Station 10 - Jesus is Stripped

"He was despised 

photo by Jim Forest / flickr

and rejected by others;

a man of suffering 

and acquainted with infirmity;

as one from whom others 

hide their faces

he was despised, 

and we held him of no account."

              --Isaiah 53. 3





The journey is almost over.

But not quite.

The soldiers stripped him naked.

It is a moment of utter shame.

The crowd laugh and point.

This naked man 
cross-eyed with pain-- 
blood streaming down his dirty body
is the expected Messiah?

He is totally defenseless.

They leave nothing hidden.
No thing. 

We have few pictures of the naked Jesus.

Somehow it seems completely
obscene.

And so we have solved the problem.

We have covered him over with
layer after layer.

Naked no more.  

He is now white.
And middle-class.
Successful as the smiling 
preachers tell us.
He is Catholic.
Or Methodist.
Or Baptist.
Maybe Episcopalian.
Maybe even Unitarian.

We have decked him
with our politics
and our guns
and our prejudices.
He is an American 
and on his tunic 
is a tiny American flag.

He hates what we hate.
Covered over with every pagan
myth.

Once in Germany
he was blonde and blue-eyed
Aryan despite what
they said.  

The fat preacher, parking his
Mercedes at the door
talks about Jesus' Republicanism
and how he helps us pick 
and choose God's candidate.

No wonder so many poor
never come to church
They wouldn't fit with the
nice Jesus and the successful 
folk
with the Audis and
the Cadillacs and the Corvettes
and the BMW's out front.

We have smothered him with
our trappings.
Silenced him with our talk
and talk and talk.

But at Station 10 there is no 
place to hide.
We cannot cover his nakedness
with our coverings.

Neither can we turn away.

This naked man
exposed and bare
is the Savior
not just us and our kind
not just our nation
not just 2016--
but the Savior of the whole wide world.

 We cannot cover him over any longer.

Standing here what we see
is the real Jesus.

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Station 9 - Jesus Falls a Third Time

"How long,  O Lord? Will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?

How long must I bear pain in my soul,
and have sorrow in my heart all day long?

How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?"

          --Psalm 13. 1-2



Jesus falls. 
Jesus wept.
Jesus was tempted.
Jesus was hungry.
Jesus was angry.
Jesus prays: why?
Jesus was nailed.
Jesus dies.

All his efforts, it seems, have come to nothing.

All the miracles 
and the kindness 
and the love 
and the outstretched hands to them all...

No wonder we don't spend much time on this fall
or that other fall and if that were not enough--
still another fall.

He never did fit our categories.
He never did confirm our prejudices.
Or vote for our candidate.
Or wave our flag.

Along this road Jesus falls a third time.
It seems excessive. 
Until we think back over our own Via Dolorosa--
our way of sorrows--too.

God knows we have fallen.
Still fall if we are honest.

"They all were looking for a king 
To slay their forces and lift them high; 
Thou cams't, a little baby thing
That made a woman cry."*

No wonder we didn't know who he wuz.
Still don't some days.

For from then until now he has stood
with the fallen
and the broken
and the hungry 
and the homeless
and all those who stand outside 
the plate-glass window always looking in.

This is not the end of the story.
Thank God.

But these fallings are part of the human journey 
They cannot be ignored.

Stopping here there is a catch in our throats.
Maybe a tear too.

For we know despite it all
Along our road we are not alone. 

photo by Ron Zack / flickr

* Poem by George McDonald

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Station 8 - The Daughters of Jerusalem

photo by Jim Forest / flickr

"A great crowd followed him,

including women

who beat their breasts

and lamented over him."

         --Luke 23.27



Jesus slowly rises from his second fall. 

He shakes and trembles 
from the burden of the cross...
the weight of it all. 

And he hears a weeping as only the Eastern women can weep. It is really a lamentation. 

These are not Jesus' enemies--but they are part of that little handful
that have followed him through it all. 

The birth--painful and bloody...
old watery-eyed Anna who saw what others did not see...
Simon's mother-in-law...
that day in Nain when he told the mother weeping for her dead son: 
"Do not weep"...
the women with the flask of ointment...
Mary Magdalene...
the sick women with that issue of blood. 
These are  only part of the daughters of Jerusalem.

