Nailed - 11th Station of the Cross

photo by tm-tu / flickr

"There are many more Good Fridays
Than this if we but knew
The names, and could relate them,
Of men whom rulers slew
For their goodwill, and date them
As runs the twelvemonth through."
--Thomas Hardy, "Unkept Good Fridays"



The Priest says, looking at his watch, "We are almost through. This is the Twelfth Station." One pilgrim wondered, if the Priest has more important assignments than this. Perhaps he has a luncheon date. Maybe he has to hurry back to the office and pick up that half-smoked cigar and get to work on his Good Friday meditation. He could be meeting with an important parishioner who doesn't like people to be late. Maybe he has done this so many times that these fourteen stations have lost their edge for him.

We've seen so many crosses too. And if we are honest we know that often in our busy-ness we also are guilty of looking at our watches.

But this Station should give us pause. Jesus is nailed to the cross. This is putting our watch away time. This is one of those moments we shouldn't let slip by like so many others. Surely we should be outraged when bigots hide behind freedom of religion laws to discriminate and categorize. Certainly we should wonder why that deranged pilot who took so many more with him when he died--was able to do what he did. We cannot really stand here and leave behind those sufferers in Palestine and in Israel or Tikrit .Can we bring our drones and place them at his feet. And all the ugly abuse that people hurl against people. These need not be diversions. Isn't this what the nailing was all about?

There is another Priest story I remember. I think it fits.The Father came into the sanctuary and saw a woman sitting in the shadows. He could tell that she was a hooker. Not only did she look hard but her makeup was smeared and her hair was a mess. The dress she had on was too tight and much too short. How could she possibly walk in those high heels? He wondered how old she was. Eighteen? Maybe twenty-five or thirty. It was hard to tell. The streets make people old before their time. She raised her hand and said, "Father can I speak to you?" He nodded. "I've been sitting here looking up at Jesus on that Cross. I don't know much about religion, my folks never were religious. And now with what I do I am ashamed to walk into a church with all those people there. But this is my question. "Somewhere I heard that Jesus loved everybody. I heard he even loved hookers and low-life's like me. It's probably not true. Tell me, does Jesus really love me after all I've done?" This Priest did not look at his watch. He smiled and said, "Jesus loves everybody--it didn't matter who they were or what they had done. And the roughest people came to him in droves because they knew he cared and he loved. Yes, he loves you too, especially you." Without another word she put her hands over her face and wept.

"Christ nailed up might be more

than a symbol of all pain.

He might in very truth

contain all pain.

And a man standing

on a hilltop

with his arms outstretched,

a symbol of a symbol,

he too might be a reservoir

of all the pain that ever was."

--John Steinbeck

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Jesus is Stripped - Station 10

flickr

"When they had crucified him, they divided his clothes among them by casting lots."
           --Matthew 27.35
        


The tiny crowd that has followed the Priest from Station to Station stops and points up."Jesus has now reached the top of the hill where men were crucified. It was called The Place of the Skull," he said. Those forced up this hill never come back. Jesus knew this and all those onlookers knew that the end was near.

But not yet. The soldiers strip him bare. And now he stands naked before all that come to gawk and to weep. All the supports have fallen away. There is no place to hide. This was an act of utter violence. To be stripped is to be turned into an object. To have one's clothes ripped from your body may just be the ultimate outrage. Nothing takes one's basic dignity away than thrust naked into a crowd.

Looking up I don't know what the others in our little cluster of pilgrims feel as they ponder the naked Jesus. We have said he is one with us. Hebrews reflects some of the violence and the utter shredding of humanity which Jesus endured. "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need."

