A Sermon for Good Friday
April 3, 2026
Test: John 18:1-19:42
I speak to you in the name of one God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Here at St. Mary’s, over the past several weeks—during the season of Lent—we’ve taken on the practice of walking the Way of the Cross every Wednesday evening.
Most years, we only do this once—usually on Good Friday.
But, this year, I wanted to make it a weekly practice so that we could really prepare our hearts and minds to walk with Jesus during Holy Week.
Week after week, we gathered in the Nave and moved from one station to the next, retracing the final steps of Jesus’ journey to the cross.
And as we walked those stations, we were drawn—again and again—to the physical suffering Jesus endured.
We heard about the weight of the cross and how Jesus fell to the ground—not once, but three times.
We reflected on the nails that pierced his hands and feet.
We stood at Golgotha—the place right outside the city walls where Jesus was crucified.
That physical suffering is real.
And it’s an important part of the story because it shows us—in vivid detail—the depths to which God was willing to go to save us all.
But as the weeks went on, I began to notice something else—something just as important, but easier to miss.
Not only does Jesus suffer physically—his humanity is also stripped away, piece by piece, as the story unfolds.
So tonight, I want us to spend some time reflecting on those parts of the story and how they invite us to see more clearly what Jesus suffered—and what it means for us as Christians.
John’s Gospel doesn’t rush through the story.
It lingers, on purpose.
It lets us see what happens along the way.
And there are these moments—almost like scenes from a movie—where Jesus is stripped of his dignity, dismissed, and humiliated.
The first moment comes when Jesus is handed over to Pilate.
You can almost picture it in your mind.
It’s early in the morning.
There’s tension in the air.
Jesus stands before Pilate—not as a teacher or a healer, but as a problem that needs to be addressed.
A situation that needs to be handled quickly.
The crowd isn’t listening to Jesus anymore.
They’re not trying to understand him or learn from him.
They’ve already made up their minds.
He deserves to die.
And Pilate keeps his distance. He’s not interested in the truth. More than anything, he just wants to keep the peace.
In that moment, Jesus is no longer seen as a person—but a problem to be dealt with.
Then the soldiers take him.
They put a crown of thorns on his head and a robe on his shoulders, and they begin to mock him.
“Hail, King of the Jews,” they sneer.
It’s meant to be funny—but it’s cruel.
They pretend to honor him as a king, but everything they do is meant to humiliate him.
They take something central to who he is—his identity as the one sent by God—and turn it into a joke.
Then, after Pilate has him flogged, he brings him out again—beaten, wounded, and exhausted—and says to the crowd, “Here is the man.”
Not “Here is the King.”
Not “Here is the Messiah.”
Just… the man.
As if to say, “Isn’t this enough? He’s no threat to you at all. He’s nothing more than a beaten, broken-down man.
And the crowd looks at him—and still says, “Crucify him.”
There is no hesitation.
No compassion or sympathy.
Jesus means nothing.
Then we come to a moment that’s especially hard to hear.
The soldiers take his clothes and divide them among themselves, and Jesus is left exposed—completely vulnerable.
This part of the story is uncomfortable, because we all know, at least in some small way, what that kind of vulnerability feels like.
To be exposed, with nothing to hide behind.
To feel like your dignity has been taken away.
And then finally, we come to the cross.
In the Roman world, the cross was not just a means of torture and death.
It was about humiliation.
It was used to send a warning: “This is what happens to people who challenge authority.”
It was used to strip a person of their dignity in a very public way, which is why criminals were often crucified right outside the city walls, so that people passing by could see what was happening.
And as people looked on, they didn’t see glory.
They saw shame.
And the truth is, we’re not so far removed from that moment.
This is where the story begins to turn toward us in a very real way.
Because Good Friday isn’t just about something that happened a long time ago.
It’s about us as well and what the cross means for us in our walk with Christ.
If we’re honest, we know that the story of Jesus’ passion and death tells us something about ourselves.
Just as the soldiers and the crowd stripped Jesus of his dignity, we do the same.
We reduce people to labels.
We put them into categories.
We dismiss them without really knowing who they are.
We do it when we talk about people behind their backs—especially those we disagree with.
We do it when we make quick judgments about people instead of getting to know them.
We do it when we overlook people altogether because they don’t fit into our circles or seem worth our time.
Sometimes it’s obvious when we do it.
Sometimes it’s quiet—something we do without even thinking about it.
It’s much easier to judge someone than to get to know them.
It’s easier to talk about someone behind their back than to have a conversation.
It’s easier to ignore someone than to really see them.
And when we stop seeing people as fully human—when we begin to see others as less than, they become easier to hate…easier to dismiss…easier to hurt…easier to overlook.
Good Friday invites us to face that truth.
Not to overwhelm us with guilt or shame.
But to hold up a mirror.
To reveal the ways we’ve fallen short of our call to walk in love.
But that’s not all.
Because in John’s Gospel, the cross isn’t just about suffering and death.
It also reveals something about God.
We’re invited to look closely at who Jesus truly is.
Look closely, and what you’ll see is not just the suffering of an innocent man.
What you’ll see is the love of God poured out for the world.
Even on the cross, Jesus never stops being who he is.
He continues to give himself freely.
He continues to love and offer mercy and forgiveness—even to those who persecute him.
That love—that sacrifice—changes everything.
It takes an instrument of shameful death and turns it into the means of our salvation.
If the cross is what the love of God looks like, then it changes how we’re called to see and treat other people.
It calls us to slow down, to pay attention, to resist the instinct to label or dismiss or to treat others as less than.
And instead—to see everyone as God’s beloved.
To see the person in front of us as someone made in the image of God. As someone worthy of dignity and respect. As someone whose life matters to God.
And maybe, if we can learn to see who Jesus truly is—the one who freely endured the shame and agony of the cross—then we can learn to see him in others as well, especially in the people we struggle to love.
In the words of Pilate, “Here is the man.”
Behold him.
And by doing so, may we learn to love one another as he loves us.
Let us pray.
Lord Jesus,
as we behold you on the cross,
stripped, humiliated, and yet still full of love,
open our eyes to see you clearly.
Show us the ways we have failed to see others as you see them.
Soften our hearts where they have grown hard.
Teach us to recognize your presence in every person we meet.
And as we leave this place,
give us the grace to walk more faithfully in your Way—
to love as you have loved us.
Amen.
The Rev. Eric Mancil 