Stations Of The Cross 2023

You can be seated.

I just wanted to offer a little bit that's not on the script first, and then invite you to do the stations.

You don't have to physically move, although you're more than welcome to.

The way we'll do it is the cross will come with us, we'll walk the stations, and then afterward we'll exchange peace and uh we'll have we'll have the Eucharist together and then stay and pray as you like, or we'll send you forward.

But um I did want to tell you a bit about the stations because not everybody knows that they were completely made up.

They were made up during the Crusader period when crusaders came from Europe to Jerusalem.

And what they realized was that there were these traditional stations that allowed them not to retell the story historically, because some of the stations are not, they don't show up in the Bible, but rather are a contemplative journey so that we can join Christ in his journey.

And hopefully what you'll find tonight is we get to imagine how that journey still speaks to us and how we continue to journey as individuals and socially and as God's people, not toward suffering, but toward resurrection.

So I hope that there is power in this for you.

If you've been to Jerusalem, the Via Dola Rosa is like a mile and a half long.

That's not original.

Original, it would have been about a hundred yards long from the place of judgment to the city gate, but um, because of all of the building that's happened, it's rather sinuous to go around these apartments and communities, hence, a hundred yards has turned into a mile and a half.

So the goal of the stations is not to feel guilty.

The goal is not to tell a factual story, the goal is to resonate with the journey of Christ then and now, and to identify, frankly, how each station speaks to where we are as individuals and as the world.

So I hope I hope this journey will speak to you, and I hope these prayers, as we claim how Christ continues, frankly, to suffer in the world today that we live in, are also a call for us to be mindful as God's people and how we can help one another.

So with no further ado, we'll start here.

I'll read this and then we'll go to station one.

And you don't have to, again, you don't have to join us on your feet.

You're welcome to at any point sit if you'd like.

This is not a journey of physical suffering, it's a journey in which we identify with the Lord.

As we accompany Jesus on his journey to Calvary, let us take a moment to remember how difficult that journey was.

He carried his cross through the narrow, crowded streets of Jerusalem.

It was Passover time, and so the city was full of people, many of whom mocked, jostled, and took pleasure in watching as Jesus struggled with his heavy burden.

The way was often steep.

The journey that Jesus made on that day remains a symbol of Christianity in the world as it struggles with its own crosses and failures and the challenges of modern life.

The streets in our towns are filled with people who carry their personal crosses.

We are as well.

People who are battered and broken.

And through these stations of the cross, Jesus is inviting us to journey with him and to reflect on his suffering as it continues in the lives of his people.

In solidarity with all who suffer, let us pray that we will be open to whatever he wants us to see, to hear, and understand as we make this journey with him tonight.

Station one.

Death on a cross.

We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

Jesus is condemned unjustly by those who did not understand him, and by those who were frightened of what he did and said.

Perhaps they sense that this man can make a difference, that he could turn their world upside down.

And we continue to condemn people unjustly today.

People are condemned because of the color of their skin, their gender, their beliefs, because they are born with a disability.

Because they don't conform to the quote-unquote normal way of thinking.

The list is endless.

There are also people who have been justly condemned, who have been found guilty, serve their sentence and ask for forgiveness.

Does our society, do we, really forgive?

Do we really believe people can change?

Or do we continue to condemn them over and over again?

Let us pray.

Jesus, what a terrible injustice to see you condemned to death.

Your own people, the Roman judges and the soldiers, didn't recognize that you were the Son of God.

Give us grace to see, respect, and love you in all people, both innocent and guilty.

Change our hearts that we may see with new eyes those we might otherwise condemn.

A word before we proceed that an Ariel craftsman and blacksmith made these just last week.

He spent three months forging these nails by hand and has adapted them into Roman numerals to identify each station.

This particular one obviously is cloth, and we're moving to mixed media stations throughout, mainly because there are mixed crosses that we bear.

So each one is its own, and some will speak to you and some won't, and that is why there are fourteen of them.

Station two.

Jesus takes up his cross.

Jesus was led away carrying the cross by himself.

A cross is not just a piece of wood, it is everything that makes life difficult.

Jesus carried the crosses of his life without complaint as both a poor person and an itinerant prophet.

In the calm and courageous way, he put up with the threats of the Pharisees, the lack of the understanding of his own disciples.

In that way he carried all the burdens of his life, but in particular the way in which he carries this awful final burden, he transforms the cross from a symbol of condemnation into one of liberation.

We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

There are burdens that we each carry.

Some are very obvious, and others we take great care to hide.