In time of need. Would that include all the rapes and incest and the violence of abuse and torture and grotesque indignity that we human beings inflict on one another? I think at this tenth station I cannot ignore all the myriad indignities that we have poured out on so many. Jews, blacks, Indians, gays, foreigners, the transgendered, anyone not like us. I am appalled at the insults hurled at our President day after day. It reminds me of that time when Jackie Robinson broke the color line in baseball. But I am also shocked at he attitude of well-heeled folk toward those on food stamps or just poor. I would hope that all who feel the stripping away of their pride and whatever coverings they need to survive--would remember this tenth station.

photo by timabbott / flickr

Is there hope for any of these recipients of the violence that systems and people bring? I think this is the truth embedded in this Station of the Cross.  Jesus told the story about the man who had two sons. One stayed home and tended the family business. The other boy took the money and ran. He squandered it all. He was stripped and left with nothing. In despair and desperation he slowly made his way back home. The result? The old father met him at the gate. He opened his arms to his near naked son. He loved him. He took him back. David Read, a fine preacher of another day said that the Father asked for a robe to be brought and sandals and a ring and a dinner unlike all the other dinners. Read calls this the dignity of faith. The old father gave his unworthy son a dignity that he desperately needed to live again.

May all those broken and wounded and suffering find their way to this Station. Jesus is one with us here. We can find our way back. We can begin again after the terrible strippings that so many face. Dostoevsky understood this in The Brothers Karamazov when he wrote, wistfully: "What keeps me going is that I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for. that in the world's finale something so great will come to pass that it's going to suffice for all our hearts, for the comforting of all our sorrows, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity. And I  want to be there when suddenly everyone understands what it has all been for."This what I see as I look into the face of the naked Jesus. And my prayer is that all the sufferers can find comfort here too.

Jesus Falls Third Time - Station 9

photo by eliduke / flickr

"Before reaching Calvary,
Jesus fell heavily a third time."
 --Tradition of the Jerusalem Church

“Let us continue,” our tour-guide, the priest says. Pointing upward he says, “We come to what might be the strangest Station of them all. Jesus falls a third time.” It’s funny isn’t it, the Lord Jesus, the Savior of the world, falls and falls and falls.

There was on old Gnostic heresy that is still with us. They kept saying he wasn’t really a human being like us. Flesh and blood. No, he just appeared to be like us. Flesh was sinful—God’s son could never be sinful flesh.  Maybe this was one of the reasons that there are three fallings in the journey to the Cross.

 Hebrews knew the Incarnation well.  “Therefore he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he was able to help those who are being tested.” (Hebrews 2.17-18)

If we look back on our journeys honestly we might just confess that there have been stumblings and falls and terrible wrong choices and sins galore. Three falls? Oh yes, we know about falls don’t we. So the Church helps us here with the holy reminder that sooner or later there will be a fly in our ointment.

That third fall of Jesus must have opened up his wounds and sores all over again. And when the old memories come back to haunt us—our wounds and sores break open again. We thought all this was over. Maybe we never graduate from the human race. Somebody said we are always forever in Junior High School. And most of us can remember those awkward years.

So Richard Rohr reminds us, “There must be, and if we are honest, there will be at least one situation in our lives that we cannot fix, control, explain, change, or even

understand.”

So what happens? Jesus slowly picked up his cross again and staggered toward Calvary. This was not the end. And what this Station says to me is that despite whatever glitches and falls we may have—our journey is not over either. We fall down and we get up and we fall down and we get up.

We know the end of the story. Even Calvary with all its terror and gore will not be the end. So Hebrews wrote toward of his book, “...since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us.” The writer of Hebrews talks about our struggles next. Our weariness and the times that we lose heart. And so he summarized, beautifully, “Therefore, lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that wheat is lame may not be put out of jointed, but rather be healed.” (Hebrews 12. 1-2; 12-13)

Looking up at this Station, some in our group brush away the tears. For we know deep in our hearts that this third fall and all of our fallings are not the end of the story. The one who fell on the way of the cross is with us all.

A good Benediction here just might be that wonderful poem by the African-American poet, Langston Hughes. The poem is entitled, “Mother to Son.”

“Well, son, I’ll tell you:

Life for me ain’t be no crystal stair.

 It’s had tacks in it,

And splinters,

 And  boards torn up,

And places with no carpet on the floor—

Bare.

But all the time

I’se been a-climbin’ on,

And reachin’ landins’

And turning corners,

And sometimes goin’ in the dark

Where there ain’t been no light.

So boy, don’t you turn back

Don’t you set down on the steps

‘Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.

Don’t you fall now—

For I’se still goin’ honey,

I’se still  climbin’,

And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.”

