“I am Marcellus” | a sermon for Good Friday

A sermon by Jamie Howison for Good Friday, 2023. This sermon was inspired by  meditations delivered by The Venerable James Setter at All Saints Church, Winnipeg, on Good Friday 1981. The much younger version of Jamie Howison was deeply moved by Fr. Setter's approach to the Passion Story, and so forty-two years later this Good Friday sermon picks up on many of those threads. 

I am Marcellus, centurion in the army of Emperor Tiberius, assigned to the province of Judaea under the authority of Pontius Pilate. Today I have witnessed a crucifixion like no other. The man was a Galilean named iEsous, and his dying is etched upon my eyes.

To any of the soldiers under my command, that day may have at first looked like any other. There were rebels to be executed, and while for most of my men that was simply a matter of duty, for too many of them it meant barbarous amusement. One had to let it all just happen to keep those soldiers from grumbling, though I have never had any appetite for taking delight in torture. Best to let the locals give the condemned that mix of wine and gall to lessen the pain, and hope that they would all eventually learn that political action always landed a rebel on a cross. Best to have the condemned die quickly on their crosses, but too often it lasted into the night and right through the next morning. I am not a soft man, but such a death—while necessary—is nothing to relish. Those who actually enjoyed it tended to be the least stable soldiers under my command.

But this day had been particularly harsh. Four were to be executed; three Jewish rebels including a particularly troublesome one named Barabbas, and this teacher and reputed healer iEsous, condemned for evidently making claims for himself that he was King of the Judeans. Oddly, this charge was brought against him by the Jewish high priest Caiaphas; a man for whom the governor Pilate generally had little time or patience.

It was, from the beginning, all very strange. I had heard of this iEsous earlier in the week, when he had caused some uprising at their vaunted temple by tipping over tables and chasing out the merchants who sold the doves for their sacrificial rites. Over the course of the next few days there was talk amongst my soldiers about how this Galilean was seen in the market square or right outside of the temple, debating with some of their prominent leaders and apparently alienating those with power, all the while endearing the common folk to him because of his debate victories over their more educated members. There was even talk of how one day they had tried to corner him with a question about whether it was right for a Judean to pay taxes to Caesar—as if there was any choice—and he came right back at them with a clever ploy through which he managed to both support taxation to Caesar and hold on to his primary loyalty to his god.

But from all that I heard there was nothing criminal and certainly nothing worth taking before Pilate. It sounded more that some of those leaders simply found him infuriating, and for their own strange reasons wanted Pilate to do away with him.

Pilate was never one to do anything he didn’t want to do, and if he wanted to execute a suspected rebel by crucifixion, he would have done it without giving it a second thought. If anything, he was too harsh, even by Roman Imperial standards. He was even called upon by the emperor to answer for some of his behaviour toward the locals, but that largely hadn’t mattered to him. When he used their temple treasury to finance a new aqueduct to Jerusalem—something they desperately needed to improve the quality of their water supply—rebels rose up in protest, but he put that down by sending in the soldiers with their clubs and horses, killing as many as they could. That happened before I was assigned to this wretched place, but my soldiers were only too happy to tell me all about it.

That was the Pontius Pilate we all knew. Cold, decisive, unafraid of violence, and so very sure of himself.

So why did this Galilean so confound him? My men took custody of iEsous at the entrance to Pilate’s headquarters, when their temple police brought him to us demanding he be brought before the governor on this charge of sedition. He’d been beaten—badly beaten—but those chief priests didn’t so much as flinch as they handed him to my men. Their jaws were set, their minds evidently made up as to what they wanted from Pilate, and so they walked behind us as we marched him in to stand before the governor. Pilate heard their claims about his alleged crime, and so turned to the Galilean and asked, “Are you the King of the Jews?” There was a brief pause, and then without expression iEsous answered, “You say so.” I think it was his calmness that caused an explosion of accusations from those priests and elders—fingers pointing and words flying—but to these the Galilean said nothing. Pilate waved off their shouting and gesturing, and I had the soldiers step forward to face them. The room fell silent, and Pilate looked at him and asked, “Do you hear how many accusations they make against you?” No answer. Not a word, not even anything from his eyes. Silent.

Pilate shook his head, and then looked at those priests with utter disdain. I’ve seen the man scornful before, but this was a look that cut right to the bone. And I saw that look come into his eyes, that suggested he had determined a rather unexpected resolution to this matter; one that would leave their priests and elders humiliated.

Turning to me, he asked, “Of those to be executed today, is there one might be particularly out of favour with the Judeans?” 

“There is one,” I replied. “A man named Barabbas. He’s a rebel, but he’s also been a strong-arm problem for his own people.”

