It all looks very dark.  But the Christian religion transforms the whole sombre scene.  In the words of Isaiah, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness – on them light has shined” (NRSV, 9:2).

That light is Jesus Christ, God the Son, who by becoming Man entered this world of hatred and greed and violence, who was crucified by his fellow human beings whose nature he had taken to himself, and who was raised from the dead to be the Living Lord of the present for every generation.

So on the Cross we see the torture and the death of the innocent, of God himself made Man – put there by his enemies because they saw him as a threat to their position and their power; and handed over to them by Pilate because Pilate could see his own position and power in jeopardy if he refused to yield to the shouts of “Crucify him”.

Nor was the Divine Christ the only innocent person who suffered on that day – there was also the almost intolerable anguish of the bereaved, for standing by the Cross of Jesus was his Mother – the innocent Mother of God.