“At the Foot of the Cross” - Fr. Pete's Sermon for Good Friday (Witnesses Along the Way series), April 3, 2026

John 18:1—19:42

Look, I’ve overseen executions before. That’s not something I say with pride. It is simply the truth. This is my assignment: keep order, carry out the sentence, and make sure the crowd does not grow restless and the condemned do not escape the fate Rome has prepared for them.

After enough years, you learn what to watch for. Some men curse until their last breath. Some beg. Some scream in agony, others grow quiet long before the end arrives. Most try to cling to whatever dignity they have left, even as it slips through their fingers. This man was different from the beginning.

They brought him to us after the questioning, already pretty beaten up. The scourging had done its work. Many men do not survive it. He did.

The other soldiers had amused themselves while they waited for the order. They twisted together a crown from thorn branches and pressed it onto his head. Someone draped a faded cloak across his shoulders.

“Look,” they laughed, bowing before him, “it’s the King of the Jews.”

I’ve seen mockery before. I have heard every kind of insult shouted at a condemned man. But he did not answer them. There were no threats, no pleading, no anger.

When Pilate brought him outside to show the crowd, he said something I have heard many times: “Here is the man.” The crowd did not hesitate. They shouted, “Crucify him!”

Pilate looked irritated more than convinced, but the crowd kept shouting. The priests insisted. The moment tipped, as moments often do in a city already tense with fear. And so the sentence was given. And Pilate washed his hands of the whole mess.

They placed the crossbeam on his shoulders and led him through the gate toward the hill called Golgotha. I walked with the other soldiers assigned to the execution.

The crowd followed at a distance—some curious, some angry, some grieving. Executions always draw witnesses.

By the time we reached the hill, the sky had grown strangely dim, though it was still early in the day. The soldiers worked quickly. They had done this many times before. The sound of the hammer carries farther than people expect.

Once the cross was raised, the crowd settled into a restless silence. Some shouted insults up at him. Others simply watched. Above his head they fixed the charge written by Pilate: Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. I think it was meant to mock him. But something about it felt true.

From where I stood I could hear fragments of what he said. Not much—just a few quiet words. He spoke to his mother and to the young man beside her. He spoke forgiveness for those who had nailed him there. And near the end he spoke again, words I did not fully understand, though they sounded less like defeat and more like accomplishment. It was done!

Most men fight the end. This one seemed to receive it.

As the day wore on, the sky darkened further and the wind moved across the hill. Even the crowd grew quiet. I have watched many men die, but this was not like the others. The moment came almost gently—a final breath, his head lowering—and then it was finished.

For a long time no one spoke. The crowd slowly drifted away. The soldiers attended to their duties. The hill grew quiet again. But something about that death would not leave me.

I’ve carried out Rome’s justice for years. I know what power looks like. It is loud. It forces obedience. It makes its will known through fear. What happened on that cross did not feel like power winning. It felt like something else entirely.

A man refusing violence even as violence closed around him. A man entrusting his life to God instead of gasping for escape. And in that moment I heard myself say the words aloud before I had time to question them: “Truly, this man was the Son of God.”

I did not say it because the sky darkened. I did not say it because the earth trembled. I said it because I had just watched an innocent man absorb the worst the world could give—and answer it with mercy.

Well, I didn’t understand everything that had happened on that hill. I only knew that something true had been revealed there.

The soldiers eventually removed the body. A few of his followers carried it away toward a nearby garden. The crosses stood empty against the darkened sky, and the hill fell silent again.

But the cross he had died on… remained. And as I stood there, at the foot of it, one question refused to leave me: What kind of king rules like this—not with force, not with fear, but with a love that is so manifest, even here? Even now?