wanted to save us. God chose the Passion because it showed the depravity of sin and the depths of His love.
Thomas Aquinas (Summa III Q46 A3) noted that while anything God chose would have sufficed for our salvation the Passion was the perfect means because:
“In the first place, man knows thereby how much God loves him, and is thereby stirred to love Him in return.”
“Secondly, because thereby He set us an example of obedience, humility, constancy, justice, and the other virtues displayed in the Passion, which are requisite for man’s salvation.”
“Fourthly, because by this man is all the more bound to refrain from sin, according to 1 Corinthians 6:20: ‘You are bought with a great price: glorify and bear God in your body.’”
“Fifthly, because it redounded to man’s greater dignity, that as man was overcome and deceived by the devil, so also it should be a man that should overthrow the devil; and as man deserved death, so a man by dying should vanquish death.”
You are also correct that this is a great mystery of faith. At Mass when the priest celebrant intones “The Mystery of Faith” after the consecration of the chalice he is referring to the Eucharistic sacrifice that has just been made present in our midst.
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