  --from The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Jesus Speaks to the Women--Station 8

photo by jimforest / flickr

"A great crowd followed him, including women who beat their breasts and lamented over him." 
                       --Luke 23.27



Our little crowd moves past the seventh station where Jesus falls a second time. The Priest says, “Jesus somehow gets back on his feet still dragging the heavy cross as best he can. So, let’s stop here by the Eighth Station.” Looking up we see the women, the friends of Jesus, lamenting as only mid-Eastern women can. They are crushed and broken-hearted as they see the terrible things that are happening to Jesus. Luke calls them “the daughters of Jerusalem.” I love that title. All the way through the book, really we find these daughters. Take these daughters from the story and it would be poorer indeed.

We Protestants probably have made too little of Mary, the Mother of our Lord. Maybe the Catholics have it right with all their statues of the Holy Mother. But she is only a representative of all those other Mothers along the way. And all those who never married or all those who never gave birth—or couldn’t.

They are all there in the crowd, really. Dear Elizabeth, John’s mother.

The Mary’s and Martha’s.

The woman at the well with a shabby reputation.

Mary Magdalene who washed his feet.

Mother of Zebedees' sons.

The woman caught in adultery.

Peter’s mother-in-law.

The wise and foolish virgin’s.

Lydia and Dorcas.

The daughters of Jerusalem. We know them well.

Those mothers whose boys and girls have been beheaded. Malala. Those little twelve year olds strapped with bombs and pushed out into the crowd. Trayvon’s mother and Michael Brown’s mother. All those over there who live in bombed-out places and who have never known anything except fear and hunger and pain and destitution. Rape victims. Those daughters eaten away with Ebola or weighing seventy pounds in some African hovel. These mothers are everywhere in Palestine as well as Israel.

And this is why he lingered for just a moment on his journey. Looking up we remember what he told those daughters that sad day. “Do not weep for me...weep for yourselves...”

Not crocodile tears—but tears for injustice and all those daughters whose lives are hard as they stand behind some McDonald’s counter or locked in some room at fourteen to be used by all those who pay the man. And so Jesus says, “Do not weep for me.”  We are to look around us at where the tears should fall.

 Maybe this station reminds us it really isn’t about us. And our job is to give attention, as did our Lord to all those daughters in need. And in our time when compassion seems to be waning perhaps this is one of the most important stations of them all.

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Jesus Falls A Second Time - Station 7

"...for though they fall seven times, they shall rise again."
                 --Proverbs 24. 26b

“We are mid-point in the journey,” the Priest tells us. “What do we find here?” Shuffling along with this little group that follow the stations—we look up. Jesus falls—again. Again? The priest continues, “This is the lesson of this Seventh Station.”

When the Jerusalem Church put together the Stations there were a multitude of points along the way where Jesus would fall. “So, the Priest intones, “There are three fallings in the fourteen Stations to the Cross.”

Organized religion has never been comfortable with failure or apostasy or brokenness. Years ago Karl Menninger wrote a book called, Whatever Became of Sin?

Yet, looking up it all begins to come back—the time we failed. Or lost the job we had lusted for all our lives. Or stood by the grave after 54 mostly good years. Or leaving the divorce court—tears streaming down your face. Or to be told: “It’s ALS.” We thought we were big too fail or too smart or strong or supposedly too good.

In an old novel, The Picture of Success, Phillip has lost his job and cannot seem to find another. And he says: “’There’s something wrong with all of us—you know that? I was thinking that the night of our party. We only tell each other the good things, the things that set us up a little in our own minds.’ He swallowed. ‘All the lousy stuff, the hard-luck items, we keep to our selves; we’re ashamed or something them.’ He glanced away, moodiness in his eyes. ‘You not only don’t talk about failure but you hope nobody will find out. Now why the hell is that? It’s when you lose that you need your friends, not when you’re on top. But nobody mentions losing, only winning. We all have to go round looking as if everything is great.’”

Which brings me to these cross-less churches filled with smiling, well-dressed folk. “Come casual,” their ads say. And so they shuffle in wearing Birkenstocks or $185.00 Nikes or Ralph Lauren shirts—even their five year olds whose hands they hold. They are mostly young and healthy and not usually reminded that there is this Seventh station smack-dab in the middle of the journey.  But lest we mainliners get to pious we don’t often hear a sermon or even a hymn about the dark side, the shadow side. Yet—when we peer into the mirror and see our defeat, our failures, the lines in our faces or our sin—we wonder: could this be me?

