"Why Was Jesus Killed?"

We get a lot of questions and, personally, I think that rocks. One I just got was "Why was Jesus killed?" and in keeping with "layman's terms" I'm gonna keep it simple and make it short. (I hear sniggering from the peanut gallery...)

Let's break down the 'why' into three different categories: 1) Jewish Law, 2) Political History, and 3) in terms of Christian Theology.

1) Jewish Law:
Viewed by Orthodox Judaism as being ABSOLUTE, it is the unalterable Word of God. Christians agree with this. Jewish culture is essentially balanced on keeping these (613!) laws; keeping them all is the goal. Not keeping them, or 'missing the mark,' is sinning.

Jesus sought to show the Truth that lies behind the Law, the Spirit of the Law, i.e. God Himself. He spoke out against several of the lawyers saying that they were making themselves out to be law-makers (adding to God's Law) and that their interpretation of the law (their "yokes") were terrible and contorted (giving secondary or ultra-literal meanings to them). The Law was to be perfect and perfecting - showing the wonder and perfection that God is, not to be a burden for people to groan under.
Several of these "laws" that had been twisted Jesus blatantly broke: Jesus healed people on the Sabbath day, something the Pharisees said was "work" on the "day of rest." Christ rebuked the lawyers saying that even God heals on this day, and gave an example that if someone had a donkey who fell down a well, (something or someone important to you that got into trouble or an emergency) you would certainly not wait to pull it out.

People don't like being rebuked for sure. Besides, He claimed the authority to set things straight and He showed it (in healings and other miracles) - authority that doesn't(under normal circumstances) belong to any man. He wasn't so much a rebel as a revolutionary. Jesus shows us the reason for the Law, that it is simply the way God is, a reflection of His reality, and if only we would love Him more than fear Him, our faith will be in God and not on His Law. Our faith will make us right with Him.
He basically spat in the face (though He would never do that) of the officials telling them to let go of the oppression they had placed on the common person - thus fulfilling several old prophesies about the Anointed Lord - and to give the judgment back to God. They wanted to know where He got this audacity and power. Jesus claimed the authority of not just the "anointed one of God" but of God Himself. That was blasphemy, a crime punishable by death. The crowd at times loved Him but the clergy despised Him for it. He took away their power and aims to put it back into the hands of God Himself.

2) Political History:
1st Century Palestine was a mess of revolts. Palestine was ruled at the time by the Herods, a family of kings who were placed over certain regions, Galilee, Judea, etc by Rome. Several times the Herods had revolts on their hands because of their own blatant disobedience to God's law (murdering their own children and other horrid crimes). In order to restore the honor of God to His temple, the Jews revolted numerous times.

Caesar eventually put in a new Prefect, Pontius Pilate (pronounced [ponch (as in Ponch and John) us - pilot]. There had been 5 prior to him.) Anyway, Pilate was of the "Equestrian Order" or the lowest order of the Roman governors and couldn't really conduct military actions though it was his responsibility to keep the peace and if there had been an uprising, he would have been held responsible. Ergo, he tried his very darn tootin bestest to keep the Passover festival a peaceable one. You can find out more on him on Wikipedia if you crave immediate satisfaction.

When Jesus was brought before Pilate in the middle of the Passover festival (one of the high festivals of the Jewish year) by the Jews, demanding Him to be tried and crucified, Pilate couldn't find anything really to charge Jesus with, but in order to prevent another revolt - which Rome would likely have reacted to violently (as we see it did 40 years later when they destroyed the whole temple and all of Jerusalem) - Pilate washed his hands of Christ and handed Him over to the guards to flog and crucify. Jesus became the scapegoat. Which brings us to the third point.

3) Christian Theology:
The Old Testament tells the story of God's people in a long history that is full of prophesies, wars, and amazing miracles. It was written over a vast amount of time and holds the only truly creative version of Creation (one so creative, its hard to believe that humans could come up with it...) It contains some of the most beautiful poetry, the most erotic (and often weird) love songs and along with it contains the Word and Law of God. God kind of uses the history of Israel as a big parable for His divine plan. To that extent, we see the image of Christ run through it on almost every page.

4 points for study:
3a) Anne Rice makes a great point, perhaps the book's defining point in her, Christ the Lord; Out of Egypt: Whatever is born is born to die. Why did God become a man at all? The ultimate reason was to so that He could experience death - something that God Himself, by His very nature, cannot do. He came to truly share with us all things, and in doing so, taking for us the very punishment that He, Himself must dish out. Why? Read on:

3b) The Law is perfect and none of us are. Ergo it cannot be lived up to perfectly - and the biggest point, perhaps - that it doesn't have to be, God cares more about you than Him: He is completely humble. No one can live up to His standards, and even if you do it to the letter in every other way, your reasoning for doing it is completely selfish, which wrecks the whole thing. If you obey God because you want to be saved from His wrath, that is, in essence, selfish.

But the Bible is full of people who obey God for the right reason: they love Him. And every last one of them are sinners. King David was a adulterer and murder. Moses a killer. Yet God said these were men after His own heart. Why? They repented. They believed in Him even amidst their mistakes. But yet, someone (Someone) has to foot the bill, so to speak, to give us life back in order that we can spend eternity with God, and love Him (which is the whole point of Creation). And we simply don't have the capacity to re-create or instill life on our own. We make monsters of ourselves if we try. (Frankenstein). So God came to do what we couldn't. Die and live again.

3c) In the very young history of Israel, there was a famine and the 12 sons of Jacob (Israel) migrated to Egypt. There, over a period of 400 years, they became slaves. Hundreds of thousands of them. They cried out and God sent Moses to deliver them out of bondage. Pharaoh would not let them go, and so God worked many miracles to show His power and the last of which, the angel of death came to kill every firstborn in the whole land. Only the ones who sacrificed a lamb and put its blood on their door lintels would be saved. And so they were. That night Israel was set free from bondage. That lamb is called the Korban Pesach. The Passover Sacrifice.
Christian Theology calls Christ the Passover Sacrifice. Interestingly, Israel's greatest story of redemption, the Exodus from Egypt, perfectly foreshadows the work of Christ. He worked miracles to show His authority and majesty, and then died in our place and then conquers death, brings us to the waters of salvation and parts the way for us. Then, as we become followers, we must carry our cross as well, walking through a the world as though it were a wilderness as Israel did, and finally, bringing us literally to the point of death so that we can pass into the Promised Land.
All this paying the price we deserve for turning our backs on God. We are truly set free from the bondage of slavery to our sins. And, lastly,

3d) Christ's sacrifice is not just for Israel, but for all of mankind. You don't have to be Jewish to love it!

K... that's short enough considering the question, right?
God bless and bless God!