What would you do if you were a hostage negotiator?
Especially if they’re not bluffing and they start killing people.
And the hostages are a bunch of terrified kindergarten kids.
You have to find out what the guy wants right? And if possible, give it to him!
Otherwise everyone is going to die.

Yahweh was really angry when Adam and Eve sinned. In fact, he wanted to kill them.
He has wanted to kill everyone who ever sinned since then. Including me. Including you.

But his love for us has stopped him doing it so far.
In fact, it was actually his love which made him kick Adam and Eve out of the garden and make sure they couldn’t go back.
If they had stayed there and eaten the fruit of the other tree, they would have lived forever and Yahweh wouldn’t have been able to kill them. But also, he wouldn’t have been able to save them from the consequence of their sin.
They would have been lost forever.

Yahweh had a plan. It was a long term plan, not a quick fix.

Later he got so upset again at all the sin of mankind that he wiped them all out by flooding the entire planet to kill everyone and start again.
After Noah and family started us off again, Yahweh gave us a way to cover over our sin so it wasn’t so much in his face. It was still there, it still needed to be dealt with, but it was kind of tucked away in the bottom drawer. But not forgotten.
Not forgiven.
Still a problem.


When someone dies we usually feel some level of sadness, some level of loss.
Although if it was someone we think of as a bad person, like a drug dealer, or a serial rapist, or someone like Hitler, or some tyrant who mistreated everyone, we honestly don’t feel that bad do we. Almost like they deserved it.

But if it’s someone really lovely, who spent their life helping others. Like mother Theresa, (who used to say she treated every person in need as if it was Yeshua himself there in front of her), or someone who was so selfless and modest we never even heard of them until after… then we feel like we lost something. We do feel that sadness.

Or someone close. Like family. Or a child.
That’s heartbreaking.

And if it’s someone lovely and adored like that, and they die in really horrific circumstances, well that’s world news. That’s a national day of mourning, that really gets us where it hurts.
If Mother Theresa had been raped and killed by a gang of youths on drugs, just out for some fun abusing a nun… we would be honestly appalled.
That would be truly horrible news to read.
Imagine being that person’s parents!


God’s anger with sin needed calming down.
His son Yeshua lived a perfect, sinless, selfless, life. Honestly way way better than even Mother Theresa.
And he was killed in a totally brutal and unjust murder. Abused, ridiculed, spat on, beaten, flogged, humiliated.
He could have called on angels to save him. But he chose instead to endure it for you and me.


A propitiation is a gift, given to someone with the express purpose of calming their anger.
Yeshua’s death was a propitiation given to his father to calm his anger over sin.
The way we killed him would have made Yahweh even more angry, but Yeshua basically let Yahweh take it out on him, instead of us. As a way of enabling Yahweh to calm his anger over our sin.
It specifically calmed Yahweh down so he no longer needed to kill everyone because of their sin.
Without this, we would all still have a death sentence on our heads.


It’s more than Yeshua died in your place. It’s more than he took the punishment for you.
He specifically did this to be the propitiation for Yahweh’s righteous anger over our sin.


What if the man with the gun threatening to kill the class of kindergarten kids will only be calmed down and let them go if you let him kill you instead? Are you willing to do it?

What if all the hostages aren’t kindergarten kids, but they’re from the prison: rapists, murderers, drug dealers? What if Hitler is one of the hostages? Will you die for them?
What if the hostages are all the worst of the worst of people who have ever lived?
Are you still willing to be killed, in a brutal and horrific way? To save them?

Or would you walk away and let them get what they deserve?


In reality, you were the hostage.
You deserved the anger of Yahweh and the death he was going to bring you.
But Yeshua didn’t walk away.