All the Gospels tell us that Jesus came to die—that he came “to give his life a ransom for many,” as Mark 10:45 tells us.

At times this made no sense to the disciples. How could the kingdom come if the Messiah died? Later Paul would admit to the Corinthians that the cross of Christ was “a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks,” and claim that for those who believed the crucified Christ was “the power of God and the wisdom of God” (I Corinthians 1:23-24).

The death of Christ has always been one of the hard things to swallow in the gospel. Why did Jesus have to die?

And the Gospels tell us that Jesus knew he would be killed and saw his death as an integral part of his agenda.

We call the Friday of the crucifixion, “Good Friday,” because Christ’s death was good for us. Christ’s death brought the power of God to us to make us good.

We cannot have a Christian faith without the cross.

But what does it mean to have a cross-centered faith?

This is Palm Sunday and we are going celebrate the Christ who died for us.