Jesus had to die, according to the religious leaders of Jerusalem, because his continued existence posed a serious threat to their system of religious beliefs and worship in their God’s holy Temple. And now, just before the beginning of the Passover, they were rid of him once and for all. On the orders of the Roman procurator, Pontius Pilate, Jesus was marched out of the city, forced to carry his own cross, and brutally nailed to it, after which it was thrust into the ground so that anyone passing that way could see his execution. Cecil Alexander aptly describes the scene:

There is a green hill far away,

Outside a city wall,

Where the dear Lord was crucified ...

The Romans did it, but the Jewish leaders put them up to it, supported by the crowd that chanted for a prisoner’s release: "N…