What Evil

But they shouted, saying, "Crucify Him, crucify Him!"
Then he said to them the third time, "Why, what evil has He done? I have found no reason for death in Him.” Luke 23:21-22

Pilate asks the question that no one else is willing to ask on this day of days when Jesus is crucified. “What evil has He done?”

When Jesus came into the world the Apostle John states that He came for one main reason. The reason was that God loved the people of the world. The problem was that these people had sinned and were condemned to Hell for eternity because sin and God don’t mix. Humans will never really understand the meaning of holiness and perfection until we see Jesus face to face, but there must be something so great about it, so outstanding, and so glorious that anything less than holy could not stand in the presence of God.

We look at sin so casually as if it were a little scratch on our finger, or maybe as serious as a sprained ankle. Obviously we miscalculate, since the remedy for sin is nothing less than the Creator being tortured and put to death by His creation.

“What evil has He done?” He was bold enough to identify with His creation. His evil was that He came to “seek and to save that which was lost.” The reason He was to be crucified was that He dared to lay every right that He had aside to love the ones who shouted for Him to die. “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends.” Jesus deserved to be crucified because He dared stand in the place of a guilty sinner like you and me. He became sin for us, so that we could obtain God’s righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21), that was the “evil” He did. "Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends.
How will you look at sin today? Is it just a minor annoyance, something that you can say you are sorry for after you’ve enjoyed its pleasure? Or will you see sin as the thing that crucified the Lord of Glory?