Jesus was tempted to flee the cross, not by Satan as in the desert, but by passers-by and by religious leaders who did not understand what they were talking about. We may be tempted to flee the cross, too. Who wouldn’t be? After all it is the cross, it is painful, it looks hopeless, it seems fruitless.

The chief priest, the scribes and the elders did not understand that it was precisely because he was the King of Israel and God’s Son that even if he wanted to, he could not come down from the cross, that he had to stay faithful. Coming down from the cross may have been an option, but if he had we wouldn’t know the extent of God’s love for us. If he had come down from the cross, we would be a people without salvation, without hope. If he had come down from the cross, we would never be able to endure the crosses that come our way. Jesus, as Son of God, may have had the power to come down, but he had the love to stay the course, to stay there to the bitter end, because he knew that even there the Father was with him. We, too, can endure our crosses because he endured his, and because we, too, know that the Father, the Spirit and he are always with us until the end of time.