“Bring him. Bind his hands, but don’t let your soldiers bloody his face.”

And so we did. I ordered my soldiers to be firm, tie the bonds tightly around his wrists, but not to be so rough as to draw blood. Pilate had both iEsous and Barabbas escorted to the balcony overlooking the square, where a crowd had gathered, waiting for Pilate’s odd festival ritual of letting one prisoner free. It was under normal circumstances a way to pacify any mob mentality, and strangely it often turned the crowd against those who would yet be crucified. “Whom do you want me to release for you,” he said. “Barabbas or iEsous, who is called the Messiah?” And then a letter was handed to him, which I understand came from his wife. He read the note and looked pained. He paused, breathed deeply, and repeated his call for a decision, saying “Which of the two do you want me to release?”

The crowd thundered back, “Barabbas!” I glanced over to where the chief priests stood, and caught what seemed altogether satisfied looks on their faces.

Pilate responded, “Then what should I do with Jesus who is called Messiah?” He seemed strained, frustrated, and I wondered why he’d even offered them that question. He had the authority to either free the man or send him to the cross, but this day he seemed strangely caught.

“Crucify him” the crowd roared.

“Why? What evil has he done?”

“Crucify him!”

Pilate then performed an act that struck me as completely out of his normal character. He had a bowl of water brought over to him, washed his hands, held them up, and said, “I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves.” And with that, he released Barabbas, and sent iEsous with the guards to be flogged and crucified.

Detail of a painting by George Rouault

 My soldiers seemed to have caught something of the rage of that crowd. I might have stopped them if I could, but it seemed useless to try. They stripped the man down, threw a scarlet robe across his shoulders, and pressed a ring of thorns onto his head. One of them fetched a stick and forced it into his hand, and then they taunted the poor Galilean, spitting on him and mocking his claims to be a Jewish king. This little game done, they took back the scarlet robe, threw his own poor garment back across his shoulders, and led him to the place of crucifixion.

I could see that he was exhausted by it all, as it was all he could do to haul that cross along the road toward the Golgotha. As he stumbled for a third time, two of my soldiers forced a man from the crowd to shoulder that cross for the final stretch of road to that hill outside the city gates, and then pushing that man away they tore off the garment iEsous wore, pressed his naked body onto the cross and nailed down his feet and wrists. A sign was then fixed right above his head: “This is iEsous, the King of the Jews.”

That pitiable garment that he had worn—blood-stained and dirt-encrusted—became the object of a little gambling game amongst some of my men. This was not unique to iEsous; it is something they generally do, though seldom for the value of the garment. It is winning the game that counts to them, a way of trying to get one up on the others, if only for a few hours. I don’t know, maybe it makes the executed man even less real as a person?

I’ve seen too many of these executions, and I suppose the older I get the less patience I have for it all. It is a spectacle, no doubt, and one made to imprint itself on the minds of the crowd, saying, “Careful about your politics, if you want to avoid this.” But in that moment I wondered if it was all just a blood-lust spectacle; a strange sort of entertainment on a bleak afternoon. Did anyone in that mob learn anything? I doubt it.

Six hours it lasted. Not long compared to what I’ve seen, but he’d already been so bloodied that it was remarkable he lasted that long. Some in the crowd taunted and mocked him, and remarkably those chief priests were there with their own vicious words. Had I ever seen them come out to a crucifixion? I don’t believe I ever had, but there they were, confident that some strange justice was being done.

Two strange events punctuated that death. After three hours the sky seemed to darken, the power normally in the sun was muted. It remained that way for another three hours, and then suddenly he called out in a loud voice—with more strength and volume than I’d expected—something in their own, strange tongue. This all seemed to stir up the crowd again, with some sort of argument arising amongst those closest to the cross. A sponge soaked in sour wine was put on a long stick, and pressed to his lips, but he refused it. And then he cried out again, took a deep breath, and his whole body slumped down. Dead. He was dead. 

But then the second strange event began. The ground began to tremble and shake, harder and harder, as if threatening to split open. And then it stopped, and I looked at his broken body on that cross, and these words just came from my mouth: “Truly this man was a son of God.” The eyes of soldiers standing with me were wide open—frightened eyes, terrified eyes—and they looked at me with astonishment… and then nodded. Yes, yes, he must have been that. Must have been from the gods. What have we done?

I am Marcellus, centurion in the army of Emperor Tiberius, assigned to the province of Judaea under the authority of Pontius Pilate. Today I have witnessed a crucifixion like no other. The man was a Galilean named iEsous, and his dying is etched upon my eyes.