Good Friday: Does Jesus’ Suffering Redeem Us?

Questions swirl in my mind as I sit through the Good Friday liturgy. I don’t think God punishes innocent people. I don’t want to believe that God blames victims for what has been done to them. As an LGBTQ+ person, I find great comfort in a God who cares about those who are marginalized. But then I hear lines like, “Through his suffering, my servant shall justify many, and their guilt he shall bear” (Isaiah 53:11, emphasis added.) What?

White Crucifixion by Marc Chagall

On Good Friday, the Catholic lectionary pairs the story of Jesus’s death with a reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah known as the “Suffering Servant” (Isaiah 52:13–53:12). Christians have long read this passage as a prophecy fulfilled by Jesus, and as a key that unlocks the mystery of the cross. According to the traditional interpretation, Jesus, the innocent one, is persecuted by the crowd; he takes on their sin, and they are absolved. 

This interpretation, however, sets off alarm bells in my mind. It sounds uncomfortably like the victim has been blamed, and the guilty allowed to go free. Surely this perversion of justice cannot be God’s plan for salvation. But then how does Jesus’ suffering save?

To interpret this scripture  more clearly, I turn to the work of philosopher René Girard. He explains that humans tend to seek an outlet for our violent competition with one another. Throughout history, groups have chosen a “scapegoat” – an outsider they can blame for everything. The group lashes out against the scapegoat, giving the group a cathartic outlet and a restoration of harmony.

In our times, we see this pattern unfolding in the scapegoating of immigrants and trans people in the U.S. When political leaders blame economic and social instability on these marginalized groups, the majority nod along, relieved to have someone to hate and a cause to rally around.

The Passion narrative tells the same story. Society as depicted in the Gospels is fractured into groups (the scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees). They are all under pressure from imperial Rome. In a tense political climate, all these factions can only agree on one thing: Jesus has to go. He is their common enemy, and thus the perfect scapegoat. The Gospels are not an indictment of Jewish society in particular, but of human nature in general, which uses scapegoating to handle internal conflict.

If Jesus is a scapegoat, then the prophet’s words take on multiple layers of meaning:

He was […] a man of suffering[…]

Yet it was our infirmities that he bore,

            our sufferings that he endured,

while we thought of him as stricken,

            as one smitten by God and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our offenses,

            crushed for our sins;

upon him was the chastisement that makes us whole,

            by his stripes we were healed.

On one level, we can read this as saying that Jesus suffered because of other’s failings. He bore the brunt of others’ greed, cowardice, and bloodthirstiness. He was stabbed by their apathy and crushed under the wheels of the empire. If his suffering produced any healing, it was the short-term appeasement of the crowd’s appetite for violence. This is how perpetrators use scapegoating for their own ends.

The Crucifixion by Georges Rouault

On another level, if we read the above passage through Girard’s lens, the verses are about unmasking the scapegoating mechanism. For scapegoating to work, the victim must be blamed. When we read the prophet’s words knowing that Jesus is perfect, the message hits differently: it looked like the Suffering Servant (Jesus) was being punished by God, but he was really suffering because of others’ cruelty. His death reveals the scapegoating mechanism for what it really is: victim-blaming. This is not a divinely-sanctioned way of gaining absolution – it’s just plain wrong. In Jesus, God sides with the victim, and with all victims hereafter.

While I appreciate Girard’s insight in helping us understand this passage, it leaves me with one outstanding question: how does Jesus “take away the sins of many, and win pardon for their offenses” (Is. 53:12), if scapegoating does not work? I believe the answer lies in forgiveness. Jewish tradition holds that God only forgives offenses committed against God, not offenses against others. According to the religious practice in Jesus’s time and culture, only the victim has the authority to forgive the perpetrator.

Scapegoating is not primarily a sin against God, but against the victim. By becoming the victim on the cross, Jesus is the wronged party. For the first time, God can offer full atonement both as the divine and as the victim. Jesus “take[s] away the sins of many” by offering ultimate forgiveness. As the perfect innocent victim, Jesus has better reason to take offense than anyone else; but instead, he breaks the cycle of violence and resentment in a final way, offering true reconciliation.

As LGBTQ+ people and our allies know too well, scapegoating still occurs today. You have probably seen it happen in your workplace, on your kid’s playground, or in the news media. Perhaps you have been the target of it; almost certainly, you, like all of us, have unwittingly participated in it when you have feared and hated someone different than yourself. 

On Good Friday, we remember that scapegoating offers only a false promise of apparent peace, not true healing. In Jesus, God has chosen to side with the victims of this world. Violence cannot save us. Only forgiveness can.

—Ariell Watson Simon, April 2, 2026