This Station says that in this second falling of the Lord Jesus we are only halfway there. Strange gospel. We are not alone when we bite the dust. Here Jesus meets us all.  Richard Rohr reminds us, “If God has not learned to draw straight lines with crooked sticks, God is not going to be drawing very many lines at all.”

And looking up we know that if we follow this Jesus we follow him through all the ruts as well as the sunny places. And whatever happens, nothing will separate us from the love of God—no thing. And the old promise that runs from Genesis to Revelation: “I will be with you” may be the truest word of them all.

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Veronica Wipes Jesus' Face-- Station 6

Photo by Steve Snodgrass / flickr

"A pious woman wiped Jesus' 
face."
--Tradition of the Jerusalem Church.

The Priest says, “We must move on—have a long way to go. We’ve only covered five of the Stations—we have nine more places to stop.”  And so we look up at the sixth Station. The Priest says that this is the only Station not found in the Scriptures. Only a legend, he says. “But look close.”

From out of the crowd that terrible day a woman squeezes her way through the onlookers. Women were not supposed to shove or stand in front. They were to be found always at the back of the line or the bus or even the pay scale.

Not Veronica. She sees Jesus passing by. “Bearing our grief’s,” the book says, “carrying our sorrows.” Bloody, cross-eyed with pain, almost naked—Jesus carries his cross. She did something unheard of that day. She took from her head her scarf. Her covering. Breaking all the rules—she took her head wrap and touched tenderly the wounded face of Jesus.

Jesus moved on. The guards made sure of that. And Veronica weaved her way back through the crowd. As she started to cover her head—she noticed something embedded in her cloth. Blood? Sweat? Tears? Dirt? Maybe pain itself. None of these. On her scarf she saw again the face of Jesus beaten and pain-filled as she had seen him that day.

This Station has been called: vera ikon.  True nature. True image. I think the Church kept this Station to remind us of who God truly is: “A man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.” 

But more—I think also the Church must have known that in reaching out and touching Jesus’ face—Veronica herself was changed. God—this God—was human and real and as close as the faces in that crowd.

Somewhere Buechner tells of a short story where a man did terrible, abusive things to his wife. She left him finally—broken and scarred. The man moved away to another place. He assumed a different identity.  He wore a mask that covered who he truly was. Those in the new place loved him. They found him to be kind and generous. Years later the ex-wife saw him. All the old pain surged again. She confronted him in a crowd. “They don’t know who you are. Take off that mask and let them see your real face!”  Slowly the man peeled away his facade. The woman was dumbfounded. This was not the same man. He had worn the mask so long that he had become what he wore. Looking up at this Station, I remembered this story too.

Veronica and her scarf bore the suffering face of Jesus. I think that moment changed her forever. And us? If we, too, move close and see who he truly is—will we ever be the same again? No wonder the Church took a legend and gave us a parable.

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Fred Craddock - A Tribute

photo by Joe Weaks / flickr

This afternoon in a tiny place called Blue Ridge, Georgia Fred Caddock's funeral will be held. I wish I could be there. Dr.Craddock was a Preacher. Some people call a famous preacher "the Preacher's Preacher." Well, Fred Craddock was a whole lot more than that. He was everybody's preacher--for his stories and his life was always down to earth though he was a scholar and teacher and writer.

Like zillions of other preachers he challenged me to work hard on the craft of preaching. The stories he told remind me still of the parables of Jesus.

There are only a handful of preachers that, when I heard them, made me want to go and do something. Fred Craddock had that effect on me. And churches all over are not the same place as they were before Fred Craddock began teaching and helping us preachers. His stories, repeated (and stolen) week after week have helped bring the Gospel alive for so many people.

