--Matthew 25.40
We move on, we pilgrims. We’ve met Simon who bore his cross
and the Mother who stood by brokenhearted. But here in the Sixth Station we
encounter not a gospel story but a legend.
From the Fourth Century dear Veronica has come on stage and
taken her place in the Stations. This woman, whose name meant true icon or
image is at the very heart of the Way of Sorrows—the Via Dolorosa. As that ugly
crowd jeered and spat and sneered at the wounded Jesus, Veronica of whom we
know so little squeezed her way through that swarm of hatred. Her heart went
out to this one who stumbled and bled and suffered. From around her head she
took the covering all women were supposed to wear in public. Who knows what
rules or customs she may have broken that day in this simple act. Pushing her
way through the angry mob she took her veil and tenderly wiped the face of
Jesus. It was only a momentary gesture of love and compassion and yet in that
moment she patted that face as clean as she could. No man would do such a
thing. This was woman’s work.
She turned away from the ugliness and the pathos of that
moment and left the crowd behind. As she started to put the veil back on her
head she noticed the strangest thing. Embedded in that cloth was the face of
the suffering Jesus.
Artists the world over have been intrigued with this story.
Many have painted the scene with Jesus image beautiful and strong. But others,
understanding the story much better have carved or painted or etched an imprint
of Jesus suffering, wounded and scarred—a man like us.
What does all this mean? This Sixth Station. Many things I
am sure. Could this stopping off place be a mirror, too for us and not just
her? Hmm.
Is it too much of a stretch to say that when we dare to
reach out and touch another’s wounds we might just come away with the scarred
face of Jesus. He had told them, “Inasmuch as you do it unto the least of these
you do it unto me...” He had already told them that the blessed ones were the
poor in spirit, the mourners, the meek, the hungerers, the persecuted and the
reviled...”
All the way through the winding bumpy gospels his work was
always specific. Never general. A woman at a well. A dying child. A man
crippled all his life. A near-naked woman caught in adultery. And if not these
there was a Zaccheus and a Peter and a James and a John and a Martha and her
sister, Mary and even a Lazarus.
Do we not find him, too in the messy specific situations of
our lives? Sometimes gay or a wounded warrior in Afghanistan or a PTSD victim
and his frightened family. It might just be your Mother with cursed Alzheimer’s
or that man across the street with cancer or your friend that carries around
what seems to be an endless depression.
And so when we reach out in caring and love we come away
seeing the face of God clearer than any other times in our lives. Isn’t this
what really was back of those Beatitudes after all. Blessed are__________and
you and I must always fill in the blanks.
Something happens to the Veronicas. In his face we see our faces and all the
hurtfulness so many have had to endure. It’s more than the blood and gore of
Jesus. Ask Veronica. Here all of us might just find some hope and promise for
ourselves in a seemingly hurtful world.
Arthur Miller, I think writing out of his time with dear
Marilyn Monroe wrote in his play, After the Fall, “There comes a time when we
all have to take ourselves in our own arms.” And maybe when we are wiping some
face or bottom of some child's spills we really do see who we truly are.
Children of God. Human. Scarred. Often wounded. Us—us—children of God. Who
would have ever believed it?
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