Roger is born again in the Holy Spirit!

I owned a business just across the parking lot and cemetery next to the church where we worshiped each Sunday. It is the church where our daughter was baptized and where I read scripture and ministered communion to shut-ins.

I made the short pilgrimage down the sidewalk to the Good Friday Stations of the Cross service at noon. We are well familiar with the scriptures read each Holy Week in most every church. I chose to worship during my regular lunchtime.

I’m not certain if today’s text is the same or just similar. (I have linked it to its source above & only offer it here in part.) May I recommend your prayerful consideration of the entire text.

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As part of their acts of devotion, early Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem retraced the route of Jesus as he carried his cross to his death. Early pilgrimages varied considerably with different starting places and different routes. As the practice developed in the medieval period, the starting point for this journey through the streets of Jerusalem began in the ruins of the Fortress of Antonia that originally housed Pilate’s Judgment Hall, now incorporated into the Ecce Homo Convent. It concluded at the ancient Church of the Holy Sepulcher that marks the traditional site of Golgotha and the tomb of Jesus. By the sixteenth century, the route this pilgrimage took through Jerusalem came to be called the Via Dolorosa, the Way of Sorrow. Along the Way, certain points on the journey (stations) were associated with specific events recounted (or implied) in the Gospel accounts.

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1. Christ condemned to death;
2. the cross is laid upon him;
3. His first fall;
4. He meets His Blessed Mother;
5. Simon of Cyrene is made to bear the cross;
6. Christ’s face is wiped by Veronica;
7. His second fall;
8. He meets the women of Jerusalem;
9. His third fall;
10. He is stripped of His garments;
11. His crucifixion;
12. His death on the cross;
13. His body is taken down from the cross; and
14. He is laid in the tomb.

IF you have never truly considered the pathos and suffering which led up to Christ Jesus’ final crucifixion for our sins, Good Friday is a most appropriate time to consider your sin and repent in all thankfulness and grace.

 Station 1:  Pilate Condemns Jesus to Die

(Matt 27:11-14, 24, 26b)

Speaker: Jesus, I wish you would speak!  I wish you would proclaim who you are.  I wish you would confront the disbelief of the crowds and the arrogant cowardice of the powers that be. Surely someone will speak up for you!  Where are the lepers who were healed?  Where are the blind who can now see?  Where are all the people who ate the bread and fish on the hillside?  Where are those who followed you so easily when they thought you would become King of the Jews? Yet no one speaks.  No voice in the crowd comes to your defense. You stand alone…

I have been alone.  I have been falsely accused, and no one has spoken for me.  I have been treated unfairly by those who could have used their power for better purposes. I can understand some of your feelings as you stand silently before Pilate and watch him proclaim his own innocence as he condemns an innocent man…

Station 2:  Jesus Accepts His Cross

(Matthew 27:27-31)

Carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called The Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha. (John 19:17)

Speaker: Jesus, I cringe at the pain of the thorns. But I am wounded far more deeply at the humiliation and degradation you suffer, that the very thing you came to offer us as a gift becomes a source of ridicule.  The crowds thought of a King in terms of power.  But you came to be the kind of King who shepherds his people, who takes responsibility for their well being, whose principles are faithfulness, justice, and righteousness. And yet, the people are not ready for that kind of King.

I would like to think that I am ready to follow you who offer a Kingdom of peace and love for one another.  But am I?  Am I willing to yield my ideas of what the Kingdom should look like for the role of a servant?  Am I really so willing to give up my human preoccupation with power and control and accept a different kind of crown than I was expecting? …

 Station 3:  Simon Helps Carry the Cross

They compelled a passer-by, who was coming in from the country, to carry his cross; it was Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus. (Mark 15:21)

Jesus, I can only imagine the awful weight of that cross you carry. It is not just the weight of beams of wood that presses down on you. It is also the weight of the burden you carry for those whom you have loved.  You came to offer them life, and yet they return only death.

So I see you fall from the crushing weight of pain and grief.  I don’t know how many times you have fallen.  But I know that your physical strength is failing.  The soldiers must recognize this as well, because they force a man from the crowd to help you carry the cross the rest of the way to the place where you will be crucified.  Perhaps they are afraid that you will die before you make it to the top of the hill. The man of Cyrene was just a bystander passing through on his way into town from the countryside.  And yet he bears the weight of the cross to save your strength.

I would like to think that if I had been there I would have rushed from the crowd and volunteered to carry that cross for you.  But would I have had the courage to face the Roman soldiers and risk being forced to join you on a cross?  Would I have really been so eager to share your cross if it meant that I might have to die on one as well?  Would I have been willing to risk everything to ease your suffering for a few moments by letting you know that you were not alone?

