STATION 1: JESUS IS CONDEMNED TO DEATH In condemning Jesus to the cross, Pilate seeks to damn him as a common criminal that can be easily crushed by the mighty Roman Empire. This Nazarene trouble-maker will be silenced once and for all. In a few years, no one will remember that he ever existed. But all the force of the most powerful nations on earth cannot silence the truth made known in Jesus condemned to the cross:
Instead of becoming a death sentence, Pilate's condemnation opens the door to a truth which leads all who follow the Nazarene to freedom... a freedom that even the mightiest powers of darkness cannot take away. Since that day some 2000 years ago, countless followers of Jesus have been condemned by those who still seek to silence our Lord. There is fear in the eyes of anyone who is condemned...but often there is also conviction, trust, hope, and a deep knowledge of freedom. The eyes of the condemned and of all who follow Jesus to the cross are eyes that see what the world cannot see: the face of a suffering God who calls us far, far beyond our fears into the land of a love that lasts forever.
Jesus condemned to the cross makes known the truth of God's total devotion to God's people. That truth still shines like a beacon, while the superpowers throughout history have all crumbled and fallen into silent decay.
STATION 2: JESUS TAKES UP HIS CROSS
Jesus suffers it all: betrayal, scourging, humiliation, abandonment by his closest friends. He endures it all in silence, speaking no more. He is now a victim, who doesn't act, but is acted upon. Jesus has entered into his passion. Jesus knows that much of human life is passion:
Children are beaten, neglected, and raped; Adolescents are kidnaped, lured into drugs, and murdered by their schoolmates; People are obliterated by bombs and acts of terrorism: they are left homeless and separated from their families.
As the crushing weight of the cross is placed on Jesus' shoulders, he feels the pain of the entire world. As I look at all the pain and injustice in this world, I ache to do something: so I speak out, I take action, I support just causes. I've done these things for years. But these things don't make me a follower of Jesus. To be a follower of Jesus requires an even harder task: I must enter into my own passion; I must pick up my own cross - whatever it may be: The cross of loneliness and isolation of shame and humiliation of betrayal and despair. As long as I agonize over the pain of others but do not carry my own pain, I will not be a follower of Jesus, and there will be no real bond between me and those whom I long to help.
Jesus carried his cross for ALL who suffer. He said "Come unto me all ye that travail and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you." We must each take up our own unique cross and follow him. When we all do that, we will finally discover that we are indeed sisters and brothers who learn from him who is gentle and humble of heart. And it is in this way that a new humanity will be born.
STATION 3: THE CROSS IS LAID ON SIMON OF CYRENE
Jesus is too weak. The cross is too heavy. He needs the help of a stranger to complete his mission. Jesus needs us if he is going to fulfill his purpose. He came to show us the way to his Father's house. But he cannot do it alone. The hard and painful work of salvation is a work in which God becomes dependent on human beings.
Jesus' way is the way of powerlessness, of dependence, of passion. He becomes a waiting God - wondering what others will do with him: Will he be betrayed, or proclaimed? Will be he executed alone and abandoned, or will others follow him? Will he struggle under the weight of the cross alone, or will someone help him carry it? Our culture honors those who pull themselves up by their bootstraps and make it on their own. We are a people whose heroes are rugged individualists. In a society where the self-made person is said to be the ideal, it's very hard to believe that Jesus' model can possibly make any sense: that spiritual maturity is the willingness to acknowledge our dependence on others and to ask for help from someone else. And yet every time we are willing to break out of our false need for self- sufficiency and dare to ask for help, a new community emerges - a fellowship of the weak who are strong in the trust that together we can be a people of hope for a broken world.
STATION 4: JESUS MEETS THE WOMEN OF JERUSALEM Jesus says, "do not weep for me; weep rather for yourselves and for your children." If we are to mourn for Jesus, then we must cry for the suffering humanity that Jesus came to heal. We must mourn for all of the men, women, and children who suffer in our world today.
In our culture, weeping and mourning are often considered to be signs of weakness. People say that crying won't help; it's just a waste of time - a display of self-pity. Crying is something that only women and children do. We need to take action and do something about the suffering in this world. And yet, Jesus wept over Jerusalem, and he wept when he learned that his friend Lazarus had died. Our tears reveal to us the painful human condition of brokenness; they connect us deeply with the inevitability of human suffering; they offer a gentle context for compassionate action.