There are burdens of illness, pain, and disability, of old age, dependence, and caring for someone who no longer knows who we are.

There are burdens of constant fear, of loneliness and isolation.

The invitation on the cross is to hand over the burdens to Him.

Let us pray.

May we see your presence, Lord, in all the burdens we carry today.

Help us to share our burdens more freely, not to be afraid to acknowledge our fears and our pain.

May we be more aware of the crosses that others bear and make time to alleviate their burden.

May your face shine on each one of us through the crosses we bear.

Amen.

It's worth pausing to see that in Christian art it's theological symbology, not historical.

So crosses were not shaped like the letter T.

The condemned carried only the crossbar.

They were led to a post that was already in the ground, and the crossbar was lifted into a slot that was five feet off the ground.

Jesus didn't carry a railroad tie or five hundred pounds.

He carried a two by four, and yet it was the burden of his death that weighed upon him, not the burden of the weight of the wood.

Station three.

Jesus falls for the first time.

Jesus falls.

Here Jesus shows that being heroic does not mean staying on one's feet at all costs.

Being heroic means getting up again after falling and starting off on the road chosen.

Human beings will never resign themselves to stay flat on the ground like Jesus.

They will get up again, pick up their crosses, and keep on searching for a promised land of total liberation.

We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

Look at Jesus fall under his cross.

He might have fallen into the gutter or be slouched into a doorway on Skid Row.

He doesn't look much like God there, but he didn't look like God when he fell into the dirt on the way to Calvary either.

The crowds look on with disdain at this man whom they see as a sinner who has been condemned to death by the authorities.

Like the crowd, we often have only condemnation and rejection for those we see as sinners.

We judge them without knowing about their trials, scourging and crowning them with thorns.

Do we even suspect the part we might have played in knocking them down?

What will we do to help them?

Let us pray.

Jesus, it's easy to see your image in the saints.

Help us to see you and the sinners too.

You had a place in your heart for the divorced Samaritan woman, Zacchaeus, the good thief, and for those who crucified you.

Give us this same compassionate heart.

Amen.

Station four.

Jesus meets his mother.

When Jesus and his mother meet, they just look at each other.

Words cannot express how they feel.

What he saw in his mother's eyes must have hurt him more than the raw pain of his own wounds.

This for Jesus is the most painful time of all.

This is his bereavement.

We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

Jesus carries the heaviest burden of the loss of his family.

The sundering of the earthly loving relationship between mother and child.

This was not of his making.

Violence inflicted upon him etched into the very heart of his mother as she watched the agony of her son.

We see Mary's pain in the mothers and fathers who watch their children giving up their lives to drugs, addictions, and suicide.

In the women and men who suffer violence and the ongoing threat of violence in their home from spouse or child.

We see Mary's pain in the child coping with the breakdown of a parent's marriage, in the couple trying desperately to rebuild their relationship and family anew.

Let us pray.

Jesus, we remember the gaze that rested between you and your mother.

In that moment of pain, there was also a moment of deep and enduring love.

Jesus, give us the courage to bring that love into the deepest restes of our homes, to our children and to our spouses, to those places of fracture and disharmony in our circle of relationships.

Amen.

A word before station five.

If you return to station four, you'll find various verses of scripture encoded in the art itself, so written in the same color, but only visible as you get close.

Is to depict with words and images at the same time.

Station five.

Simon helps Jesus.

Simon of Cyrene, a stranger in the city, did not know Jesus, but that did not matter.

What matters here is that in this moment of need, Simon was capable of lending his shoulders to one whose own had given out, of offering his strength to one who had nothing left, of taking on himself the cross, which Jesus could no longer carry.

We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

Look at Jesus who lies hidden and unknown beneath every person in need.

Across our world we see human suffering in the faces of strangers, in the faces of those struggling for democracy in the Middle East and beyond, in the faces of those dealing with the loss of life and destruction of property.

People we know of but do not know must live with the aftermath of the ravages and destructive forces of nature, coping with floods and drought, with the devastating effects of climate change, with hurricanes and earthquakes.

Let us pray.

Lord, help us to grasp our opportunities to be a Simon in our world.

In those times when we can help, let us have the generosity to do so.

May we continue the spirit of Simon through our support of agencies such as Lord of the Streets, Episcopal Relief and Development, and all who work to alleviate suffering in our world.

Lord, may we have the humility to accept all the Simons along our road who reach out to help us in our moments of need.

Amen.

Station six.

Veronica wipes the face of Jesus.

And if you're familiar with the legend, the Russian Orthodox Church and the Georgian and Ukrainian Orthodox Church hold that his face held to the cloth.

