Dark clouds hide the sunlit sky

In a barn a baby cries

Does He know He’s born to die?

Rest now while your trials are few

Only your Father knows why

Dark clouds hide the sunlit sky

In the town a baby cries

On a hill a Savior dies

Dies of His own free will

He can tell you why

            – from the song, “Born to Die” by John Fischer

We are all born to die, but not as deliberately as this one. We are born to die in that we are all born into sin and the punishment for sin is death. It’s the law of entropy. The minute we are born, we start dying. The only thing separating us from birth and death is 70+ years. That is what we call “life” but we mustn’t be fooled into thinking that life is the big deal. Life is a wonderful thing, but it’s in short supply. Life is here to show us how to die. This is why Jesus was always talking about eternal life. That’s true life. Eternal life is what takes us beyond this realm. Eternal life is what we will have forever.

We die by putting our faith in Christ who died in our place. That’s why He came. To be the first fruits out of death into life — life eternal. This is why we focus so much on the death of Christ, because He busted the death barrier with the resurrection. Only the Son of God could go from death to life and take us with Him.

This is why He was focused on the cross. He was determined. He knew it all along. He went willingly to the cross. They didn’t have to force Him down on it. They didn’t have to sit on His arms to nail His hands to the wood; He stretch His arms  out willingly. This was it. This was what He came for. The starry night, the angels’ song, the shepherd’s call, the baby in a manger — it was all for this. He knew it; we know it now, though they didn’t know it then. Peter tried to prevent it. He didn’t know yet. Jesus was born to die so He could destroy death and the power of death. He was born for the cross.

And here’s something to remember: “He can tell you why.” We need to remember that for everyone. We aren’t going to be able to help anyone get this. We don’t help people to faith, we bring them to the story. God does the rest. We don’t have to explain it all — we won’t understand it all ourselves anyway — we just need to bring people to it. He will tell them why. He told me why. He told you why. He will tell them why.