I think first of all we must resist the temptation to think that, because Jesus is God and He knew He would be raised again, so we can trivialize what He has done dying on the Cross for us. Sometimes we think that because His dying on the Cross was a temporary ordeal: He got arrested, tortured, crucified; he died, was buried, and rose on the third day. It was done, and now it is over.
It is not that simple. Consider the following:
His temporal sacrifice on the Cross is in fact also taking place as an eternal offering in heaven before the Father. We know this because in Revelation 5, it describes this eternal offering of the slain yet living Lamb before the Eternal One.
Being outside of time, what this eternal offering means is, though the Cross took place in a singular point in time, all time has access to the one and only sacrifice. This means that from the dawn of creation until the last human being before the Final End, every person’s sin is still being nailed to Jesus in that perpetual sacrifice; it is going to the time of Jesus’ crucifixion to add to the weight of His Passion. And conversely, His victory on the Cross is also available to forgive and heal every single one of these offenses across time.
These all are happening not in past tense, but always in present tense. We today are participating in the killing of Jesus right now as we are sinning; and we today are receiving His redeeming Blood and resurrection right now as we are repenting.
In this mysterious way, He indeed has died and risen; yet He indeed is still dying and still rising within us.
And He does that only because He freely chooses to love us while we are still sinners. We need Him to save us, and there is no other way without violating our human dignity and freedom.
He cannot just wipe away our sins or excuse our wrong doings. That would mean we never had the freedom to choose. He cannot just dismiss our sins’ consequences, because someone needs to pay for the damage caused by our sins for God to be just.
So Jesus came, and He is still here right now, to continue to pay for every one of our sins by shedding His Blood for us, so that we can go free and start anew. And He continues to pour out His love, waiting that one day we may be won over by His love to know the joy of loving Him back.