A good answer to a difficult question:

“The cross of Jesus is the crux of human history, the deep revelation of the human condition.  At this crossroads, the Bible uncovers the bloody corpse of a righteous man, and twisted and crucified corpse of the eternal Son of the living God.

Mocking God, killing righteous men – that is the human project.  When a teacher comes with the demand that we do justice and love our neighbors, we betray Him, mock Him, beat Him on the head and crown Him with thorns, before we pack Him off to death on a cross.  Naked and bleeding on the cross, Jesus suffers the fate of  Jerusalem, and of  Troy and  Babylon and  Carthage and  Dresden and of every city that has ever been razed to smoking rubble.  The cross exposes us as specialists in destruction.  We are specialists in destruction.  History is a waste of ruins, toppled temples, smoldering cities, corpses heaped for burning.  This is what we do.  That is the human project.”

http://www.credenda.org/index.php/Church/god-is-mocked.html