Episode Transcript  

One

Why Was it God’s Will that Jesus should Suffer and Die?

It was not that God had to do it this way—but that He chose the most fitting way to save us and transform us. It was God’s plan from the beginning to reveal the depths of his love by suffering and dying to save us. 

Scripture says it again and again: 

The Prophet Isaiah tells us: “Ours were the sufferings he bore, ours the sorrows he carried… Yet he was pierced through for our faults, crushed for our sins. On him lies a punishment that brings us peace, and through his wounds we are healed…” Isaiah 53

Jesus Himself says, “Was it not ordained that the Christ should suffer and so enter into his glory?” Luke 24:26

Why didn’t God simply forgive us? Why didn’t He just say, “You know what, it’s okay. Let’s just start over”?

Why did He come Himself to die, to suffer all the effects of all the evil ever committed by all of humanity?

What good did that do?

Two

God’s Respect for Humanity

Jesus suffered and died because He respected and loved us so much. 

What does “Respect” mean? It means:

to acknowledge person’s excellence, and 

To be unwilling to diminish that excellence in any way.

Now perhaps the deepest of all human excellences is our freedom, our freedom to choose, to determine our own character and our own eternal destiny. 

And in order to be free, the consequences of our decisions have to matter. And that includes the consequences of our bad decisions.

Imagine playing chess with someone who is much better than you are. If every time you make a bad move, your opponent tells you to take it back – are you really even playing any more? 

No. He’s just playing himself. He’s not respecting your freedom because he won’t let you make the move you want and take the consequences. 

Respect for a free person means letting that person take responsibility for their decisions – and that means, deal with the consequences, good or bad.

You lose your self-respect if someone else is always cleaning up your messes or getting you out of trouble. 

Your parents never show respect for you unless they give you responsibility. Responsibility and justice means accepting and dealing with the consequences of your own decisions.

So, God will not just push the reset button every time we make a bad decision. He will not just let us take every bad move back and pretend it didn’t happen. 

He respects us too much for that. 

But then, what happens when our decisions are so bad that we just can’t deal with the consequences on our own?

Three

God’s Love for us

We have to grasp our situation after Original Sin.  

Adam and Eve destroyed a relationship of infinite value and no mere human can restore what is infinite. 

Let me suggest an analogy to help you understand. 

I could burn down a $50 million dollar home – but I lack the wealth to rebuild it. 

Likewise, we torched our relationship with God and cannot repay the loss. 

So what we need is this: 

A true human who can freely offer the obedience and love we failed to give. 

The same Person must be God, so His act carries infinite value. 

Jesus, who is both God and man, does this

He does not step in as our substitute who pushes us aside.

He joins every person to himself as the head of a body (cf. Eph 1:22-23; Col 1:18; GS 22), bears sin from within our humanity, and offers the perfect love the Father deserves.

In Christ, justice is satisfied and mercy poured out because Christ acted with us and for us, so now each of us can freely unite our “yes” to His and share in redemption.  

And He did that just because He loves us. 

Four

Communion, Justice, and Mercy

The consequence of sin is death—not just physical death, but the eternal separation from God. 

But Jesus did not simply say, “Step aside—I’ll take your place.” 

Instead, He assumed our human nature and, “united himself in some way with every human being” (Gaudium et Spes 22), becoming Head of His Body, the new human family so He could do for us and with us what we could never do alone: enter death, conquer it, and restore communion with God.

On the Cross, Jesus bore our separation from the Father—crying out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mt 27:46). He entered into our alienation so He could bring us through it. And when He rose, He opened the way for us to rise with Him—not just someday, but now, through Baptism.

As St. Paul says, “All of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death… so that, just as Christ was raised, we too might walk in newness of life” (Rom 6:3–4). Baptism is not a symbol. It unites us to Christ’s real death and resurrection. We are made members of His Body, adopted by the Father, and filled with the Holy Spirit.

In this way, Christ satisfies both justice—by truly bearing the consequences of our sin from within humanity—and mercy, by freely choosing to restore communion with us despite our limitations.

Christ didn’t save us from outside our humanity—He saved us from within, and invites us to share in His life. This is not just substitution. It’s communion. It’s transformation.

Five

Our Response: Taking Responsibility in Love

It was not just the Jewish leaders and the Roman soldiers who put Jesus to death. We killed Christ. 

As the Catechism says, all “sinners were the authors and the ministers of all the sufferings that the divine Redeemer endured.” He suffered the effects of every sin – even those who lived after Him.

St. Francis reminds us, “it is you who have crucified him and crucify him still, when you delight in your vices and your sins.”

Look at the cross. Acknowledge your responsibility. You did that. And He suffered it out of love for you. So love Him back. 

And now, if you would be a fully responsible Christian, a Christian who really loves as Christ loves, then join with Him. 

Help him save the souls of your loved ones and those of the whole world by praying and working and suffering – offering them to Jesus so they become His instruments for saving those you love.  

He said, “If anyone would be my disciple, let him take up his cross, and follow Me.” 

And Paul said, “I rejoice in my suffering… and in my flesh I make up what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ.”

Christ stepped up, took the weight, and turned suffering into love.

Now step up with Him: accept whatever comes, offer it to Jesus, and He will turn it into grace for your loved ones—and for the whole world.

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