Fear of man Crucified Him and Love Resurrected Him

There were many fears that motivated those who ultimately crucified Jesus, whether it was the fear of being wrong about God that led the Religious leaders of the day to lash out against the One who claimed to be Truth.  Maybe it was the fear of the disciples that led to their scattering or some denying they even knew Jesus that allowed the angry mob to have their way to crucify Jesus.  The fear of the mob was that if Jesus was right about God then their whole way of living would be in question, so they must defend their life by crucifying the One who was a threat to their lives.  It was Pontius Pilate’s fear of the Religious leaders and their rising power that led him to wash his hands of the blood that Jesus would shed, when he had the power to stop the crucifixion.  Yes, I know it is not theologically correct to blame anyone for the crucifixion since Jesus surrenders to the will of the Father to be crucified and it even pleased the Father to bruise Jesus.  God is sovereign and He knew what He was doing, yet it is important we see what motivated those who placed Jesus on that cross 2,000 years ago.  Jesus took our fears upon Himself, literally by being subjected to the results of the people’s fears who were part of His crucifixion.  Many would argue that it was anger, hatred, envy, judgment, and even self-righteousness that motivated those who played a part.  They would be right, yet at the core of each of these is the motivation of fear.  Fear was the first experience Adam and Eve had when they were separated from God after eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  I believe fear is not so much the presence of something as the absence of love.  We were created from love, to be loved, and to love others.  Being cut off from the very source of love made them aware of the black hole of need within them, it is from this place they proclaim their fear.  The two main motivators in life according to Dr. Caroline Leaf are love and fear.  Yet fear can masquerade as religious piety or zealousness, when underneath there is a deep-seated fear that a person will never be good enough. 

            Jesus decides to enter the pit of human fear, it happens with His own disciples like when Peter attempts to rebuke Jesus when He says He will be going to the cross.  It was Peter’s fear that Jesus was not the Political Messiah he hoped would free them from the bondage of Rome that motivated him to rebuke Jesus.  We so easily judge others by their behaviors that we may miss the hidden motivation in people’s hearts but Jesus didn’t.  Jesus recognizes that Peter has faith in the wrong Kingdom and points out that Satan is working in Peter through fear.  It is amazing what a world of fearful self-sufficient orphans does with the embodiment of perfect love, they crucify Him.  Could it be that at the core of murder is a deep-seated fear?  Fear is one of the most powerful motivators on this planet; many have lived under years and years of oppression because of fears operation.  There have been battered wives who live in fear, never making an exit plan to get away from a violent husband yet there are possibilities to get out but fear is much worse prison than even the ones with bars.  Why would this Creator of all humanity send His Son to a hostile planet knowing that these fearful orphans would crucify the God of Love clothed in humanity?  How do you display who you really are to a planet so full of fearful, competing, striving, and controlling human beings?  Love is about laying one’s life down for another (John 15).  Jesus received the worst fears that anyone could possibly receive-  the fear of being alone, the fear of rejection, the fear of being wrong, the fear of being weak, the fear of abandonment, and the fear of death itself.  Jesus overcame fear on our behalf because apart from God's intervention there is no freedom from fear.

In His Love,
Bret