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| Henry Thomas Bodset (d. 1934), Jesus before his Crucifixion |
During the Trial of Jesus in the Saint John Passion that we’ve just heard, Pontius Pilate declares not once but three times, “I find no fault in him.” (The Authorized Version (AV) says “fault,” but a better translation might be “guilt” or “crime” (RSV), or even “I find no case against him” (NRSV), or “I find no basis for a charge against him” (NIV).)
In John’s narrative, Pilate initially questions Jesus, asking whether he is King of the Jews. Jesus responds that his kingship is not of this world; otherwise his servants would fight, and that his mission is to bear witness to the truth.
Pilate then goes out to the crowd and declares the first time that he finds no crime in Jesus. He offers to release Jesus according to the custom of releasing a prisoner at the time of Passover. But the crowd insists, “No, not this man, but Barabbas.”
Pilate then has Jesus scourged, and the soldiers place on him the crown of thorns and the purple robe. He brings Jesus out before the crowd and declares, “See I am bringing him out to you, that you may know that I find no crime in him.” That’s the second time he says this. But on seeing Jesus, the crowd cries out, “Crucify him, crucify him!”
Pilate responds, “Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no crime in him.” That’s the third time. Pilate wants to find a way to release Jesus, and questions him once more. But when the chief priests implicitly threaten to report Pilate to Caesar, he finally relents and turns Jesus over to be crucified.
In the Jewish law of the time, to declare something three times was to make it irrevocable and binding – like swearing an oath. Some contemporary biblical scholars have argued that John and the other Gospel writers craft their accounts of the trial so as to exonerate the Romans for the death of Jesus and shift the blame to the Jews. But John’s account of Pilate’s actions is fairly damning. Pilate three times declares Jesus innocent, and then hands him over for crucifixion anyway. He thus perverts justice by openly condemning an innocent man to death.
This account of the trial highlights the point that Jesus suffers and dies on the cross as an innocent victim. As a corollary: those who conspire to gather evidence and bring charges against him, and who work to secure his condemnation first by the Sanhedrin and then by Pilate, are not administering justice but rather conspiring to commit a grave injustice. Whatever else the figure of Jesus on the cross represents, then, it depicts first and foremost the unjust suffering of an innocent victim.
The problem of unjust and undeserved suffering remains always with us. For example, when we witness the wholesale slaughter and maiming of civilian men, women, and children in war, our inmost selves cry out to heaven in protest: “Why, O Lord, why?” It’s bad enough that combatants should have to suffer and die in war, and no-one’s suggesting that they deserve it either, but nonetheless something about the unjust suffering of the innocent particularly scandalizes and outrages our consciences.
Down through the centuries, second-rate philosophers and religious teachers have proposed facile solutions to this problem. While we don’t like it at the time, they say, suffering is good for us. It strengthens our character and makes us better people.
But that’s a myth. During the Second World War, the British pacifist Vera Brittain wrote that far from strengthening character and ennobling people, most unjust suffering has precisely the opposite effect. It brutalizes and dehumanizes its victims, creating a legacy of bitterness, resentment, hatred, and thirst for revenge.
The one exception, she wrote – and much more the exception than the rule – is when such suffering is freely accepted by its victim and offered up sacrificially in the service of a higher cause or principle. In that case alone, unjust suffering has the potential to become redemptive and transformative. But very few people have any natural capability for such sacrificial self-offering.
The Gospel that we proclaim today, on Good Friday, is that Jesus Christ, as the Incarnate Son of God, fully human and fully divine, is the one and only innocent victim who ever accepts his unjust suffering and death with such perfect humility and resignation that his offering of himself on the cross constitutes, to quote the Prayer Book, the “one, full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world.”
We don’t need to go into the various theologies describing the mechanisms by which the Atonement is thought to work. The Universal Church has never defined as dogma any of the many competing theories of precisely how and in what way Jesus’ death on the cross accomplishes the forgiveness of sins and the reconciliation of a fallen world to God. It just does, and that’s all we really need to know.
Two consequences follow for us, however, in our calling to live the Christian life. First, in this life at least, following Jesus means walking in the way of the cross. We must never seek suffering for its own sake. But if and when we find ourselves facing some injury, disease, or other calamity that entails pain and loss, we can accept it as a way of being close to Jesus. This acceptance comes to us not naturally but by divine grace, as a gift of the Holy Spirit. So long as we stay close to Jesus, we can bear anything for his sake – and in that case our pain and suffering do have the potential to become redemptive.
In John’s narrative, Pilate initially questions Jesus, asking whether he is King of the Jews. Jesus responds that his kingship is not of this world; otherwise his servants would fight, and that his mission is to bear witness to the truth.
Pilate then goes out to the crowd and declares the first time that he finds no crime in Jesus. He offers to release Jesus according to the custom of releasing a prisoner at the time of Passover. But the crowd insists, “No, not this man, but Barabbas.”
Pilate then has Jesus scourged, and the soldiers place on him the crown of thorns and the purple robe. He brings Jesus out before the crowd and declares, “See I am bringing him out to you, that you may know that I find no crime in him.” That’s the second time he says this. But on seeing Jesus, the crowd cries out, “Crucify him, crucify him!”
