The Crucifixion

Sermon — April 3, 2026 (Good Friday)
The Rev. Greg Johnston
Lectionary Readings

Whether we’re leading processions through our churches, or hanging jewelry around our necks, coming up with a symbol to put on signs and flags or offering a blessing, we Christians don’t tend to choose the empty tomb or the washing of feet, Lazarus raised from the dead or the Sermon on the Mount. No; we choose the Cross, because the story of the Crucifixion is so central to us that it has become the symbol of our entire faith.

That can make it hard for us to remember that at the time, the Crucifixion wasn’t “The Crucifixion” at all. Sure, for the tiny band of Jesus’ disciples, it was a life-changing event. But for the rest of the Roman world, the death of Jesus meant nothing at all. To the few people who would’ve even heard the news, it wasn’t The Crucifixion, merely a crucifixion. It was the sort of thing that happened all the time, at the edges of the Roman Empire: the execution of a rebel, a would-be king, for the crime of claiming a throne without the permission of Rome.

This was the Roman Empire working as designed. The Empire itself was still a new thing, to be fair. During Jesus’ life, there were still a few stubborn old Romans who lamented the loss of their Republic; who wondered how they’d allowed one man to amass so much wealth and popular support, to grant himself so many honors and awards, that he could single-handedly transform their system of government, reshaping it in his own image. There were some who wondered how, just a few centuries after throwing off the rule of a king, they had reinvented the monarchy they’d abolished.

But most Romans, to be honest, didn’t care. Most Romans went about their lives, enjoying the prosperity of the fabled Pax Romana, two centuries of “Roman Peace.” Now, this was a bit of misnomer.  During that golden age of peace, the Roman legions fought fierce campaigns in the forests of Germany; waged war with the Persians in the east; and suppressed two separate revolts by the Jewish people, destroying not only the Temple in Jerusalem, but eventually the whole city just a century after Jesus’ death.

But what did ordinary people care about all that? The Pax Romana meant peace for Romans, a peace achieved by fighting constant wars on other people’s land, at the edges of the Empire. The crucifixion of Christ was hardly the most violent of these events. It was just one tiny example of the Empire working as designed: maintaining peace for people over here, through the application of overwhelming force over there.

Any student of Rome can tell you how well that worked in the long term. But this is not actually a Roman history lecture, so here’s the point: On Good Friday, two thousand years ago, not a single Roman would’ve known or cared about what had happened to Jesus. But within just twenty-five years of these events, the apostle Paul—a Roman citizen himself—would write his greatest theological work to a vibrant and growing church in Rome, a group of people who had come to believe that their own government’s act of violence against one man who lived far away had somehow saved the world. In just a few years, what had been a crucifixion had become The Crucifixion: no longer an everyday act of violence, but a transformative event changing the lives of people at the center of the Empire itself.

On one level, it’s not hard to see why. The story of the Passion of Christ is a powerful one. I find the small details to be particularly moving. The contrast between the rage and drama of the crowd who come to arrest Jesus, “with lanterns and torches and weapons,” (John 18:3) and the calm of Jesus, who simply answers, “I am he.” (18:5) The slaves and police who share their fire with Peter, warming their hands together because, even though it’s early spring, it’s still unpleasantly cold. (18:18) That heart-wrenching moment when Jesus, even as he hangs on the Cross, still tries to take care of those he loves most in his life, saying to his mother, “Woman, here is your son”; and to his best friend and closest disciple, “Here is your mother.” (19:26–27)

It’s easy to see how this story could soften even the most hardened hearts. And yet such moving scenes had happened many times before, and nothing had changed.

But on Good Friday, something happened that had never happened before. On Good Friday, the one who was being crucified was not only a human being, deeply beloved by some of those who bore witness to his pain; he was the incarnate God. On Good Friday, in other words, God was on the Cross. And somehow, mysteriously, that made all the difference; somehow, in a way that theologians have spent two thousand years trying to explain, when God took on the violence of the cross, the power of death itself was undone.

And as the story spread throughout the world—as it was told and re-told, again and again—the Holy Spirit was at work, somehow moving the hearts of some of those who heard. And their lives began to change. They began to reject the practice of worshiping the emperors as if they were gods. They began to repent of the violence of the Roman state. They began to see themselves as citizens of a kingdom of heaven, members of a body that transcended the boundaries of the Roman Empire and practiced a very different way of life, characterized by compassion, mercy, and peace.

This didn’t happen immediately, of course. And it didn’t happen perfectly; Christians have perpetrated many acts of violence throughout history. But throughout history, Christians have been inspired to follow Jesus in that way of love, and their love has changed the world.

We can hardly go a day in our lives without being confronted with the image of the Cross of Christ, and usually, we don’t stop to think about what it means; but on Good Friday, we do. On Good Friday, we let ourselves see what happens when the overwhelming mercy of a loving God collides with the overwhelming violence of human cruelty. Like those first disciples long ago, we see the God of Love hanging from a cross, and it breaks our hearts, and our lives begin to change, from the inside out.

And when ordinary people change from the inside out, the world begins to change from the outside in. It’s not the kind of change that comes from the centers of political power; but Jesus didn’t appear in Rome. It doesn’t come from the religious authorities; but Jesus wasn’t born into the family of the high priests. Jesus appears on the outskirts of the Empire, on the outskirts of his own society, and yet his movement grows steadily from the outside in. And generations of his followers, from Franciscans to abolitionists to Civil Rights activists, have followed that outside-in path and changed the world.

And so on Good Friday, we give paradoxical praise to the Cross. We venerate this symbol of brutal death. Not because crosses are good, but because this Cross overthrew the rest. Not because we glorify suffering or death, but because through his death, Jesus began to overcome the power of death. And so today, we too gaze upon the Cross of Christ: that one “Faithful cross, above all other”; that “one and only noble tree!” and as we do, we open our hearts to be changed, praying that in us and through us, God will continue to change the world.