Did Christ really have to die?

Philippians 2:8 – And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
As of this past year, or even 2 years, I have to confess that picking up my bible and reading it has been downright difficult. And even most days, it's impossible. Since our failed and lost adoption over 2 yrs ago, I have been struggling to find the strength, and courage to open it, and read it.
There was 1 day last year when my wife was struggling severely with depression, we went to the hospital, and I read the entire book of Job (41 chapters) while waiting to be seen. But that day was more an exception to the rule.
Recently, I have picked it up again, and am praying that God keeps me in his word consistently, even if only for a couple of chapters a day. I read Philippians, and was hit hard by chapter 2, verse 8. I don’t know how many times I read this one, and it never really struck me before.
I find it very interesting how you can talk to Christians all the time, and there are verses from time to time that just completely knock you off your chair. And you have read it once, maybe a dozen times, and possibly hundreds of times. But one day, God reveals something to you.
That’s what happened with that verse for me the other day. I always knew Christ died on the cross since I was very young. I was brought up Catholic. Then Christ’s death was especially personal to me on June 13 2000. That was the day of my conversion as a Christian. 16 yrs later, I’m reading this book (again for the I don’t know how many times) and this verse hit me.
Christ didn’t have to die. He is God, in the flesh, on earth. He could have simply called up his Father and said, “to heck with them, I’m going back up to my glory”.
However, He humbled himself to even be a servant of men, was ridiculed, insulted, mocked, assaulted, wrongly convicted and even betrayed by his own. And then once in the custody of the Romans soldiers, men that were very, very hard and not afraid of inflicting pain on their enemies/prisoners, was once again insulted, mocked and made an example of.
And the end of this story ends with him dying on the cross. If you do any research at all, find out how gruesome that death actually was. No Roman citizen died on the cross due to its painful, humiliating process.
And Christ bore it all, on the cross. He didn’t have to submit to any death, he was the ruler of it in the first place. But he knew that for us humans, sinners at heart and haters of God, death and resurrection was the only way to reconcile us back to Him. He had to take our punishment, since God is just, he must punish sin. So it’s either on the back of his son, or your eternity separated from God.
I’m still in awe today, even though it has been a number of days since reading that text, of the truth revealed to me that day.