The Cross, the Court, and the Crisis of Belonging

Understanding the death of Jesus, and the expulsion of Abrego Garcia

“The chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were looking for false evidence against Jesus so that they could put him to death. But they did not find any, though many false witnesses came forward.” — Matthew 26:59-60

What if the death of Jesus wasn’t just a moment of divine sacrifice, but a mirror held up to every society that seeks peace through exclusion? What if the same forces that nailed him to a cross are still at work today, in our politics, institutions, headlines, and hearts?

From the beginning of human history, communities have often resolved conflict by uniting against a common enemy. The tensions we feel, whether political, economic, or social, are instinctively directed toward someone we can blame. The name for this pattern is mimetic theory, developed by French cultural anthropologist René Girard.

A Simple Primer on Mimetic Theory

René Girard noticed something most of us miss: We don’t simply desire things, we desire what others desire. We are deeply shaped by imitation. From childhood onward, we learn to want by watching others. And when we want the same things, whether that be status, belonging, power, or control, rivalry is never far behind.

That rivalry spreads, infecting families, churches, communities, and even nations. Eventually, it boils over into crisis. Tensions mount. Everyone seems to be against everyone, and no one quite remembers how it started.

And that’s when the search for a scapegoat begins.

To relieve the pressure, a group finds someone to blame, usually someone vulnerable or different. Their removal creates a strange sense of peace. The community breathes again. The conflict subsides. But it’s a false peace. A peace built on exclusion, a peace that hides the truth.

Girard called this the scapegoat mechanism. It’s a survival instinct masquerading as justice. And it has shaped human history more than we care to admit.

The difference is that Jesus's cross doesn’t just participate in this cycle; it reveals it. In his resurrection, God takes the side of the scapegoat and invites us to step out of the cycle altogether.

Jesus as the Willing Scapegoat

On Good Friday, we remember that Jesus was denied due process by both religious leaders and the state. He was accused without evidence, condemned by a mob, and executed by the empire.

But Jesus was not just a passive victim. He was the willing scapegoat. In choosing the cross, he didn’t just suffer injustice; he exposed it.

By willingly stepping into the role that so many have been forced into against their will, Jesus uncovered the lie at the heart of human peace: that it must come through violence and exclusion. And in his resurrection, God vindicated Jesus and revealed an entirely different way of being human.

Girard called this the intelligence of the victim, the moral clarity that comes when we see the world from the side of the excluded and oppressed. Now, in cultures shaped by the story of Jesus, we have been given this intelligence. We can see those who are being victimized by the Powers that be.

But with this intelligence comes responsibility.

Grounded Artifacts in an Age of Spin

This past week, a deeply significant legal moment unfolded, reminding us of the importance of clarity, accountability, and returning to the source.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia had already been deported by the U.S. government, despite having legal protection under withholding of removal, a status granted to those who face credible threats if returned to their home country.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 9–0 that the government was to facilitate his return. The word "facilitate" has caused confusion. Rather than act clearly and decisively, the Department of Justice adopted a narrow interpretation, prompting further legal action.

The matter returned to a three-judge panel on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which offered a sharp response.

Chief Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III wrote:

“Facilitate is an active verb. It requires that steps be taken, as the Supreme Court has made perfectly clear... The plain and active meaning of the word cannot be diluted by its constriction, as the government would have it, to a narrow term of art.”

In a media age dominated by spin and selective outrage, it's easy to lose track of what’s real. But this moment calls us back to grounded artifacts, legal documents, court rulings, and the rule of law itself.

Read the full Fourth Circuit ruling that was given on April 17th. It’s a critical six pages.

This isn’t just about one man. It’s about how vulnerable people are often caught between legal technicalities and political agendas. And it’s about us, our willingness to return to the source and see clearly in a culture built to distract and distort.

Belonging Shapes Belief

As I wrote in The Scandal of Leadership:

“Our place of belonging determines our identity and rationality. We become a somebody through the group to which we belong, and our perception of what is real news and what is fake news is often determined by the group in which we find our sense of belonging.”

In a polarized world, many of us are shaped more by the news we consume than by the truth we seek. Our sources of information often come with built-in bias, reinforcing not just what we believe, but who we belong to. These media ecosystems become mimetic communities, offering identity through alignment and belonging through opposition. And when belonging requires enemies, scapegoats are never far behind.

But in Jesus, we are invited into a different kind of community. In Ephesians 2, Paul writes of a new humanity formed through Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection, a people united not by shared hatred of a common enemy, but by shared forgiveness from a crucified Savior. The only entrance to this new body is repentance.

At the heart of repentance is a confession of our complicity, of how we have built identity through rivalry, exclusion, and the rejection of our neighbor. The way into the universal body of Christ, the new humanity, is to receive forgiveness from the one who laid down his life for us, all our neighbors, and the whole world. And when we see this, we realize something deeper: because of Jesus’s willing sacrifice, we are given a new way to be human, a new sense of self rooted not in hostility or fear, but grace. We belong, because we are forgiven. And now we are free to live and love without needing a scapegoat.

The Intelligence of the Victim

As we remember the cross this Good Friday, let us reflect not only on what Jesus endured but also on what he exposed.

He didn’t just die for us. He died as one of the scapegoats.
He was the innocent one expelled so that we could be welcomed.
He unmasked the Powers so we could resist them.

And in the case of Abrego Garcia and others like him, we are being invited to choose:
Will we align with the machinery of scapegoating?
Will we support the Powers, or will we stand with the people?

Let’s be clear: Garcia may not be innocent in the way we often use that word. Human beings are complex. None of us is without fault. But scapegoating doesn’t require innocence; it requires vulnerability. Garcia was denied due process and expelled by a government seeking to make an example of him. And the process won’t end with him.

Others are being expelled without due process, detained without recourse, and cast aside in the name of national security or political optics. This has always been the playbook of dictators: redirect public anxiety onto vulnerable people, consolidate power through fear, and mask failure with spectacle and blame.

The intelligence of the victim helps us see through it. But it only helps us if we use it.

Because if we don’t, mimetic rivalry will escalate. And the apocalypse won’t be God’s wrath poured out on us. It will be our wrath poured out on each other.

But Jesus shows us another way.
A way of repentance, truth-telling, and reconciliation.
A way of belonging not built on exclusion, but grace.
A way of peace that doesn’t require a victim.

May we have the courage to see the truth.
To stop participating in cycles of dehumanization.
To discern the manipulations of the Powers.
And to join Jesus in the costly, liberating work of forming a new humanity.