Stations of the Cross

Following Jesus is supposed to look like freedom. It often does not. We are bound by religious strictures, ordinances, laws, the expected judgement from our backup clique of like-minded thinkers who applaud when we do something their Jesus would do, but throw us into the dirt when we do something Jesus would actually do.

            Over time, we have become mirror images to the Pharisees—the very people Jesus called out and yelled at. We laugh and make jokes about being a Pharisee without recognizing the depth of who we ourselves have become—Pharisees.

            The Pharisees knew who they were—they knew they were teachers and leaders and knew the Torah and they had apparent authority to say and do what they wanted (according to the Law of Moses, of course). They liked who they were.

            I know I am a junior attending university (my, does it often feel nice to be an upperclassman). I know I have a 3.something GPA. I know I am a writer. I know I am a student leader on campus (for university ministries, no less). I know I have completed the rough draft writing of three books. I know, I know, I know. And I often like who I am.

Yet, when do I recognize my inability to do it all? When do I admit that even with all of these components, I am really actually quite empty? When do I recognize I don’t have it all together? When do I fall to my knees and proclaim before the throne of God “I am a sinner!” and know, deep in my heart, that it is true? When do I admit I am not all that I puff myself up to be and that before Jesus I am, like he once was, bare, stripped, vulnerable, dirty, and broken?

A few months ago I had a fantastic opportunity in my 9:30 class. We were going to take part in a Stations of the Cross exercise. I was asked to help facilitate this with a friend and we got things started.

            Prior to this specific morning, the only experience and knowledge I had of Stations was from the book we were reading that had each station listed and prayers and stories for each station written with breathtaking imagery that often brought me to tears as I read and felt as if I was watching Jesus and experiencing His suffering with Him. Before that week, I had never heard of Stations of the Cross. Before that day, I had never taken part in a Way of the Cross exercise.

            I know some people were and are dubious of such exercises due to its primary sourcing being of Catholic tradition, as well as incorporating many elements that do stem from said Catholic tradition. However factual or not some of these items are, I do not know, but I do know they spoke truths about Jesus and we should not discount everything that looks different than the predominantly white, often very Baptist, American background many of us have grown up in and still remain.

            There were fourteen stations, each one taking us on the journey Jesus took from Pilate’s house to His burial. Each had a prayer, a story, a meditation, and a line of commonality that kept everything together. It was something like: “We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world. Amen” (Jones, The Sacred Way).

            Although I do not claim to be a Catholic, I do claim to be one who is trying her best to follow Jesus Christ through the ups and downs of life and touch, at the bare minimum, the hem of his robe.

            Yet I have learned He offers us so much more than the hem of His robe. Walking the Way of the Cross has enabled me to see and understand the freedom we have in Christ in a much clearer way.

            It enabled me to see the beauty of his willingness to sacrifice and put on humanity and humility and walk in our shoes. He was a human. He felt the things we felt and dealt with things we deal with on an everyday basis. He entered into our suffering not only in his thirty-three years of life, but in those hours that led up to His death.

            It enabled me to see the importance of relationships to Him. He brought in the women, the outcast, the slave, the sick, the sinner, the gentile, the children. At one station we were brought to think about the women and children who had been touched by Jesus and a beautiful image came to my mind. I imagined little children running around and being reprimanded by religious leaders, told to be quiet and listen, and told to play somewhere else because they were being a bother. Then Jesus. I saw Jesus come in and run with the children and talk with them and listen to their stories and give them the attention they so craved from adults in their life. Jesus did not reprimand the children, but he partook in their silly games and loved them and truly saw them for who they were. He was intentional in his time with them, just like he is with us. Oh, that we could be like children and run into his arms when he says come.

            It enabled me to see the love Jesus and his mother had for each other, as well as the understanding between them that they had to let go and pursue the plan and will of the One who had chosen this for them.

            It enabled me to see and feel the weight of his sacrifice as we stopped at the stations that stood for each of the three times he fell under the weight of the cross. The weight he carried was all of my sin, and the world’s, yet this weight did not stop him from continuing on the path that did, eventually, lead to his death out of the great love he had for us.

            It enabled me to see how time and time again, His Love for me (and the world) is so much greater than any love I have within my own self for even those who are close to me. How much more do I wish to love like He!

“Whenever, though, they turn to face God as Moses did, God removes the veil and there they are—face-to-face! They suddenly recognize that God is a living, personal presence, not a piece of chiseled stone. And when God is personally present, a living Spirit, that old, constricting legislation is recognized as obsolete. We’re free of it! All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him.” (2 Corinthians 3:16-18, MSG)