Welcome back, everyone, to session seven of our Alexio Bible study on Jesus, looking at the biblical

and the historical evidence for faith in Christ, looking at the reasons to believe.

And in this session, we come really to the climax of Jesus' public ministry, and that is the mystery of his crucifixion,

of his death on a cross at the hands of the Romans. And this session is very important because

it begs a crucial question, namely this, if Jesus was the Messiah and if he was God, then why did

he end up dead on a cross? Have you ever thought about that? I mean, I brought up earlier

other failed messias like Barcocca who were executed by by the Romans and usually their executions signaled

the end of their claims to be the Messiah after that all their followers dispersed and no one

believed in them now we'll see why that's different for Jesus in our final session when we look at

the resurrection from the dead but even before, we still have to ask the question.

If Jesus was God, how is it that he died on a cross? Why did he die in that manner? And also,

why in the midst of his execution, did he cry out, my God, my God. Why have you forsaken me?

Never thought about that? If he's God, why is he crying out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Never thought about that? If he's God,

why is he crying out to God about having forsaken him? What could that mean? Does that mean Jesus despaired at the end of his life? Some people think so. Albert Schweitzer, a very famous

theologian and scholar in the early 20th century said that.

Jesus died that that cry of dereliction was a cry of despair, right?

That the kingdom that he had thought would come didn't,

and that the wheel of history crushed him as it rolled along.

If Schweitzer was right about that, then Christian crushed him as it rolled along.

That's, if twice it was right about that, then Christianity is a sham.

I mean, it's, you know, as Paul says, we are of all men to be most pitied.

So how do we explain the cross?

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