Consider the greatest tragedy of all – the murder of the Lord Jesus. In John 12, just before Christ went to the cross, He declared the distress of His soul at the prospect. Should He pray His Father to save Him from this hour? But for the cause of making a sacrifice He came to this hour! Jesus described why He must die: like a kernel of wheat, unless it falls to the ground and dies, it brings forth no fruit. Christ must die, so that life could multiply unto all His loved ones! Christ here expresses His personal anguish at the prospect of the coming dreadful hour, when He will be punished for our sins laid upon Him. Yet, He knows that it must be done, and that His whole life was an intentional pursuit of this very dark hour. Finally, the Lord Jesus intimates that His death will be by crucifixion, so that all sorts of the world's people might learn the Gospel and be saved. And so, the greatest tragedy is this: that the only perfect man ever, must be murdered by the state, by the will of God, and by Christ's Own will, so that He might be sacrificed as God's pure Lamb, to cleanse and perfect His people from every stain of their sin. Our Lord Jesus suffered both physically and spiritually, with the thorns, the vicious floggings, the humiliation, the mocking, the shame. But the wrath for our sins was also laid upon Him on the cross by God, and He was punished in our place and treated as guilty for us. Christ is the only unguilty, innocent man ever seen in this world! That glorious outcome of the tragedy for us was also foretold by Christ on that horrible night: You now have sorrow, but I will see you again, & your heart shall rejoice, & your joy no man taketh from you!