If we cannot find and cry our own tears, recognizing our own limitations and brokenness, then the actions we take to help others will ultimately backfire and become expressions of arrogance and false piety. If we cannot acknowledge our own weakness, then we will see the people whom we seek to help as pitiful and less than we are. Our tears can lead us to the heart of Jesus who weeps for the world. As we weep with him, we are led to his heart where we discover the most authentic responses to our suffering and the suffering of others. The tears shed by the millions who mourn their dead throughout this world can make our soil rich with the fruits of compassion, forgiveness, gentleness, and healing action. We too must weep, and so become more and more a humble people.
STATION 5: JESUS IS STRIPPED OF HIS GARMENTS
Jesus is stripped. Nothing is left to him. He who is the first-born of all creation, in whom all things were created in heaven and on earth - stands before us stripped of all power and dignity, exposed to the world - completely vulnerable.
Here is the greatest mystery of all time: God chooses to reveal God's divine glory in humiliation and poverty - where all beauty is gone; all eloquence is silenced; all admiration is withdrawn - it is here that God chooses to manifest God's unconditional love for us. The poets and philosophers often describe life as a journey to the mountaintop where we will at last see the full beauty of God's creation, and know the joy of God's peace. But Jesus, stripped and naked, points us in the other direction.
This Jesus calls us to let go of our desires, to let go of success and accomplishments, to give up the need to be in control. The joy and peace that Jesus offers is hidden in the valley of the shadow of death...at a place called Golgotha. It is in this place, where we are stripped bare and naked, that we will discover the immense compassion of God. It is in this place that we will know how to give and forgive, how to care and to heal, how to offer help and create a community of love.
STATION 6: JESUS IS NAILED TO THE CROSS
Jesus lives the agony of his dying completely for others. He's done nothing wrong. He's committed no sin. The excruciating pain in his body, the abandonment of his friends, and even of his God, are all gift - freely given so that death may not have the last word.
As we gaze up at the dying Jesus, we realize that it is only because he was willing to be nailed to a cross that we don't have to live lives of desperation, trying to somehow escape the clutches of death. As his hands stretch out between heaven and earth, Jesus challenges us to look our mortality straight in the face, and trust that death has been defeated. When we can do that, we can comfort the dying and give them hope; we can hold their dying bodies in our arms and trust that mightier arms than ours will receive them and give them the peace and joy they have always longed for. In dying, all of humanity is one. And it is into this dying humanity that our God has freely entered so that we might live.
STATION 7: JESUS DIES ON THE CROSS
Jesus died. He was nailed to a tree, and he died. Yet by dying, Jesus defeats death. In his dying, Jesus opens the way to choice - the choice to live or the choice to die.
The darkness in our hearts that makes us surrender to the power of death, the darkness in our society which makes us victims of violence, war and destruction has been dispelled by the light that shines forth from the One who gave his life as complete gift. It's hard to affirm life in the face of today's world. Every time we open a newspaper and read the stories of war, murder, rape - and countless other tragedies that lead to sickness and death, we are faced with the temptation to believe that after all, death is victorious. And still, time and time again the death of Jesus calls us back from that temptation.
The death of Jesus calls out to us, challenging us to choose life. Do I choose to think about a person with compassion or with resentment? Do I choose to speak a word of acceptance or a word of rejection? Do I choose to forgive or to seek revenge? to reach out or hold back? to share or to hoard? to yield or to cling? to hurt or to heal?
Jesus' death springs open that door in our hearts where God has written God's Law - the Law that calls us to choose life over death, and love over evil.
STATION 8: JESUS IS LAID IN THE TOMB
Of all the days in history, Holy Saturday - that day when the body of Jesus lay in the tomb in silence and darkness behind the stone that sealed its entrance - is the day of God's lonely solitude. No words are spoken, no proclamations are made.
The Word of God through whom all things are made lies buried alone and beyond reach in the darkness of the earth. Holy Saturday is the most silent and the most lonely of all days. Yet it is this seemingly forsaken time of silence that connects the old covenant with the new, the sacrifices of blood with the sacrifice of bread and wine, the Law of the Old Testament with the Gospel of the New Testament. This divine quiet is the most fruitful silence that the world has ever known. For it is from this lonely silence that the Word will be spoken again and all things will be made new.
We have much to learn from God's lonely solitude. It enables us to find that place deep within our own hearts that can endure even as we are surrounded by the forces of death. It offers us the hope that our own, often invisible lives will become fruitful. It is the deeply planted seed of faith that allows us to live on with a peaceful and joyful heart even when things are not getting better, even when painful situations are not resolved, even when war and violence continue to disrupt the rhythm of our daily lives. As Jesus is laid in the tomb, the silent vigil of Holy Saturday begins - and all of creation waits for all things to be made new. <
These meditations are adapted from the writings of Henri Nouwen Walk With Jesus, Creative Communications for the Parish, 1999.