There’s a songwriter that I really like named Dan Bern. He wrote this song called, “God Said No.” He talks about meeting God at the crossroads and asking God to send him back in time. First he asks to go save Kurt Cobain, to try to save him from killing himself. God said no – you would only ask him if he could help you get a [record] deal. Then he asks God to send him back in time – to send him to Berlin. He wants to kill Hitler, undo the horrors he wrought in the world. God said no, “If I sent you back you would get caught up in theory and discussion. You would let your fears delay and distract you. You would make friends. You would take a lover. God said no.”
Then he asks God to send him back to Jerusalem. He sings, “Let me go – Let me go find Jesus. Let me save his life as they try to kill him. Let me take him down, down from the cross – take the iron from his body, try and heal his wounds. God said no, ‘If I let you go; if you really found him walking with the cross, you would stare your tongue no longer working, eyes no longer seeing, ears no longer hearing.” God said no.
We cannot take Jesus down from the cross – that is where his mission led him, to death most shocking, most shameful, most lonely and bruised. We cannot take Jesus down from the cross because he carried it by himself. No one can say or do what he did and no one can undo it either. Throughout history, people have wanted to blame others: Judas, “the Jews,” the Romans, the soldiers. The church has a shameful legacy of doing just that. But we must recognize that we cannot escape this story by projecting our outrage on others. We are bound up in this story every day of our lives
Source:
https://danbern.com/lyrics/god-said-no/