We do not know their names --those who stood in the crowd weeping.

But Jesus saw them.
Perhaps he knew them by name these daughters of Jerusalem.

They will be there until the end.
Long after all the others have fled.

And he tenderly rebukes them:
"Do not weep for me...but weep for yourselves
and for your children. 
Daughters, turn your tears to your own pain.
All the pain the world has brought. 

Turn your tears to your children and everybody's children."
Maybe, just maybe if we look deep in our hearts...
and turn toward the world he loved so much--
this troubled world just might be a better place.

He didn't say change it. He did say weep for it all.
For maybe in the weepings for so much out there--
the harsh, troubled world 
will see the tears and the love and caring behind them.

Do not dismiss these daughters of Jerusalem 
for their tears, like the rain, bring hope and health
to so many. 

And maybe, just maybe they and we will find that old rugged cross 
is not the last word after all.

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

The 7th Station of the Cross: Jesus Falls a Second Time.

photo by Jim Forest / flickr

"But I am a worm, not a man;

the scorn of men,

despised by the people.  All 

who see me scoff at me;

they mock me with parted 

lips, they wag their heads..."

               --Psalm 22. 7-8


We are at mid-point in our journey. It takes a long time to get to Calvary. 

Some of us know that.

But wait. Jesus falls--falls a second time?

I can understand that first fall. Delirious with pain, having not slept but beaten throughout the night--no wonder he fell. But Jesus, Jesus falling a second time. 

Simon had helped him with his load for a while. But then he was gone and Jesus struggled under his cross-load.

It was too much. Sometimes even Jesus knew that life often was just too, too much. What was that line from Green Pastures? "Even bein' God ain't a bed a' roses."

So here as he falls--humiliated and weak--he is one with the whole human race.

Old time Baptists were wrong. We really do fall from grace--all of us. Even when the grace is amazing we stumble and fall and we are ashamed. Again and again and again. It's not only drunks that fall off the wagon.

Sometimes the limits of life are just impossible. The man with cancer. The woman raped and forced to bear the child. The father with no job and no prospects. The druggy that cannot give it up. The sad, tired refugee who has no place to lay his/her/their head. Or the little child spit on at school by the bullies for being cross-eyed or black or crippled or stuttering or just standing there.

The list goes on and on. The fallen ones. Samaritans and Publicans and Centurions and adulterers and a syro-phoenician woman and tax collectors and lepers and all those that gave up the fight.

He is one with all who have fallen through history--which means a whole lot.

The crushed, the beaten-down, the disgraced know about this second fall.

On the ground, hard and cruel, Jesus is one with them and us too.

Remember that verse in Psalms: "The Lord upholds all who are falling, and raises up all who are bowed down." (Ps. 145.14)

I claim that verse for all the fallen ones and those yet-to-fall. I claim it for you and for me and the pock-marked church and for the whole wide world.

Black folk, out of the agony of their fallings put it into a song: "His eye is on the sparrow and I know he cares for me." 

On the ground tasting dirt and dust--our Savior lay. Remember this was only mid-point in his journey and ours too. Like Jesus we have a long way to go.

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Station 6--Veronica Wipes Jesus' Face

photo by Jim Forest / flickr

"...Inasmuch 

as we do unto 

the least of these...

we do it unto him.''  

    --Matthew 25.


There are no bit players on the Via Dolorosa--the way of sorrows--

Simon, his mother, the weeping women, the soldier with his spear and sponge, the dying thief.

But in Station 6 there is another character that comes on stage.

We know little about her for her name is not found in the story.

 But for some reason here is dear Veronica 
taking the scarf from her head and wiping the face of Jesus.

Women were not supposed to be close to the drama.

They were to stay back out of the way--out of sight.

So Veronica, one of several women, 
courageously broke the rules--
reached out and touched the bloody face of Jesus--
wiping it as clean as she would a little boy's.

She kept the scarf--but before she covered her head--
she saw a strange image on that scarf.

It was the tortured face of Jesus.

There is an old novel about school teachers.
The rules said plainly: "Do not touch the wounds."
One might get sued. 
Or make matters worse.
Or catch something.
Teachers had to be careful.

