The following is an extract from Crossing the Threshold of Hope by His Holiness, Pope John Paul II:
God is always on the side of the suffering. His omnipotence is manifested precisely in the fact that He freely accepted suffering. He could have chosen not to do so. He could have chosen to demonstrate His omnipotence even at the moment of the Crucifixion. In fact, it was proposed to Him: “Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe” (Mk 15:32). But He did not accept that challenge. The fact that He stayed on the Cross until the end, the fact that on the Cross He could say, as do all who suffer: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mk 15:34), has remained in human history the strongest argument. If the agony on the Cross had not happened, the truth that God is Love would have been unfounded. Yes! God is Love and precisely for this He gave His Son, to reveal Himself completely as Love. Christ is the One who “loved to the end” (Jn 13:1). “To the end” means to the last breath. “To the end” means accepting all the consequences of man’s sin, taking it upon Himself. This happened exactly as prophet Isaiah affirmed: “It was our infirmities that he bore, /We had all gone astray like sheep, / each following his own way; / But the Lord laid upon him / the guilt of us all” (Is 53:4-6).
We have lost paradise thru sin. John Paul II is saying that Christ accepted “all the consequences of man’s sin, taking it upon Himself.” So that we could again have paradise.
He also says “if the agony on the Cross had not happened the truth that God is Love would have been unfounded.” So by his complete love on the cross and death, that love gave us union with him and the promise of his eternal love in eternity.
“… heirs of God and coheirs with Christ, sharing his sufferings so as to share his glory.”
Romans 8:17
Written by a Pope whose people had suffered and died under the Communist regime and who almost became a martyr himself when a fanatic tried to assassinate him…