I don't know how to express what I feel about his living and passing. But since basketball is in the air everywhere these days I remembered a wonder story about the late Jim Valvano who was the  revered Coach at North Carolina State. Before his team won the National Championship he yelled at his team one night on March 9, 1987, "It comes from the heart!" In that very close game with North Carolina (which N.C State won 68-67) Jim Valvano was quiet for the first five minutes in the locker room. He was drawing X's and O's on the blackboard, talking about what they ought to do in that game. Then, one of the players said, "He threw down the chalk and started screaming, "It comes from the heart! It comes from the heart! It comes from the heart! Don't leave anything out there on the court!" Another one of his players was heard to say, "He had me ready to run through a wall."

Fred Craddock's personality was opposite of he tempestuous Valvano. Dr. Craddock was quiet--almost never raised his voice when he preached--but those of us on his team could never stand in the pulpit and preach exactly as we had before he came along, Not only did he remind us that preaching comes from the heart but also from the head and the stuff of everyday life.

In one sermon I remember him asking someone: "Have you brought Doxology?" Dr. Craddock brought Doxology. Thanks be to God.

You might be interested in the Youtube video that was replayed on CNN this week-end about this wonderful man.   http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/07/us/preacher-fred-craddock-obituary/

                                            --Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Simon Carries Jesus' Cross - Station 5

This photograph was taken from an art work in a church in Bolivia.
photo by PJ Furlong06  / flickr

"As they led him away, they laid hold of one Simon the Cyrenean who was coming in from the fields. They put a crossbeam on Simon's shoulder for him to carry along behind Jesus."
       --Luke 23.26


We move on, we pilgrims. Station Five,” someone whispers. We know that Jesus fell under the weight of the cross. He met his mother in the hardest place she or he had ever  been. The Priest stops. “Look up,” he says. “Simon helps Jesus carry his cross.”

Anybody helped you carry your cross?

Maybe a Mother.

Maybe a friend.

Maybe a partner in marriage.

Maybe even a child.

But somebody or several some bodies came forward

  and helped you lift whatever it was.

I’d preached with some success for years.

I’d stumbled but never really failed.
And then the bottom dropped out.

My poor wife reached out in desperation and

  tried to comfort.

 I wasn’t listening.

And one night there was a knock at the door.

“Can I come in?” he said.

He was friend. He was a church member.

  But he was mostly a friend.

“I know you are having a hard time

   and I want to help.”

“What do you want to do—stay or leave—

  I can help either way.”

 My wife said, “I want him to leave—

  if he stays here he will die.”

I simply nodded.

He said, “OK—if you want to leave

  You’ll need a good severance.”

And he ticked off, as good businessmen would

  a long list of needs.

“I’m going to task the church to do this

  for you.”

And then he said: “If the church won’t do this—

  I’ll pay the severance out of my pocket.”

But he wasn’t finished.

“I will do this because I believe in you...”

I needed that word of grace.

It got me through.
I think you know his name.

Looking up at Simon helping Jesus bear his cross—This is what I remembered.

photo by Suede Bicycle / flickr  

                                            --Roger Lovette  rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Station 4 - Jesus Meets His Mother

photo by jimforest / flickr

"Is it nothing to you all who pass by?
Look, see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow."
                    Lamentations 1.12 


We move on, we pilgrims. So we come to this Fourth Station on the winding, twisting way that will lead to the Cross. Looking up we can’t help but be touched. The bloody, pain-filled Jesus—picks up his splintered cross and staggers toward Calvary. And in the crowd that lined the roads he picks out a face. His Mother. This must have been the hardest day of her hard life. All along she knew it would come to this. That scary time at the beginning when King Herod had vowed to kill all the baby boys and she and Joseph fled that cold night to save their child. Was this a prelude of what was to come? When we do not know what went on in that little house of Joseph and Mary and Jesus and his brothers during those silent years. When he was twelve she knew he was different when they found him in the Temple talking like an adult. His father’s business? Surely she must have whispered to Jehovah night after night, “Keep him safe.”

One day he left them—and how she missed him. Hardly a day went by that she did not wish he had stayed home and worked with Joseph in the shop. But that was not to be. And before long she would hear in the village that he had his enemies. Important people saying terrible things about her son. And when things got so bad she sent his boys to bring him home. He wouldn’t come.

photo by worldstreetphotos.com / flickr

And so it has come to this. Standing before Pilate. Beaten like a criminal. Tortured, God how he was tortured. And then this journey that will lead—she could not even put her mind around the word. But she was there—standing at the edge of the crowd.

