GOOD FRIDAY
3 APRIL 2026
In
conducting the trial against Jesus, Pontius Pilate asks the question, “What is
truth?” He knows the truth about this
peasant from Nazareth. He knows that Jesus
is innocent. But he is afraid to act on
that truth. He could care less about the
charges brought by the religious leaders that Jesus had made himself the Son of
God. However, he is terrified when the
crowd accuses Jesus of making himself a king.
Pilate wants to remain in Caesar’s good graces. For that reason, Pilate hands him over to be
crucified to protect his status as a provincial Roman governor. He even has the inscription written over the
cross, “the king of the Jews.”
In Pilate’s
world, Jesus is on trial. However, the
truth is that Pilate is on trial. He
does not understand what Jesus means when he tells him that his kingdom is not
of this world. The first chapter of
Saint John’s Gospel tell us that Jesus was present at the creation of the
world, that he emptied himself of the privileges of divinity, and that he took
on human flesh. We know from reading the
Gospels that the kingdom of Jesus is not at all like the kingdom of Pontius
Pilate. His kingdom is a kingdom of
peace and justice, of love and mercy, and of compassion and kindness. That is not Pilate’s kingdom: one of power, cruelty, and violence against
enemies.
We live in
a world which makes it difficult to know truth from fiction. We have trouble discerning truth from our own
world of alternative facts, misinformation, spin, propaganda, and fake
news. Our world says that truth is
subjective, that truth is relative, that we can make up our own truth, and that
there is no such thing as absolute truth.
Good Friday reveals the ultimate truth to us. Jesus Christ, true God and true human,
willingly accepted the unjust sentence of death to free us from the power of sin
and death. Jesus became the ultimate
suffering servant of the Prophet Isaiah to demonstrate the truth that his
righteous suffering has redeemed us, and that his life of humble service is a
model for all of us seeking the truth.
At the
wedding feast of Cana, Jesus worked the first of his miracles, or signs. He changed the ordinary water of human love
into the divine wine of God’s love. In
the Gospel today, a soldier pierces his side with a spear. Blood and water poured out, prefiguring the
waters of baptism and the Blood of the Eucharist. As Eve was formed from the side of Adam, the
Church is formed from the pierced side of Jesus Christ. The Mother of God is at the cross, not
wailing in agony, but standing in a grieving faith. The dying Jesus entrusts the beloved disciple
to the care of his mother. Since that
disciple is never named in Saint John’s Gospel, you and I are the beloved
disciple. We are entrusted to the care
of the Mother of God. We are
strengthened by the Sacramental life of the Church to remain faithful
disciples, no matter what.
Peter is
also put on trial in today’s Gospel. He
is convicted of cowardice when he protects himself three times by denying that
he is a disciple. Peter passionately
regrets this failure and accepts the forgiveness of the risen Christ. We too can be convicted of denying the truth
that we are disciples of Jesus Christ when we respond to challenges to our faith
with fear. We can be convicted when we
regard the crosses we encounter in our lives as failures and punishments from
God. But the Mother of God encourages
us, as beloved disciples, to stand by the cross of Jesus Christ as our victory,
not our defeat or humiliation. After we
pray the Intercessions, we will be invited to come forward to venerate the
cross. We bring our own crosses, our own
failures, and our own denials as we reverence the cross of Jesus Christ. By dying on the cross, Jesus Christ has won
the victory over sin and death. By
carrying our crosses with him, we can share in that victory, sealed for us at
Easter.
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