Today, Trafalgar Square echoes with the noise of crucifixion. It is filled with the shouts of a crowd, the brutal orders of a centurion, the hammering of nails and the cries of a death agony. Yes, the Passion and death of Christ is being played out there by actors from Wintershall. It is dramatic, colourful and deeply moving.

The images from Ukraine are no pageant. They show us the stark reality of evil at work in power and ruthlessness, targeting the weak and the innocent in acts which cry to heaven for justice.

In faith, it is impossible to separate these two events. We believe that in his Passion and death, Jesus accepts and absorbs all the evil and violence that broken humanity inflicts on itself. He does so in his nature as divine, for no solely human being could bear such a dreadful load.

He does so on our behalf in his nature as one of us, born in our flesh and blood. The crucified Jesus holds all the destructiveness brought about by sin from Adam to the present day.

In the face of the bloodied woman of Ukraine, in the image of the dead on the railway platform, in the photographs of the bodies of civilians slaughtered in the streets, the eyes of faith see the battered face of Christ, his broken body being carried to the tomb.

As Blaise Pascal said in his Pensées: “Christ will be in agony until the end of the world. We should not sleep during that time.”

Yet there is a moment in the agony of Christ that is not to be forgotten. As death finally comes to take him, the Gospel of John tells us: “After Jesus had taken the vinegar he said: ‘It is accomplished’; and bowing his head, he gave up his spirit” (Jn.19.30). Something is done. Something has been achieved. There is resolution, as at the end of a great piece of music. From that moment the drama changes. The horror is still there, but a calmness descends for already the first glimmer of new light is dawning. It is not now. But it will come in his rising from the dead.

For us that moment is far off. Yet the words creep into our hearts even as we live amid the destructiveness of evil. There is a resolution. There will be an end and it will be full of light and life.

The first pinpricks of that light are to be seen so clearly in this darkness: the utter determination and resolve of those who defend their country and freedom; the best efforts of political leaders to find the pathway of response while avoiding escalation; the outpouring of generosity and compassion to those reduced to the status of refugees; the constant effort of prayer, that bridging all division and uniting so many diverse voices.

In the midst of horror we find something of our true selves, some first signs of the promised accomplishment.

Today we stand at the foot of the Cross, a place for our decision-making. Which way do we turn? We can turn away, believing that the burden of such suffering is too much for us to bear. We can wail and cry in lament, in fine speeches which result in little change of heart.

We can, like the soldiers there on Calvary, play a game or two, indifferent to the events before us. Or we can tentatively reach up and put one hand onto the Cross of Christ, sensing that by doing so we may indeed be infused with a spirit of compassion and perseverance, knowing that in him a far greater design and plan is indeed accomplished.

In his book Dominion, the historian Tom Holland pinpoints the radical nature of the Christian faith: the divinity of Jesus Christ. He explains that to claim divinity for a human was nothing new, particularly to the Roman mind. After all, the Emperor did so. Through prestige and power, the great and the good entered the realms of the divine, becoming the “divine Augustus”.

No, what was radical in Christianity was that one seen to be a criminal, the lowest of the low from Nazareth, was claiming to be one with God and Lord of all.

When this faith is embraced all is changed, for every person, from the least to the greatest, stands equal before God and is to evoke from others respect, protection and support. To this principle there are no exceptions.

The greatest invitation to this faith is held before us today in the image of the crucified. To the people of Ukraine, and to the victims of every violence, we owe our best efforts and our deepest respect, knowing that darkness is not the end even as we stand in its midst.

Cardinal Vincent Nichols is Archbishop of Westminster and President of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales