bobjots : redux

Station I
Jesus Is Condemned To Die
- Matthew 27:15-26, Mark 15:1-15, Luke 23:17-25, John 18:33-40

Pilate said, “I find no fault with this man,” but when the crowd grew loud, he grew silent. “I wash my hands. You deal with him.” Pilate had the knowledge and the power to stand and say no to the world as it sought to crush the Lord of Life. He didn’t use either.

How many times do I have the knowledge and the power to say no, and stay silent? How many times do I participate, by my silence, in the Passion of Jesus? Who will die because I do not say no?

Station II
Jesus Takes Up His Cross
- Matthew 27:27-31, Mark 15:16-20, John 19:17

This cross has been thousands of years in the making. Its weight grows greater each time I look for someone to blame for the pain in my world. Each time I insist that sin must be punished, I add an ounce to the burden Jesus carries for me. This is the cross he carries, the cross of blame, of vengeance.

When have I said, “Well, he certainly deserved that!” or “It’s only fair. Look at what she did!”? When have I failed to forgive as I have been forgiven. When have I laid more weight on your blessed shoulders?

Station III
Jesus Stumbles The First TIme
- Preserved in Christian memory and tradition

The laughter at your first fall is transformative, Jesus. The gathered “I’s” surrounding you laugh together, becoming a “we” for the first time. We laugh together, we reduce you to a joke, to something less than a man. Your first fall is the fall of Larry, or Moe, or Curly, but it is also the fall of my “I.” I am lost now, in the collective “I” of the mob.

How many times, Lord, have I sacrificed my “I” as I took satisfaction or pleasure in the fall of another? How many lynchings have I started with my laughter?

Station IV
Jesus Meets His Mother
- Preserved in Christian memory and tradition

We want to make you a clown. We want to isolate you completely, but your mother will not permit it. She withstands the blows of taunt and sorrow to be present for you along the way. She alone remains to give you courage, to remind us that you are someone’s child, just like we are.

How many times, Lord, have we watched another suffer, but from a safe distance? How many times have you looked out through the eyes of another for comfort, but were unable to find it?

Station V
Simon Helps Jesus Carry The Cross
- Matthew 27:32, Mark 15:21, Luke 23:26

We need you to die, Jesus, but our rage has gone too far. You are too weak to continue on to the head of the mountain because we have beaten you so severely. When you can’t go on by yourself, we look for a solution that won’t involve us too closely. We mustn’t touch the cross ourselves, but the process must go on. Then we find our answer. A stranger, someone who obviously has no idea who you are will carry the cross. He knows nothing of your innocence.

How many others have we called on to do our violence for us? How many soldiers pulled triggers because we could not? How many executioners pushed buttons for us?

Station VI
Veronica Wipes The Face of Jesus
- Preserved in Christian memory and tradition

You have been beaten so badly that you are “marred beyond human semblance.” As you walk along, you are almost unrecognizable. It is so much easier for us to hate you, to jeer you, to wish you dead when we cannot see your face. Veronica will not permit us that luxury. She steps forward and wipes away the blood and sweat, showing all of us your human face.

How many times have we missed your humanity, Jesus? How many times has it been easier to deal with your suffering because we left your face marred beyond recognition? Do we have it in us to see your face?

Station VII
Jesus Stumbles The Second Time
- Preserved in Christian memory and tradition

The first time you fell, we laughed. This fall elicits our hatred. Even though we have forced Simon to help you, you won’t play your part. “Get up! Get up you!” We are desperate to find an outlet for our rage. Life isn’t the way we want it to be, and someone has to pay. “Get up! Get up Jesus! Hurry up!”

How many times have we added our voices to the mob’s, kicked someone when she was down? It isn’t that it’s easier for us to attack someone who’s weakened, it isn’t easier; it is necessary. We need you to fall, so that we can see you as different, as disappointing, as worthy of our hatred.

Station VIII
Jesus Meets The Women of Jerusalem
- Luke 23:26-31

“Weep not for me, but for yourselves and for your children.” The women of Jerusalem want to weep for you as though your fate were unrelated to theirs, as though the violence you suffer did not own them as well. You turn their sympathy back on them; remind them that your fate is their fate, too.

How many times have we contemplated your Passion, Lord, and wanted to cry for you? How many times have we wanted to weep because of your pain, and not because we caused it? How often have we blinded ourselves to our complicity in violence by feeling sorry for the victims?

Station IX
Jesus Stumbles For The Third Time
- Preserved in Christian memory and tradition

Jesus, you have done all that you can do. When you fall this last time, you entrust the remainder of what must be done to us. There is no more strength. You are utterly beaten, defeated, but we are not finished. Like the potter’s clay, we will now make you into what we need you to be.

How many times have we seen another’s weakness as an opportunity to shape them, to change them into what we want them to be? How many times do we take advantage of the fact that you are too weak to resist, Jesus, and fasten you to the Cross?

Station X
Jesus Is Stripped Before The Cross
- Matthew 27:35, Mark 15:24b, Luke 23:34

Physical humiliation isn’t enough. Spitting isn’t enough. Whipping isn’t enough. Crucifixion isn’t enough. We need to shame you. We need to strip away from you any shred of human dignity. We are blind to the dignity in which your Father clothes you. Unable to see your deeper dignity, we revel in the shame we pour out on you.

How many times have we branded someone with a scarlet letter? Drunk, convict, weaklingl? How many times have we labeled our brother or sister, so as to set them apart, reduced them to nothing by using shame?

Station XI
Jesus Is Nailed To The Cross
- Matthew 27:35, Mark 15:24a, Luke 23:33, John 19:18

Hanging for hours on a cross is not cruel enough, Jesus. Watching you suffocate will not mollify our rage. Life has been so unfair to us, we have such rage that we have to use nails, instead of the traditional ropes. Rage bleeds away as nails, meant for wood, cut easily through human flesh.

How many times have we allowed our rage to drive us to cruelty? Cruel acts? Cruel speech? How many times has another borne the scars of our rage?

Station XII
Jesus Dies On The Cross
- Matthew 27:45-56, Mark 15:33-41, Luke 23:44-49, John 19:30-33

We stand in stunned silence as we survey the result of our sin. The Lord of Life hangs dead from the tree. The peace we pursued as we chased you up the hill refuses to come. As we gaze upon you, Jesus, our victim, the realization dawns. Violence will never again bring peace, and we are terrified.

Mute with horror, we stumble to our homes, as though the earth were moving under our feet. The ground itself seems unsteady as we contemplate a world without violence. On what will we stand?

Station XIII
Jesus Is Taken Down From The Cross by Joseph of Arimathea
- Matthew 27:57-61, Mark 15:42-47, Luke 23:50-56, John 19:38

We have all departed by the time the guards permit those who love you to bring you down from the Cross. Once the spectacle ended, we are compelled to leave. There is something horrible and fascinating about you as you hang there, and it frightens us. We leave the task of dealing with your body to those who are already unclean.

How often, O Lord, have we fled our own horror, left the care of the dead and the dying to others? How many times have we let our fear of the power of death drive us into hiding?

Station XIV
Jesus Is Laid In The Tomb by Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus
- Matthew 27:57-60, John 19:39-42

In a tomb that you could never have afforded, those who did not abandon you, those who refused to join the mob, lay your body to rest with great tenderness. There is nothing divine in the torn flesh, nothing holy in the bloodied brow. There is only sorrow, deeper than the greatest trenches in the ocean. Sorrow.

You will breathe life once again into our deadened spirits, Jesus, but not on this day. Today we walk as those robbed of hope, shuffling from one place to another as though we belonged in the tomb with you. Perhaps, without the breath of your new life, that is precisely where we belong.