.. is this: why did Jesus bother? If the strict requirement for the redemption of humanity was his sacrifice on the cross, then why the extra mile in agony? I'd have happily fainted and let them take me to Golgotha unconscious. They were going to kill me anyway!
Maybe he did it because that agony was efficacious in other ways.
Maybe he carried the cross because we would have to carry ours. By carrying his cross, maybe it makes it *possible* for us to carry ours as a supernatural act of love, with supernatural fruits for eternity, because we'd be carrying ours with him.
Who can avoid the cross anyway? If we wish to be his disciples, why would we want to?
There was a striking line in Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" that one of the thieves uttered: (paraphrased) why do you embrace your cross, you fool?
We'd be fools with Christ for embracing our daily cross with him, not because either of us are eager for pain as its own good, but because it is inescapable at times when we love others, because love hurts indeed.
And so the king of love carried his cross, so that we need not fret that our agony is wasted when we carry ours: how can it, when it is united with him and his act of redemptive love?
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