Personal comments on the article: "2,000 Years of Bearing the Cross" posted January 6, 2016

Article link: http://dplife.info/blog/view/2000-years-of-bearing-the-cross/

Dear sister ... ,

Thank you for your heartfelt comments about Jesus' passion. Thank you for creating this beautiful series. Great work! I hope you don't mind me throwing my two cents in by asking a few thought provoking questions to spark a conversation. Sorry if they seem rhetorical.

Wouldn't Jesus have died anyway, eventually?

Death is a big life event for everyone, right?

Wouldn't it be the responsibility of a messiah to be a model of how to die well, also?

Didn't almost all of God's children die a suffering and painful death (without the aid of modern medicine) in first century Judea? Hadn't they always?

Doesn't God grieve over all His/Her children's suffering and death?

Can a messiah really ever put an end to that kind of physical pain, suffering and death, that we all share in common?

In all four Gospel stories Jesus suffers, but doesn't quite die, right?

"Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him."—Job 13:15

Along with being aware of "God’s Historical Grief," can we also say that God may be very grateful, happy and proud of Jesus, for being a pioneer of dying well, and a victor over the death we all experience?

In the gospels didn't Jesus himself on the "cross" sing God a song?

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? ... "—Psalm 22:1

The DP view of the messiah as a model for marriage makes sense and all, but when it comes to doing the heavy lifting for the sake of God's heart, isn't our suffering death the big one?

Marriages can come and go (even for prophets), but we only die once.

As Unificationists, can we "glorify" Jesus' courage to love and sing, in the face betrayal, abandonment (even by God), suffering, and death?

Respectfully