You can see this in Tbilisi in Georgia, a face embedded in a cloth.

It's not the shroud of Turin, that comes later, it's the face in a cloth.

So goes the tradition.

Veronica was so moved by the sight of Jesus suffering that she courageously moved out from the crowd to wipe the blood and sweat from his face with a towel.

She was rewarded when the image of his face was transferred to the towel.

It is a suffering face, disfigured with wounds, yet this is the only image of himself that Jesus chose to leave with us.

We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

Today the visible face of Christ, the church, stands before us, still wounded and disfigured, disfigured by its own sins of abuse of children and power, increased with the wounds of hurt and betrayal.

Bearing the scars of the Murphy and Ryan reports, among others, the face of Christ calls us to look upon and heal the sins of our church.

Let us pray.

Jesus, give your wounded church the courage of Veronica, so that we may wash the face of Christ clean from the disfigurements of our sin.

Help us to bring healing to the scars that hide the beauty of your face to our world.

Give us the faith to continue to build your church as a visible sign of your love and compassion.

Amen.

Station 7.

Jesus falls for the second time.

Stretched to his breaking point by his awful scourging, bowed under the weight of the cross.

Worn out by the abandonment of all his friends, Jesus stumbles again.

We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you.

Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

All around us our over people are overburdened by the crosses they carry.

They struggle and sometimes fall.

There are those who have lost their jobs and feel they have little hope of finding another.

Those who live with the prospect of unemployment, those who struggle to keep others in work.

There are those who suffer because of failures in our financial, health, and political systems.

Jesus is with each one of us, however we fall, and precisely there he chooses to love and save us.

Let us pray.

Jesus, from deep within yourself, you found the courage and strength to get up once again and continue the journey.

Give us your strength to keep going, even when hope is dim.

Amen.

Station 8, Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem.

The women of Jerusalem wept when they saw how Jesus suffered.

Jesus recognized their distress.

He broke his silence for the first time, spoke to them, and said, Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me.

Weep for yourselves and for your children.

We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you.

Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

Look at Jesus and listen to his message for us today.

Weep for the children who are abused.

Weep for the women who are victimized.

Weep for men and women who suffer from the tyranny of today's body image that controls their lives and prevents them from feeling lovable.

Weep for the young who cannot find a job or a way in life.

Weep for the old who are forgotten.

Weep for people who starve in the shadow of abundance.

Weep for people who are homeless in exile or seeking refuge.

Weep for them.

Let us pray.

Lord, open our hearts to the suffering of all people in our world.

Give us the generosity of spirit to help us recognize their pain, the courage to challenge the systems that place intolerable burdens on them, and the compassion to support them.

Amen.

Station nine.

Jesus falls for a third time.

Jesus falls for a third time, broken and exhausted, physically and emotionally.

Lying on the ground, Jesus must decide.

Does he get up once more or does he just stop and give up?

We see him rise again, and with all his power, he continues on his journey.

Jesus shows us that we can go on even if nobody else thinks that it is possible.

We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you because By your holy cross, you have redeemed the world.

Many in our world today feel that they are at that moment of final falling, that their burden is too much to carry.

They cannot bear anymore.

Crushed by the weight of their own cross, they feel unable to get up, unable to go on.

Some may look for relief and addiction.

Some may look to escape through suicide.

In Jesus, we can find our hope and our encouragement.

The third fall of Jesus reminds us that even in our moment of complete helplessness or our experiences of depression in our own Calvary, we can't stand up again.

Jesus is with us, and Jesus would be our strength.

Let us pray.

Lord, we pray that when our strength fails, when our hope fades, and when our spirit grows weary, that we will put our unbounded trust in you.

In turn, may we bring your love in a word or action of comfort to another in their moment of meaningless depression or despair.

Amen.

Jesus is stripped of his clothing.

The clothes were writ from Jesus, he was stripped of his dignity in front of an irreverent mob.

Jesus sacrifices everything.

He holds nothing of himself back here, on the threshold of death, even more intensely than during his lifetime.

He is a being for others.

He surrenders everything in order to ransom all.

We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

Look at Jesus and the absolute indignity inflicted upon him by society.

Jesus continues to be stripped of his dignity in those who have had their good name taken from them and the intimate details of their lives exposed through the media.

Society takes on the role of judge and jury as we curiously devour the details.

Jesus is stripped again when men, women, and children are portrayed as objects in a pornographic manner in magazines, DVDs, on television, and the internet.

Let us pray.

Forgive us, Lord, for being an irreverent mob prying into people's lives.

