I agree with you; but let me offer you a counter point, for argument’s sake:
It was obviously preordained that Christ was going to die on the cross. That was his mission on earth to begin with. Now, assuming Judas did not commit suicide, wouldn’t he only be doing God’s will? After all, how much longer would Christ have lived, not offering our salvation by his death, had Judas not betrayed Christ? Ten, twenty, thirty more years? Judas REDUCED the time that we would wait for our salvation by offering Jesus to the Romans.
The ends (Christ’s death) was going to happen no matter what means (ie. betrayal, civil arrest, Jewish riot, etc). The means of betrayal was the best of all means, as it helped the ends come sooner.
Again, the above is just for argument’s sake. I don’t agree with the above proposal, but I’d like to know the response that may get.
Jesus was destined to die on the cross. I don’t think he was destined to die in a riot or any other way other than what the Jews would have seen as a passover sacrifice of an unblemished lamb. Remember that crucifixion was an execution. How did the Jews know that it was a Passover sacrifice and not just a routine execution by the Romans?
The Law
God gave the law of sacrifice to the Jews. The Jews were told to sacrifice animals as a sin offering in specific ways using specific rituals. One of the things they used to do was that the priest and sinner would lay hands on the animal and transfer the sin to the animal, then the animal would be slaughtered. This prefigured God’s plan for Jesus to take the sins of the world upon himself.
The Lambs Entered Jerusalem
At the time of Jesus, they used to herd tens of thousands of lambs up to Jerusalem to be slaughtered at the fest of Passover. Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the 10th of the month, the very day when the animals were herded in. He rode the donkey amidst the herds of lambs being brought into Jerusalem for slaughter.
Inspecting the Lambs
The lambs were purchased and then inspected for blemishes for four days. This corresponds to the time Jesus was in Jerusalem, inspected with questions such as “By what authority are you doing these things?”, scourged and interrogated by Pilate.
When the Lambs Were Slaughtered
The lambs were slaughtered on the evening of passover in the temple. Jesus was crucified at this exact time, while the passover lambs were being slaughtered. Some estimate a quarter million animals may have been slaughtered on the evening before passover. Imagine the blood!
How the Lambs Were Prepared for Passover
After slaughter, the lambs were prepared for roasting by the thousands. Skewers were used so that one went from the buttocks up through the mouth and another went through the front legs from one hoof to the other so that the skewers formed the shape of a cross. The scene would have been thousands of lambs appearing to be crucified. Stop and think about that for a moment… thousands of crucified lambs being skinned and gutted. Just think about that for a moment.
The Fourth Cup of Wine
The passover meal consists of four cups of wine. Jesus never drank the fourth cup of wine at the passover meal but simply left saying, “Come, let us be going.” and ‘I will not drink of the fruit of the vine again until I drink it new in my father’s kingdom." But he did drink the fourth cup on the cross. He drank the fourth cup right before he said, “It is finished” and died. The Jews would have seen this as an extension of the passover ritual which was never completed with the fourth cup of wine. The passover ritual was effectively extended to the crucifixion when Jesus’ own body - the unblemished lamb - was given up in sacrifice (for his flesh is true food!). The passover concluded when Christ drank the fourth cup on the cross.
The idea of the fourth cup is not universally accepted but it makes sense. These similarities and many more illustrate how the Jews would have known that Jesus’ death was a passover sacrifice of a spotless lamb and not just some routine Roman execution of a guy who claimed he was King and had appointed some fisherman as his Prime Minister. And remember that it was God who gave the Law of how to sacrifice animals, and it is that same God who knew he would become man to be sacrificed in that same way. The God on the Cross and the God who gave the law of sacrifice to Moses are the same God and they were sacrificed the same way.
That is why I believe Jesus was destined to die on a cross and not some other way.
Much of this post is not my own but comes from the book, “
Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist”. Every Catholic should read that book. Every Christian should read that book.
-Tim-