Staggering along—her saw her. His mother. How can you cram a lifetime of memories into a moment? Jesus must have done that. And so did Mary.

What does it mean this Fourth station? Jesus meets his mother along the road. This faith business always is a relational word. A human word. A compassionate word.

Sceptics sneer. Bleeding hearts. Unpractical dreamers. All this helping just does not compute—or change anything. And so we are left with the Michael Browns and the Fergusons and the terrible memories of Sandy Hook. The list is endless. Injustice everywhere.  Unmarried mothers who don’t know how they will make it. Children whose lunch boxes they cannot fill for there is so little food. Those sad gaunt faces of mothers in Africa and Haiti and Iran so have so little. Those frightened undocumented mothers who do not know what the future will hold for them and theirs.

And so the Church points to this mother and child reunion. Attention must be paid. This Fourth Station is a

photo by Robert Croma / flickr

stopping off place. We cannot just pass by like all those good folk in the Samaritan story. Looking up at this scene: we know that Jesus never turned away. Doesn’t it mean that we also must stop and look and listen and then respond.

Biographers write that when Theodore Roosevelt was Police Commissioner in New York he picked up a book of photographs by Jacob Riis. The book showed picture after picture of people in the tenements. Immigrants. Terrible places where ten people lived in one room. Flats where rats ran freely. Places no human should live. The photographer called his book, How the Other Half Lives. Roosevelt was so moved that he decided to pay Mr. Riis a visit. He knocked on the man’s door. No answer. So Mr. Roosevelt took one of his calling cards and wrote: “Dear Mr. Riis, I have read your book and I have come to help.” He placed the card in the door and left.

Before we move on, look closely at this Station. Look through the eyes of Jesus. He reaches out to all the mothers from then until now. It doesn’t matter what we say or do—we believers—it comes down to this. We see like Jesus. And we must come to help.  

Photo by Eric.Parker of Good Friday Procession
in Little Italy, Toronto 2014/ flickr

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Jesus Falls--Station 3 of the Cross

photo by jimforest / flickr

"Therefore he had to  become like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested."
        --Hebrews 2. 17

We leave the second Station and follow the crowd to this Third stopping off place. The Priest points up and we all look in silence.

And then the Priest reads from his black book. "How long O Lord? Will you utterly forget me? How long will you hide your face from me? How long shall I harbor sorrow in my soul, grief in my heart day after day? How long will my enemy triumph over me? Look answer me, O Lord , my God!" (Psalm 12.1-4)

After being beaten most of the night. After standing yet again before Pilate. After being stripped and scourged and spat and pissed on--the soldiers shove a heavy cross on his shoulders. And so his journey begins slowly up the hill.

As so we stand looking up at the fallen Jesus. Early on this terrible journey he falls. No Super man. No Terminator. No tough guy. He stumbles and then falls under the weight of the heavy cross. Some of the crowd must have snickered and said, "The Messiah? This is the Messiah?" Others, hands over mouth, just looked.

Gazing upward I remember the words the Priest said as he marked my forehead weeks ago. "You are dust..." Jesus is one with us all here.The old woman moaned: "I've fallen down and can't get up." Those of us who have been forced to "accept those things that will not change." Divorce. Cancer. Addiction. The burden of the past. Sin after sin that shame us. Lying in a nursing home waiting and waiting for someone to come and change this terrible stinking mess.

We all fall, don't we. You want hear this from the smiling preachers with the slick hair and two thousand dollar suits. But they fall too. I wish all those that have lost their jobs and all those parents who can't help their drug addicted kids could look up at the fallen Jesus. I would open the church doors and invite all those who have seen their children kneeling before some despot with a knife. And I would beckon even those with the dark hoods over their angry faces to know this Station is for them, too.

Coming out of my hotel in Charleston this last week, there sat on old dried-up black man with a hat, smoking a pencil-thin cigar. "Mister, You got a dollar."  Streets later I saw an old woman with a shopping cart piled high with the only treasures she has in the world. Across the street were five kids with wild hair, tattoos everywhere--smoking weed and patting their sleeping dog. "Come on in," I would say. Stand here beside me and ponder the mystery. Even the Lord Jesus fell. This is part of every journey. Like Christian found in Pilgrim's Progress there is a Slough of Despond down every road and sooner or later we will all fall into that morass.