Forgive us for being consumers of gossip under the name of news.

Let us never expose anyone.

May we respect the dignity of others and leave judgment to God.

Let us see the good in those around us, and so enable them to reach their full potential.

Amen.

Jesus is nailed to the cross.

Huge iron nails are hammered through his wrists and through his ankles.

Iron through human flesh.

The flesh must yield.

There is no defense.

Jesus, nailed to the cross, cannot move.

The hand that has wiped blindness from the eyes, the hand that opened the seal of deafness, the hand that touched a heart and cured a leper, the hand that blessed children and those with a disability.

The carpenter's hand is joined to the wood again.

As the cross is put in place, he hangs there between us and God, a bloodstained victim for love.

We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

Jesus continues to be crucified in the ten children who die every minute of hunger in our world.

He is crucified in all who are maimed, damaged, and displaced because of war.

He is crucified in all who are marginalized in our society because of their race, sexuality, and gender.

He is crucified in the 22 veterans that take their own lives every day.

He is crucified in those who are abused physically, sexually, or emotionally.

He is crucified in those who are trafficked across the world.

He is crucified in the exploitation of the earth and its resources.

Let us pray.

Jesus, we pray on behalf of those who cannot reach out to you at this moment.

We pray for all victims of violence, those who suffer it and those who inflict it.

We pray especially for children, for the elderly and those too vulnerable to defend themselves.

May victims of cruelty and oppression know that you are always with them.

Amen.

Jesus dies on the cross.

As the life of Jesus ebbs away, his words are not of condemnation or of pity for himself, but of forgiveness.

Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.

In the midst of his anguish and suffering, Jesus calls upon his Father to forgive those who are putting him to death.

This is the real challenge of the cross.

Forgiveness even of those who hurt us most.

We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

There is much to seek forgiveness for in our world today.

Hunger, poverty, violence, abuse, war, neglect, corruption.

The list seems endless.

Each one of us praying these stations could continue the list on our own behalf, and indeed on behalf of those who have hurt us.

As Jesus dies on Calvary, he challenges us to love our enemies, to let go of hurt, to ask for forgiveness, and when we cannot find it in our hearts to forgive, to ask God to do it for us.

Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

Let us pray.

Let us stand with those who watched and prayed in silence while Jesus breathed his last.

As we cannot measure love, so we cannot dilute this ultimate act of love and forgiveness with words.

Let our love stand the silence.

Lord, let our love and forgiveness speak your praise.

Amen.

So that Jesus was crucified over the skull of the first man to bring life for all humankind.

Station 13, Jesus is taken down from the cross.

Now Mary takes the broken body of her son in her arms.

In her grief, she remembers the words of her son over the bread.

And over the wine, this is my blood poured out for you.

She remembers that little baby in Bethlehem, worshipped by shepherds and kings.

She remembers the days when the crowds followed him, and she is full of sorrow.

We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

Mary's grief is our grief too.

As Mary cradles the lifeless body of her son and offers him back to the Father, she stands with all parents who have held their children close to them in death.

Those lost through accidents or acts of violence.

Those who have died by suicide, those who have died suddenly or after illness.

Mary grieves with all who sorrow for loved ones, parents, siblings, family members, friends.

Let us pray.

Help us, Lord, to accept the partings that must come.

Help us to offer our loved ones back to you as Mary offered her son.

Faced with the silence of death, let us not despair but find hope.

May the finality of death not oppress us.

Help us to trust in you, the Lord of the living and the dead.

Amen.

And this particular station is a granite slab on the ground where the dead Jesus' body was laid.

And Betty and Kathy were there in Jerusalem in 2017 when we went.

And there were women from all over the world visibly weeping and anointing this stone with oil that they'd brought from their home churches for up to an hour weeping and anointing this stone.

Extremely, extremely moving.

Station 14, Jesus is laid in the tomb.

That night his body lay in the dark earth of the world, a seed dying in the winter of all spirits.

All those who had loved him felt emptied and exhausted.

There seemed no longer any sense or purpose in anything.

But at least no more harm could come to him.

They closed the tomb and they left.

We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

There are times when we are overcome by the darkness of the tomb, by the countless deaths we experience each day.

But the answer to all our grieving and despair lies in this place.

This world is now the tabernacle of God.

The grain of wheat sown in darkness and in death has indeed yielded a rich harvest.

Our presence here gives witness to that.

Jesus' death was not in vain.

Let us pray.

Jesus, each day you put before us life or death, help us always to choose life.

We pray for all those who have known, who have died, and for those who have no one to pray for them.

