[Jeff Higgins]

There was a moment when He was on that cross that Jesus sincerely believed His father had foresaken him. Imagine the weight of that thought, especially on some one who had no doubt whatsoever who God was, and what it meant to be foresaken by Him.

Jesus did predict His own resurrection, so it is easy to believe as you do. I mean c'mon, if He knows He is just going to wake up and be happy, what the hell kind of sacrifice is that? If God is simply planning on resurrecting the guy, how can we say He sacrificed His only begotten son? Just does not make sense; I agree. Way too easy.

That is where so many, in their rudimentary understanding of Jesus' story, fail to grasp what happened. Not surprising, really, from folks who only read it to look for what they perceive to be its faults. Your own stubborness drives your lack of perception, your inability to see, your inability to empathise with Christ.

The sacrifice was not His death. That's as far as folks like you look before rationalizing that it was nothing, because He knew what had to happen next. No, His real sacrifice was that for just a moment, He really thought God, His very Father, had abandoned Him and was actually going through with this sacrifice thing. He thought it was "real"; the crushing weight of that cannot even be imagined by us. God meant Him to feel that, to feel the full weight of His abandonment. How that must have hurt Him as a father to make His son go through that can only be imagined.

So, your oft-repeated, over simplified reasoning that attempts to minimize this "sacrifice" by claiming it wasn't one at all simply fails to account for the true nature of it. Once that is understood, the whole thing becomes very clear. And so very much more awe inspiring than any physical sacrifice could ever have been.