GOOD FRIDAY, 2026

March 3, 2026

Saints Matthew and Mark, Barrington, R. I.

 

John 18:1-19:42

 

During the Trial of Jesus in the Passion Gospel that we’ve just heard, Pontius Pilate declares not once but three times, “I find no case against him.” 

 

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, but 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 case against Jesus. He offers to release Jesus, according to the custom of releasing a prisoner at Passover. But the crowd insists, “Not this man, but Barabbas.”

 

Pilate then has Jesus scourged; the soldiers place on him the crown of thorns and the purple robe. He brings Jesus out before the crowd and declares, “Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no case against 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; I find no case against 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 threaten Pilate for being soft on threats 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 irrevocably binding. This is why Peter’s threefold denial that he knows Jesus, also in the Passion Gospel that we’ve just heard, is such a problem. But that is a topic for another time.

 

Some contemporary biblical scholars have argued that John and the other Gospel writers crafted their accounts of the trial to exonerate the Romans for the death of Jesus and shift the blame to the Jews. But John’s account of Pilate’s conduct is also fairly damning. Pilate three times declares that he finds no case against Jesus, and then hands him over for crucifixion anyway. He perverts justice by openly condemning an apparently innocent man to death. 

 

This highlights the point that Jesus suffers and dies as an innocent victim. Those who conspire to gather evidence against him, bring charges, and secure his condemnation are not administering justice but rather committing a grave injustice. Whatever else the figure of Jesus on the cross signifies to us, we need to recognize first and foremost the unjust suffering of an innocent victim.

 

The problem of unjust and undeserved suffering remains with us today. When we witness the wholesale slaughter and maiming of noncombatant men, women, and children in war, our inmost selves cry out to heaven in protest: “Why, Lord, why?” It’s bad enough that combatants should have to suffer and die—and no one’s suggesting that they deserve it either—but nonetheless, the unjust suffering of innocent victims rightly scandalizes and outrages our consciences.

 

Down through the centuries, second-rate philosophers and religious teachers have proposed facile solutions to this problem. Suffering, they say, 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 a victim accepts such suffering freely and offers it up sacrificially in the service of a higher cause or principle. In that case alone, unjust suffering can 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, the Incarnate Son of God, fully human and fully divine, is the one and only innocent victim who has ever accepted suffering and death with such perfect humility and resignation that his self-offering 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 need not go into the various theologies of how the Atonement is supposed to work. The Universal Church has never defined as dogma any of the competing theories of 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 living the Christian life. First, following Jesus in this world means walking in the way of the cross. We’re never called to seek suffering for its own sake. But when we find ourselves facing an injury, disease, or other calamity that entails pain and loss, we can accept it as a way to be 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 then 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. It’s particularly cruel and wicked to tell people in pain to accept their suffering because it will make them better people. And it’s downright blasphemous to inflict pain on the pretext that it’s somehow good for the victims.

 

No. Throughout the centuries, the Church’s best wisdom has drawn precisely the opposite conclusion from Christ’s suffering 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. The Church’s mission is one of healing, reconciliation, restoration, and justice.

 

At this time in our history, we have a particular obligation to work to end the systemic violence that disproportionately victimizes the poor, members of racial and ethnic minorities, and migrants. Still, we have the assurance that whenever innocent victims suffer unjustly, Jesus suffers with them. And whenever we minister to them with compassion, we minister to the crucified Christ himself.