Pilate responds, “Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no crime in him.” That’s the third time. Pilate wants to find a way to release Jesus, and questions him once more. But when the chief priests implicitly threaten to report Pilate to Caesar, he finally relents and turns Jesus over to be crucified.
In the Jewish law of the time, to declare something three times was to make it irrevocable and binding – like swearing an oath. Some contemporary biblical scholars have argued that John and the other Gospel writers craft their accounts of the trial so as to exonerate the Romans for the death of Jesus and shift the blame to the Jews. But John’s account of Pilate’s actions is fairly damning. Pilate three times declares Jesus innocent, and then hands him over for crucifixion anyway. He thus perverts justice by openly condemning an innocent man to death.
This account of the trial highlights the point that Jesus suffers and dies on the cross as an innocent victim. As a corollary: those who conspire to gather evidence and bring charges against him, and who work to secure his condemnation first by the Sanhedrin and then by Pilate, are not administering justice but rather conspiring to commit a grave injustice. Whatever else the figure of Jesus on the cross represents, then, it depicts first and foremost the unjust suffering of an innocent victim.
The problem of unjust and undeserved suffering remains always with us. For example, when we witness the wholesale slaughter and maiming of civilian men, women, and children in war, our inmost selves cry out to heaven in protest: “Why, O Lord, why?” It’s bad enough that combatants should have to suffer and die in war, and no-one’s suggesting that they deserve it either, but nonetheless something about the unjust suffering of the innocent particularly scandalizes and outrages our consciences.
Down through the centuries, second-rate philosophers and religious teachers have proposed facile solutions to this problem. While we don’t like it at the time, they say, suffering is good for us. It strengthens our character and makes us better people.
But that’s a myth. During the Second World War, the British pacifist Vera Brittain wrote that far from strengthening character and ennobling people, most unjust suffering has precisely the opposite effect. It brutalizes and dehumanizes its victims, creating a legacy of bitterness, resentment, hatred, and thirst for revenge.
The one exception, she wrote – and much more the exception than the rule – is when such suffering is freely accepted by its victim and offered up sacrificially in the service of a higher cause or principle. In that case alone, unjust suffering has the potential to become redemptive and transformative. But very few people have any natural capability for such sacrificial self-offering.
The Gospel that we proclaim today, on Good Friday, is that Jesus Christ, as the Incarnate Son of God, fully human and fully divine, is the one and only innocent victim who ever accepts his unjust suffering and death with such perfect humility and resignation that his offering of himself on the cross constitutes, to quote the Prayer Book, the “one, full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world.”
We don’t need to go into the various theologies describing the mechanisms by which the Atonement is thought to work. The Universal Church has never defined as dogma any of the many competing theories of precisely how and in what way Jesus’ death on the cross accomplishes the forgiveness of sins and the reconciliation of a fallen world to God. It just does, and that’s all we really need to know.
Two consequences follow for us, however, in our calling to live the Christian life. First, in this life at least, following Jesus means walking in the way of the cross. We must never seek suffering for its own sake. But if and when we find ourselves facing some injury, disease, or other calamity that entails pain and loss, we can accept it as a way of being close to Jesus. This acceptance comes to us not naturally but by divine grace, as a gift of the Holy Spirit. So long as we stay close to Jesus, we can bear anything for his sake – and in that case our pain and suffering do have the potential to become redemptive.
Secondly, however, while we may freely accept this path for ourselves, we never have any right to impose it on others. There is something particularly cruel and wicked about telling those in pain to accept their suffering because it will make them better people. And it’s downright blasphemous to inflict pain and suffering on the same pretext, that it’s somehow good for the victims.
No. Down through the centuries the Church’s best wisdom has derived precisely the opposite conclusion from the suffering of Christ on the cross. Our obligation as Christians is to do everything we can to prevent, stop, and relieve the unjust suffering of innocent victims whenever and wherever we encounter it in the world around us. Our mission is one of healing, reconciliation, restoration, and justice.
At this time in our history, in particular, we have an obligation to work to end the systemic injustice that disproportionately victimizes the poor and members of racial and ethnic minorities. The shooting of unarmed black teenagers is but one example. Yet we have the assurance that whenever innocent victims suffer unjustly, Jesus suffers with them. And when we minister to such innocent victims with compassion and love, we minister to Christ himself.
No. Down through the centuries the Church’s best wisdom has derived precisely the opposite conclusion from the suffering of Christ on the cross. Our obligation as Christians is to do everything we can to prevent, stop, and relieve the unjust suffering of innocent victims whenever and wherever we encounter it in the world around us. Our mission is one of healing, reconciliation, restoration, and justice.
At this time in our history, in particular, we have an obligation to work to end the systemic injustice that disproportionately victimizes the poor and members of racial and ethnic minorities. The shooting of unarmed black teenagers is but one example. Yet we have the assurance that whenever innocent victims suffer unjustly, Jesus suffers with them. And when we minister to such innocent victims with compassion and love, we minister to Christ himself.
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