1. Albrecht…Ash Wednesday…Feb 18, 2026…2 Cor. 5:20-6:2…The Father Wants Jesus to Die…

²⁰ Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. ²¹ For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 6:1 Working together with him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. ² For he says, “In a favorable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you.” Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.

Grace and Lenten peace be yours from God the Father, and our crucified Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen.

INJ Who has reconciled us to God through His death on the cross, DFR:

For a flash in the 1990s, Magic Eye was the world’s most famous—and infamously frustrating—optical illusion. Magic Eye was something of a paradox: a deliberate graphic mess that relied on grids and precision to achieve its intended effect. The fact that it was so difficult to see the 3-D shape hiding behind the hyper-colored patterns was a major part of its appeal. To find the secret image, people adopted a signature Magic Eye stance: bent forward, hands-on-hips, staring—dumbfounded—at the visual static in front of them. The others who crowded around (there were always others) passed along tips like an unsuccessful game of telephone—Cross your eyes. No, squint. Try relaxing. Click. Suddenly the image would appear. Every illusion is solvable, as long as you know how to look at it.

As one looks at the scenes in the Passion history, leading to Christ’s death, one is struck with a strange paradox, namely that many persons in the Passion account want Jesus to die! God the Father, Satan, Barabbas, the high priest, Pilate, the religious leaders, the crowds, Judas, and Christ Himself – all want Jesus to die! To be sure, there are different agendas, conflicting purposes and motives. Many are selfish, but others catch the unfathomable dimension of God’s purpose and goal, the proper, right reason that Christ must die.

As sad and painful as it must have been, the reason the Father wanted Jesus to die was necessitated by sin and its tragic consequences. In the beginning, God created mankind in His own image – to bear His holiness and His glory. The command He gave to Adam and Eve in the garden, to eat of any tree except the tree of knowledge of good and evil, carried with it the consequence if they disobeyed His command – You shall surely die.

It was God’s desire than mankind should live in complete harmony with Him – that He would walk in the garden with the crown of His creation forever. This command was an opportunity for man to show their love for God and a desire to maintain the same harmonious relationship with Him. But it was Satan who upended this perfect union and Adam and Eve fell into sin. God did not recant the consequence He said would come if Adam and Eve disobeyed, they would surely die.

Death is separation. Their bodies were dust, and because of sin, to dust they will return. But worse than that death, was the eternal separation from God that loomed over their heads, and the head of every descendant for the rest of their lives. God’s eternal justice must be fulfilled – and every man, woman, and child’s future would end in this eternal separation, paying for the sin that has been committed against God.

It is in the midst of this situation that God’s paradoxical plan begins. His will, from even before sin had entered the world, was that Jesus, His Son, should die for the sin of mankind. It was the only way the tragedy of man’s fall could be reversed. God made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.

Only with Christ becoming our substitute and suffering the eternal separation from God in our place could we be reconciled with God. It is the most unconventional and unexpected plan, not accomplished by a show of earthly might and armies, but through apparent failure: disciples forsook their leader, betrayal by a close friend, insults and gross injustices, and the human helplessness of Christ, who could have prevent it all, saying, “”Or do you think that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He will provide Me with more than twelve legions of angels?” (Matt. 26:53). Yet, Jesus doesn’t call down the angels and, later, when He is taunted to come down from the cross to prove He is who He claims to be, He doesn’t do that either.

It looks like a total failure. Every hope and desire that had filled the hearts of the people during Jesus’ ministry were dashed. Yet, the war was being fought successfully on a different plane with an unconventional procedure – not by the one who lives, but by the One who dies! The victory, your victory is won by death! The death that the Father desires is the ultimate sacrifice, the ultimate substitution that pays and atones for our sins and reconciles us with God.

Christ showed that He was not powerless in His death, nor did this happen to Him unwillingly. He showed over and over again that He was dedicated to His Father’s will. He said in John 10, ¹⁷ “Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. ¹⁸ No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father.”

Jesus submitted Himself to His Father’s desire that He should die because of His great love for you. What looks like shame and failure to our eyes truly reveals the cosmic war being waged behind the scenes, between God and Satan for our salvation.

Lent shows us just how great the Father’s love is – that He should give His only Son into such a cruel, crude death. Why? Because of that supreme, selfless sacrifice on Calvary’s cross, sin and death no longer have power over us. It is in this context that the Father wanted Jesus to die from the beginning. What incredible, unfathomable love!

The plan and purpose of Christ’s death was to redeem and restore us into a right relationship with the heavenly Father – the way we were meant to be. Satan and those under his illusion, however, desired nothing more than to sidetrack, even nullify the Father’s plan, and thus destroy this reconciliation and make Christ’s sacrifice ineffective.

Thanks, and praise to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, for the power, the will, the grace, and the love to fulfill this plan of the Father! Behold! Today is the day of salvation, let us marvel in the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! Let us honor Him who has chosen to dwell with us through Christ Jesus, to whom be the glory forevermore, Amen.