Jesus’ crucifixion is significant because it is the means by which God saves. The meaning of Jesus is “God Saves”, but Jesus – a Greek form of the Hebrew name Joshua – was a common name in the 1st century, the key is the particular man who was crucified as there were many who were put to death by Roman occupation in that time.

Jesus is inseparable from the title “Christ”; Christ is another Greek translation (of the work Messiah). The Messiah was to be a future King of Israel, messiah is derived from the word to-anoint, as in to rub or rub-in the holy oil that Jewish Kings received on their heads to signify their kingship. The Christian claim is then that the prophesied Jewish King who was to lead the nation was put to death on a cross.

The question is why should the empire’s instrument of death, designed to make a public display of its victims by Roman power, should be the means by which the Jewish King was killed. How does this save?

Remember Jesus said whomsoever believes in him has eternal life (“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” John 3:16). – St Paul spoke of the cross being a foolishness to those perishing and the power of God to those who are to inherit eternal life (1 Corinthians 1:18). The person who believes in Jesus believes not simply in a person, but the manner of his death. The reason for the saving power of the cross is that God himself was put to death.

If you connect up the dots from the above, The Jewish King was crucified/killed and he was God himself. It isn’t too far removed to see why John 3:16 is a touchstone for Christian belief, it is Christianity in a nutshell but you have to unpack what’s in the nutshell and that is the essence of a God who saves by sacrificial love.

God is love [1 John 4:8] but to what extent God loves is shown by the cross. He loves us to the limit – up to an unjust tortuous death. As St. Paul says – “For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:7-8 ]. The assumed fact is that God’s motive is always love, for that is who God is.

The clearer it is seen that God is love the clearer it is seen how far our own motives are from God’s own. Catholicism is a sin & salvation religion, if sin does not have a precise definition outside Catholicism, then loosely put, it is sin that puts self-interest above sacrificial love for others. Since the best a sinner can do is “enlightened self-interest” – the altruism which sees personal benefit without personal cost, then Jesus’ example is the opposite.

What Christians are called to do, to metaphorically take up their cross, can be argued that no-one can humanly imitate Jesus in this day and age, Christians are given the Holy Spirit at baptism and confirmation to help, nevertheless it is difficult, and it is easy to see it as an insurmountable task. This only highlights the necessity of a merciful God who does indeed save and the sign of this is his crucifixion [“And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” John 12:32]

By the sign by which God was put to death points to God The Father, by pleading with The Father to forgive us – “‘Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”’ Luke 23:34. From the very place of the cross is the mechanism of salvation. This is why the particular man Jesus because none other than a God would give forgiveness from such a place.

Jesus is the Son of God by nature but he is also completely human except in sin. He shares common humanity with every other human being, why he saves is out of love and this is why his cross is worthy of worship.