What if Jesus had changed His mind at the last minute? What if, instead of going through everything He suffered, He decided to skip it all and just go back to heaven? What if He told the Father, “That’s it! I can’t do it! The plan’s off...” Lately I’ve been reading through the Gospel of Luke, and as I read the last few chapters which recount our Lord’s suffering and death, one thing has struck me deeply: He really did it. It all really happened. Jesus didn’t have to do what He did. He didn’t have to endure all the humiliation and pain of the cross. Jesus is God. He could have stopped the show at any moment. Luke tells us that Jesus resolutely set His face toward Jerusalem and marched there on purpose because He was on a mission. As soon as the last Passover meal was served, the events that had been foretold for centuries began to unfold almost too quickly. Jesus found Himself abandoned, betrayed, tortured, mocked and then murdered in the most humiliating fashion imaginable. Jesus experienced what it would feel like to be separated from God forever. He endured all the shame, loneliness, confusion and desperation of the punishment we deserved. As I read about it, I couldn’t stop thinking, “What if He had bailed on the plan?” He could have. Jesus could have skipped all of it, because He didn’t deserve it, but we would be lost. He would be in heaven all by Himself, and that’s not what He wanted. Jesus could have changed His mind, but He didn’t. He went to the cross. He endured it all because as bad as that was, it was a million times better than eternity without you.
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