Besides, I have my own crosses already.  I have as much as I can bear without taking on the added burdens of others. And what would people think of me if I were seen consorting with criminals and enemies of Rome in such a public spectacle?  So instead of offering to help, I tried to become invisible in the crowd…

Station 4:  Jesus Speaks to the Women

 (Luke 23:27-31)

Jesus, as you struggle along the road toward that awful place of death, you see a group of women among the crowd following you, already grieving at your impending death.  You have heard this wailing many times before at funerals and tragic events.  But now, they mourn for you.

You have always shown equal compassion to women you have encountered across the years.  You have always seemed to understand the unique burdens that women bear in a world and a culture that pushes them to the margins of society. So here, as you bear the most unimaginable pain of body and heart, you stop to speak to them. You are about to die, and yet you are more concerned with others than with your own suffering and death.

But your words are strange and seem out of place on this road of sorrow. They have a prophetic ring to them as if you were still trying to tell people something important that they cannot quite grasp, or that perhaps they do not really want to hear.  You speak of even darker days, of far worse things to come upon the people.  Yet, how can things get worse? …

Station 5:  Jesus Is Stripped of His Garments

(John 19:23-25a)

Jesus, I want to follow you on this journey. But I cannot watch this. I must turn away as you are humiliated.

You came into this world amid celebration and anticipation…

They wanted to make you king! Just a few days ago the crowds followed you in the streets of Jerusalem singing praises to God: “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! ”

Yet now, you are forced to suffer the worst of human indignity. You stand alone as the soldiers strip from you the last thing that you possess, and play games to see who will claim it…

Are you still trying to teach us something about what it means to serve others?  Is your surrender to such degradation a model for how we are to live in the world as your followers?

I don’t like such an idea. I would rather walk with you into Jerusalem with the praise of the people ringing in my ears than to risk such humiliation. I want to follow you!  But is this really what it means to be a follower, that I must lay aside everything and risk this kind of degradation?

And yet, that is exactly what you are doing…

Station 6:  Jesus Is Nailed to the Cross

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Our small group of worshipers had now stood at each of the stations along the right side of our small church. We had prayed and considered each as the group slowly processed to Station 6 near the front of the sanctuary. At the words of the following scripture the Holy Spirit pressed me to my knees. I could no longer stand.

Now I am not a weak man or prone to fainting; yet in this moment of weakness beneath the Cross of Christ, I would have fallen to the floor had I not grabbed hold of the pew beside me and then sunk into the humility of worship.

I could not walk further after this station, either, until near the end of the worship. I testify as God is my witness of a powerful moving of the Holy Spirit through our church in weeks to come which slayed many in the Spirit and also attracted false worshipers before the Spirit moved on to other believers in places known only to the Lord.

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And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh; but he did not take it. And they crucified him, and divided his clothes among them, casting lots to decide what each should take. It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him. The inscription of the charge against him read, “The King of the Jews.”

And with him they crucified two bandits, one on his right and one on his left. Those who passed by derided him, shaking their heads and saying, “Aha! You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross!”  In the same way the chief priests, along with the scribes, were also mocking him among themselves and saying, “He saved others; he cannot save himself. Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down from the cross now, so that we may see and believe.” Those who were crucified with him also taunted him. (Mark 15:23-32)

Jesus, I do not want to see this.  Yet I force myself to watch.

I hear the sharp crack of hammer against nail and shudder.

It sounds so final. Is it over?  Did all those wonderful lessons you taught by the seaside mean anything? You spoke of being a light to the world, but it seems that darkness is winning…

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From my knees in a pew behind those standing I wept for Jesus and for my sins.

Lord forgive us. 

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Station 7:  Jesus Cares for His Mother

(John 19:25b-27)

Station 8:  Jesus Dies on the Cross

(Mark 15:33-39)

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Link to original complete post: http://www.crivoice.org/stations.html#top

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Jesus once asked a man,

“Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.” – Mark 10:18 & Luke 18:19

I had never understood this. I thought I had always been a pretty good Christian.

Beloved friend, that is NOT good enough. You and I can never be anything but sinners!

Only then, humbled by the cross, did I lose my burden of sin by the love and grace of the sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ our Lord on the Cross of our Redemption. Only in that moment was I born not only in the water of baptism, but also born again in the Spirit of the Holy and Living God!

Praise to our Lord Jesus Christ!

O beloved, will you not consider how great the Sacrifice for your daily sin?

Dear friend, will you humble your soul He does love (as do I) in the great hope of the resurrection we have only in Christ Jesus?

For Jesus Christ was also nailed to the Cross for you.

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