Is there is any hope, really? We must remember that this is only the third of fourteen stations. There will  be other falls along the way. But this is not the end--that's what we need to tell the man with the pencil-thin cigar, the dirty-footed kids smoking weed and all those frightened ones that sit outside the ICU unit and this crowd that stand with us looking up.

This Jesus will rise, not alone, but with the help of somebody along the way. He will continue his journey despite its hardness. And this is why we all need this third station.

Jung spoke for us all when he said: "Where you stumble and fall, there you will find pure gold." And so we turn away and move toward the Fourth Station with the Priest and all the others. But somehow on our dark nights and our tough days we will remember this Third station. Jesus falls and so do we.

"O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ your Son; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, forever and ever. Amen. 
                                                               --The Common Book of Prayer

             
                                            --Roger Lovette  / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

      

Bearing the Cross - Station Two

photo by Lawrence OP / flickr

"Jesus was led away,
and carrying the cross
by himself,
went out to what is called
the Place of the Scull
(in Hebrew, Golgotha.)" 
                --John 19.17


As I look up this picture of Jesus taking the cross I remember a story about one of Medieval paintings. The rendering hung in a church in Europe. Outside the church’s doors the plague was raging. Thousands of people had already died. It was a terrible time of fear and grief and death. The artist painted a picture of Jesus suspended on the cross. This Jesus was covered the pockmarks of the plague. It is an ugly painting terrible to look at. The Savior of the world covered in the sores that swept through Europe.

In that village desperate folk would make their way down the lanes to the little church. They would silently file in the door, walk down the aisle and kneel before the Jesus with outstretched hands and his broken infested body. They would look up and see the pain and the suffering of God’s son. And after a long time—they would shuffle out into a world of terror and death. But, many would take with them the memory of one who stretched out his hands on a cross--one covered with the marks of the plague. They remembered those hands and that body and that cross. And as they lived and buried their dead and also died they would remember that figure nailed to the cross.

Of all the symbols of the Christian faith none is more far-reaching or powerful than this second Station on Jesus’ journey. He bore the cross making him one with all those in the line suffering line of history. Rape, incest, sexual slavery, cancer, AIDS, alcoholism and drug addiction. The injustices suffered by race and gender and sexual orientation. But more: the depressed and the desperate and those who feel they cannot make it through another day. This cross brings to mind Ferguson and Selma and Iraq and ISIS and all those hundreds of kidnapped girls in Africa.

Leonard Boff  has said:  “He is in solidarity with all those who hang on crosses. Their humiliation is his humiliation. They do not carry their crosses by themselves. Jesus carries it with them and in them.”

And so, we look up and see this Jesus as he takes his cross. And ours. And like those plague-stricken folk of another day--we will remember that nothing--no thing really can separate us from of the love of God for He is here.

--flickr

                                         --Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Jesus and Pilate--Station One of the Cross

photo by jimforest / flickr

We pilgrims arrive at the first Station of the Cross. Here we begin. Where, exactly? With Jesus and Pilate. Fourteen Stations, in most churches, why begin here?  Pilate, representative of the powerful Rome, faces Jesus the powerless prisoner.

My old teacher, James Sanders used to say if we are to understand the Scriptures we have to identify with the bad guys. The Church has often made the mistake of siding with the good guy—maybe to let us off the hook. Maybe we are Pilate—with our Fine cars, comfortable homes—and impressive resumes. And before us there stands one who had no place to lay his head. Powerless. Caught up in a system which surely would crush him. What do we Pilate’s see here? John’s long passages in his Gospel give us almost two whole chapters on Jesus and the Roman prelate.

Over and over this name, Pilate keeps cropping up. Pilate himself tried to get off the hook. He tried to send this Jesus back to the Religious officials, to Herod, his boss, and finally to the soldiers and the ugly crowd.

