Wednesday within the Octave of Easter
8 April 2026
Why did He have to die?
“Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” … this is a question that I was asked last week.
It’s a good question. It’s an honest question. And if we’re really paying attention to the Gospel, it’s unavoidable.
Because the two disciples on the road to Emmaus are asking the same thing, just in a different way. They don’t say it out loud, but you can hear it in their disappointment, in their confusion, in their walking away from Jerusalem: Why did this happen? If Jesus was the Messiah… why the cross?
And Jesus’ response is not to avoid the question. He goes straight into it. “Was it not necessary…?”
That word—necessary—is the key. Because on the surface, it doesn’t seem necessary at all. If Jesus is God, if He is the source of life itself, then why suffering? Why death? Why not simply fix everything with power?
That’s exactly the objection raised by theologians throughout the centuries. How can the One who is life itself die? How can the One who heals be wounded? How can the One who saves be crucified?
But the Church’s answer is both simple and profound: It was necessary—not because God was forced, but because love chose the only way that could truly save us.
First, it was necessary because of sin. From the beginning, humanity had chosen separation from God. And that separation has consequences. As Scripture says, the wages of sin is death. Not just physical death, but spiritual death—alienation from the very source of life.
So how do you heal that? You don’t ignore it. You don’t pretend it’s not real. You enter into it.
And that’s exactly what Christ does.
As Saint Thomas Aquinas explains, Christ takes upon Himself the very consequence of sin—not because He deserves it, but because we do. He steps into our place. He bears what we cannot bear. He dies the death that belongs to us. Not as a victim. But as a sacrifice.
That’s why it was necessary.
Second, it was necessary to reveal the truth of the Incarnation. If Jesus had simply appeared, taught, and then vanished—no suffering, no death—He might have seemed like a ghost, a myth, a story. But by truly suffering, by truly dying, He reveals that He has fully entered into our humanity.
He doesn’t save us from a distance. He saves us from within.
As Saint Anastasius says, the Word of God—who in Himself cannot suffer—chose to suffer in the flesh. Not because He had to, but because there was no other way to reach us where we are.
And where are we? In suffering. In weakness. In mortality.
So He goes there.
Third, it was necessary to destroy our fear of death. One of the deepest fears in the human heart is the fear of death—not just dying, but what lies beyond it. That fear shapes how people live. It traps them. It enslaves them.
But Christ enters death… and breaks it open from the inside.
He doesn’t avoid it. He conquers it.
As Aquinas says, by dying, He destroys death. By entering into the darkness, He fills it with light. And by rising, He gives us hope—not just that death is not the end, but that it has been transformed.
That’s why the Resurrection matters so much. Because without the cross, the Resurrection would make no sense. And without the Resurrection, the cross would be meaningless.
But together, they reveal the full truth: That suffering is not the end. That death is not the end. That glory comes through the cross.
And that brings us back to Emmaus.
Because notice what happens in the Gospel. Jesus doesn’t just explain the Scriptures. He walks with them. He listens to them. He meets them in their confusion. And only then does He open their eyes.
That’s how God works.
He doesn’t just give us answers. He gives us Himself.
And maybe that’s where this question becomes personal. Because we all ask it at some point: Why is this happening? Why the suffering? Why the cross in my life?
And the answer is not always an explanation. Sometimes, the answer is a presence.
The same Jesus who walked with those disciples walks with us. The same Jesus who entered into suffering enters into ours. The same Jesus who passed through death leads us through it.
And if the cross was not meaningless for Him, then it is not meaningless for us.
It is the path.
Not an easy path. Not a comfortable path. But the only path that leads to glory.
“Was it not necessary…?” Yes.
Not because God delights in suffering. But because He delights in saving us.
And this is how He chose to do it—completely, fully, and from the inside out.