Stations of the Cross
The Stations of the Cross didn’t play much
part in my Protestant upbringing. I remember some hair-raising
sermons on the crucifixion itself, but I don’t remember spending
much time on the stages of the journey from the trial to the
tomb, which is what the Stations are all about.
A few years ago at St. Paul’s, we walked the Stations of the
Cross each Friday afternoon during Lent, a practice that
culminated on Good Friday with a service in which parishioners
and clergy shared personal meditations for each of the stations.
Those services were my first close-up experience with the
Stations of the Cross, and I enjoyed the encounter.
Some of the Stations are legends that didn’t quite make it into
scripture. In a way, that helped me relate to them as a whole. I
could see the Stations as a composite story – a step-by-step
enactment, from many sources, of the soul’s descent into
darkness.
In some of the Stations, I recognized experiences I’d had when
my own soul was headed downward. Maybe a stranger stepped
forward and offered an unexpected hand. Maybe a friend gave
comfort. Or maybe someone took advantage of my situation,
casting lots for what I left behind. In every case, those who
loved me most couldn’t do much more than stand to one side and
mourn.
In the darkest moments of my soul, I might have experienced this
Station, or that Station of the cross. Perhaps the simplest and
most powerful message I got from those Friday night services was
that Christ experiences them all.
The story is fearful. It’s painful. And the Stations of the
Cross take their time with it; there’s no rush to the terrible
finish. After passing through all the stages of the journey, we
end at the tomb. Once I’d participated in the service a few
times, this ending produced in me a strange kind of tension. The
tension came from the awareness that, even though this
particular story was over, I knew very well that it lived inside
a much larger story, and that something new, something utterly
astonishing, soon would emerge from the dark.
A Meditation for the Third Station – Jesus Falls the First
Time
Surely he has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows.
-- Isaiah 53:4.
I once spent a week at a St. Andrew's Abbey, a Benedictine
monastery in the Mojave desert. The monastery's buildings are
clustered at the base of a rocky hill dotted with junipers,
Joshua trees, and rabbitbrush. Up and down the side of the hill,
the monks had cut a path, and along the path they placed
near-life-size renditions of the Stations of the Cross, creating
their own Via Dolorosa in the desert.
During my weeklong retreat, I walked those stations every day,
sometimes twice a day. I walked in dry heat, always on an
incline, breathing dust and stepping over rocks.
At the first station, Jesus is condemned to death. At the
second, he takes up his cross. At the third, he falls.
Climbing from station to station on the monastery’s hill, a way
more like the one Jesus would have walked than any I'd been on
before, I could see why he might fall just after taking up his
cross. He picks up his cross, he takes a step, and then he
falls. On a rocky path.
Near the third station, this question came to me: When I take up
my own true cross, the cross that's made for me and no one else,
is a fall likely to come soon after? I pick it up, I take a
step, and then I fall. On a rocky path.
Another question followed: Now what? If I do fall, what happens
next?
In the case of Jesus Christ, God's own dear child, he stands up,
his cross still on his back, and he takes another step. He will fall
again and again before it’s finished. He takes another step.
-- Margaret
A Meditation for the Fifth Station – The Cross is Laid on
Simon of Cyrene
According to the Gospels, the authorities compelled Simon of
Cyrene to carry the cross. Simon was seized and the cross laid
on him. So this isn’t about choosing to carry my own cross, and
it isn’t about choosing to help another person carry theirs.
If I identify with Simon, it’s about getting something dumped on
me. About the boss coming and saying, you have to do Liz’s work
today as well as your own, because Liz fell down on the job.
About having my day ruined, because, frankly somebody else is
not carrying their load.
And as long as I identify with Simon, it’s not too bad. I’m
resentful, maybe. If Liz falls down a lot I might even be
mad. But I get to be the good guy, the strong one. People pat me
on the back and say “Look how hard she’s working, and it isn’t
even her job!”
There are worse feelings.
If I identify with Jesus, I get to feel those worse feelings. To
be the one who fell. The one whose life gets too complicated,
and for a little while I just can’t do it, can’t carry my load.
Somebody else is suddenly seized and compelled to carry my
stuff. Maybe someone I love and don’t want to burden. Or maybe
someone I would never, ever ask a favor if I could help it.
Or maybe just some poor innocent bystander.
Knowing that my cross is being carried, unwillingly, by someone
else, could be the heaviest burden of a heavy day. The gratitude
wrenched out of me might make me resent that other person until
the end of time.
Did Jesus forgive Simon for carrying his cross for him? Being
Jesus, he probably did, and loved him too. Can I forgive the
person who might someday be compelled, unwillingly, to carry my
cross for me?
Can I forgive myself for my weakness, and others for their
strength?
-- Margaret
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