We still wish that we could somehow let someone else deal with this Jesus, really. Oh we sing the songs and we stare at the gorgeous stained glass windows and even read from the black book—not to speak of all the endless sermons. Ands most of them, I am afraid, never get close to the Jesus who stands before Pilate.

Not only did not plaintive, “Sweet little Jesus boy, we didn’t know who you wuz” make a good Christmas Eve solo. But we really don’t know who this Jesus is. Like Pilate we keep asking: Are you a King? Jesus hardly answers. King Jesus. That’s who stands before us. Powerless. Vulnerable. Quiet. He wouldn’t strand a chance on our Facebook or our dramatic headlines.

But like that other Pilate this Jesus still disturbs. What if Jesus is right? That we really are to turn the other cheek, forgive and walk yet another tedious mile. What if we really are to be the Good Samaritan and stop and stoop and help? We are not to judge—seriously? What if our government—or any government does not really have all the answers. What if, standing here—this Jesus really is the King? Could he be the King of Kings?

If so—he turns everything upside down. Like he did that day in the temple when he drove out the moneychangers. If he came into our church or even our little lives—wouldn’t he still do what he did then—turn things bottom side upwards.

And so we pilgrims must stop here, beside this first Station and look at the Jesus that stands before us as he stood before Pilate. We may try to wash our hands clean from any responsibility . But still—like Pilate that night and the nights that followed. His was a troubled sleep. This Jesus always turns the Pilate’s of the world upside down. And this is what we ponder as we stand here looking up.

photo by maitevidri / flickr

--Roger Lovette / --rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Stations of the Cross--Pondering the Mystery

"He comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lakeside,

He came to those men who knew 

Him not.

He speaks to us the same words: "Follow thou me!" and sets us to the tasks which He has to fulfill for our time. 

He commands,

And to those who obey Him, whether they be wise or simple,

He will reveal himself in the toils, 

the conflicts, 

the sufferings 

which they shall pass in His fellowship, 

and, as an ineffable mystery,

they shall learn in their own experience Who He is."

                  --Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus

Every year as a Lenten exercise—I find myself turning to the Stations of the Cross. Pilgrims through the years in the Holy Land or in some church somewhere—can follow that twisting winding journey that led to the Cross.

Why I have pondered the mystery of those last days of Jesus' life—I do not know. Except there is a power here that pulls me. For years I spent two fine weeks in Princeton, New Jersey on a study leave. One day driving along outside town I saw in the distance a speck of a dark figure. It looked like he was carrying a cross. But I was far away and was not sure.

It must have been the next summer that I wandered down Mercer Street to the old historic Trinity Episcopal Church that dates back to 1833. Behind that church I saw a life-size statue of Jesus bearing the cross. Surely there were not two of these statues. I learned that some of the townspeople did not like that statue that stood in that field outside town. So the artist gave this beautiful piece to the Episcopal Church in Princeton.

Every summer when I was studying at the Seminary I would walk a block down the street and ponder the power of this aluminum-stainless steel Jesus bearing his cross. This work of art moves me to this day. I am not sure why except perhaps that out stretched hand beckons me to follow and follow and follow. God knows, I have strayed from the path. Yet I know deep in my heart that my business with this Jesus is far from finished. I may wander away—but I keep coming back to the Jesus who beckons me to follow him.

And so for the next weeks of Lent I am going to take the journey called the Way of the Cross. I will read the Scriptures that reflect each station. I will once again ask what do these stopping off places mean and what they still might mean. Through the years Priests and Ministers have led their flocks through these fourteen stations. And so I invite you to join me as we ponder again that journey which led to Calvary and beyond. Elizabeth Cheney’s poem, “There Is A Man on the Cross” seems to fit my meditation:

“Whenever there is silence around me

By day or by night—

I am startled by a cry.

 It came down from the cross—

The first time I heard it. I went out and searched—

And found a man in the throes of crucifixion.

And I said, ‘I will take you down,’

And I tried to take the nails out of his feet.

But he said, ‘Let them be

For I cannot be taken down

Until every man, every woman, and every

   child

Come together to take me down.’

And I said, ‘But I cannot hear you cry.

What can I do?’

And he said, ‘Go about the world—

Tell everyone that you meet—

There is a man on the cross.’”

                                     --Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com