We ask for the gift of faith when we are faced with the darkness of the tomb, and our own death approaches.

May we have eyes to see the promise of new life that the darkness can hold.

Amen.

I'm going to invite you to the first couple of pews, if you don't mind.

I know that's very unepiscopalian of me to ask you to sit in the front.

I wanted to share one more story from the day and then invite us, after a difficult journey, to receive nourishment in our spirits, from the Lord's table.

And what I wanted to share with you that's not in the script is that today is Tuesday, and Tuesday is the day in which Judas decides to betray Jesus.

And because most of you probably haven't had this experience, I wanted to let you know what nard smells like.

A woman comes to Jesus and pours nard on his head.

It's a year's worth of wages.

I don't know what you make in a year, but imagine this is$50,000,$100,000,$200,000.

And once it's poured out, it is worth nothing.

She has converted wealth into nothing.

She gave him something he didn't need.

Nobody needs to smell like$100,000.

Judas complains.

You could have sold that.

You could have helped somebody who was in need instead of giving to somebody something that they didn't need.

This is one of Jesus' best friends.

Judas has traveled with him for two, three years.

Jesus rebukes him.

He says, The poor you will always have with you.

He's actually quoting Deuteronomy, which reads, The poor you will always have with you because your hand is closed, because you are tight-fisted.

A little bit of cognitive dissonance.

But it is a reminder on a day like today that I often give gifts to people and say, especially if it's a can of Vienna sausages that I would never eat myself, if you're really hungry, you'll eat it.

I would not eat them.

But I expect you to, and I want you to be grateful for something you didn't want.

Jesus says that's why there'll be poverty in the land.

Because my hand is closed.

I am not generous when I recognize need.

I'm afraid he's right.

Scary.

This is what makes Judas betray Jesus.

Because he was rebuked for judging a gift somebody else gave.

Maybe we're not called to give$100,000 worth of perfume to a homeless person.

We are certainly not called to judge someone who decides to.

So I want you to smell what betrayal smells like.

It's so strong that years after having used it, it's still in here.

This is resin from a tree that only grew in Tibet at the time.

Ten thousand miles away.

Steep uphill.

Very floral.

Smells like my grandmother.

You may not be willing to work a year to smell like this for a day.

But I hope an honest one.

In a way in which I think hopefully our lives and the world continue to resonate with Christ's own difficult journey as we hope for redemption and reconciliation, which we're invited to participate in.

Knowing that God can do more than we can ask or imagine, I'm going to invite you to stand up and share peace with one another, and then we'll gather around the Lord's table or in your pews to offer nourishment for the crosses we carry and the crosses we recognize in one another.

So the peace of the Lord be always with you.

The prayer book has write one and write two, and this is right quick.

Or you may sit or stand wherever you like as as your piety commits to you.

And we'll begin on page seven with the great Thanksgiving.

Lift up your hearts.

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.

Set them apart by your Holy Spirit to be for us the body and blood of Jesus.

You the On the night Jesus was betrayed, he took bread, said the blessing, broke the bread, and said, Take, eat.

This is my body, all that I am, which is given to build you up.

Remember me every time you eat bread.

After supper, Jesus took the cup of wine, gave thanks to God, and said, Drink this, all of you.

This is my blood, my life force, given to nourish your own.

Remember me every time you drink wine.

So with this holy bread and wine, we remember his sacrifice and proclaim his resurrection until he comes again.

God gather us all together and make us living examples of Jesus.

All this we ask in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

As our Savior Christ has taught us, we are bold to pray.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever.

Amen.

Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.

Therefore, let us keep the feasts.

These are the gifts of God for you, the family of God.

Feed on them in your hearts by faith and with thanksgiving.

Our family, our friends, our church and our school.

Let us thank God for feeding us.

Thank you, gracious Lord, for this holy time and holy meal.

Thank you for this new day.

Thank you for our family, our friends, our church, and our school.

Now send us into the world in peace, that we may love and serve you with gladness and joy through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the stations of the cross and of the world.

All things break, and all things, God willing, can be mended.

Not with time, as they say, but with intention.

So go.

Love intentionally, unconditionally, extravagantly.

The broken world waits in darkness for the light that is you.

And the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit be with you this day and remain with you always.

Amen.

Grow God's love in all the gardens of your world.

Thanks be to God.

Thank you for adjoining the stations tonight.

I can collect your books if you like.

Reminder that we'll be back on Thursday for hand or footwashing at 545 in a fish hall.

And then for the Monday third Thursday afternoon.