It was two days before the Passover and the festival of Unleavened Bread. The chief priests and the scribes were looking for a way to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him; for they said, “Not during the festival, or there may be a riot among the people.” Mark 14:1-2.

If you want to understand why Jesus found himself on the cross, you have to understand why he was in Jerusalem in the first place.  Passover was the celebration of God’s liberation of the ancient Israelites from Egyptian slavery.  Rome didn’t want people to get confused while remembering their ancient story and think that God was about to liberate them from Roman oppression, too.  When Jesus preached loyalty to God over the Roman Empire and the religious authorities who colluded with the Romans, his fate was sealed.  Make no mistake, Jesus didn’t die on the cross as a sacrifice for human sins, he died because he spoke truth to power.