But that did not stop the teacher.
And it did not stop Veronica.
Maybe we only see his face 
when we touch somebody else's face.

There is another story about a nurse went about her work, 
emptying bed pans, 
changing soiled sheets--
whispering kindness even to the unkind.
A friend said, " I wouldn't do what you do
for all the money in the world."
The nurse replied, Neither would I."

 Could it be that in touching somebody's wounds--
we discover the greatest secret of them all.

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

The 5th Station: Jesus Meets His Mother

photo by Jim Forest / flickr

"Did Mary make a birthday cake
For Christ when he was small,
And think the while she frosted it,
How quickly boys grow tall?

Oh sometimes years are very long
And sometimes years run fast,
And when the Christ had put away
Small, earthly things at last,

And died upon a wooden cross
One afternoon in spring,
Did Mary find the little toy,
And sit...remembering?"
    --Helen Welshimer,  "The Birthday"   



It was a long, circuitous trail
to that hill where it would happen. 

He could not have made it--
even though he was the Lord, 
the expected one, Unless somebody
had stood by caring and loving.

Simon had helped. And there would 
be a handful of others--mostly women-- 
who would be more than faces 
in the crowd.

In the early days there were a multitude 
of Stations Yet the church kept 
this fifth station when they pared them down.

Wonder why? Who knows-- but 
standing close by as he staggered-- 
he looked up and saw her: his Mother.

She had loved him from that first scary day 
the angel had come  and brought the news.

When he stirred in her stomach--
it was scary, too like that day the angel had come.
And yet--she loved the one she had yet to see.

And when he came after that long, long ride
to Bethlehem--and he really was there--
lying in a manger--she was so proud.

She did the best she could--this mother.
Most babies then did not last--disease and
ignorance took  them.

Not Jesus. She tended, she cared, she did 
what good mothers do.

And then he was gone beyond her reach. 

Yet he knew that he could not have done 
all the wondrous things he did--
without that wounded face he saw
in the crowd.

She did what she had always done 
from that very first day.

She helped him make it.
One wonders if he could have dragged 
that heavy cross up, up that hill
without this mother's face.

One of the last words from the cross 
would be the word: "Mother..."
He wanted her tended to as she had 
tended him.

Standing at this Station do you think of 
another Mother--your own.
Not all mothers have something to give--
but most do all they can.

And looking up--we know 
we could not make our own winding journeys
without that word: Mother.

Looking up I can still see my mother's face. 
Can you see yours too?

photo by Eric Parker / flickr

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Station 4 - Simon Carries Jesus' Cross

photo by dbgg1979 / flickr

"Those who carry grand 
pianos 

wardrobes and coffins
to the tenth floor

the old man with a bundle
of wood hobbling beyond the horizon

the woman with a hump of nettles

the lunatic pushing her baby carriage
full of empty vodka bottles

they all will be raised up

like a seagull feather
like a dry leaf
like eggshell
scraps of newspapers

Blessed are those who carry
for they will be raised up."

 --Anna Kamienska



Jesus falls under the weight of the cross
and drag a passerby, Simon
and place the cross on his shoulder.

The man didn't intend to do that. 
He had just come to Jerusalem from the country
for the first time.

He followed the noise and the crowd
and stood there craning to see what was happening.

A man on the way to be crucified
had fallen down from the heavy cross.

A soldier grabbed this stranger's arm roughly 
and said: "You carry the cross."
He didn't intend to do that.

Yet this bit player in the drama 
was no bit player after all.

Looking back I don't know if 
you have ever been pulled into something
you had no intention of doing.

Changing a diaper, wiping away a tear, 
putting on a bandaid and whispering:
"It is gonna be all right."
Changing a bed-pan
holding a hand in the dark.
Locking the doors tight so he/she 
won't wander off. 
No wonder they call it the 36 hour day.

We've all been pulled into the drama
and carried something unlikely and heavy
for someone else.

Simon was no bit player after all.
And neither or all those folk along the 
way that lifted some load, 
that made it somehow bearable.

Looking up at this Station we know, 
don't we, that wouldn't be here today
unless someone, somewhere 
had come forward 
and shouldered our load.

Simon was no bit player. 
He was at the heart of the drama 
and so are we.

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com