I like Michael Card’s explanation of how this song came to be (from his book Immanuel): “I had been playing with these questions for quite some time, trying to make them sound lyrical, which is to say, trying to make them sound pretty. But they aren’t pretty questions.
“The three questions which make up the verses of the song were all finished. I had planned to write one chorus, which would answer all three. That proved to be as impossible as the questions themselves. So I did the only thing a committed seeker of the Truth could do: I gave up and put them away in a drawer!
“Weeks later I was awakened in the night with the three separate choruses going through my mind, something that had never happened before–and has never happened since. To my trilogy of vain, cynical questions the Lord gave three unexpected answers . . .
“Each time I listen to the song, I hear two separate voices. My own pessimistic voice, asking the meaningless ‘why’ questions, and another gentler Voice, speaking the wonderful answers.”
Why
Why did it have to be a friend who chose to betray the Lord?
And why did he use a kiss to show them? That’s not what a kiss is for.Only a friend can betray a friend; a stranger has nothing to gain.
And only a friend comes close enough to ever cause so much pain.And why did there have to be a thorny crown pressed upon his head?
It should have been a royal one made of jewels and gold instead.It had to be a crown of thorns because in this life that we live,
For all who would seek to love, a thorn is all the world has to give.And why did it have to be a heavy cross he was made to bear?
And why did they nail his feet and hands? His love would have held him there.It was a cross, for on a cross a thief was supposed to pay,
And Jesus had come into the world to steal every heart away.
Yes, Jesus had come into the world to steal every heart away.
Words and music: Michael Card
© 1984 Whole Armour Publishing
From the album Known By the Scars, by Michael Card