Stations of the Cross

Kelly and I drove downtown on Good Friday. We decided to walk around the city. Someone had told us there was going to be a Good Friday service out on the Market Square Mall, so we walked that way. The city radiated with families walking, children playing in the park, and music around almost every corner.

In the middle of the square, a small crowd gathered around a large wooden cross. We joined them. Behind us a group of young, dreadlocked musicians began singing at the top of their lungs. At first I thought they objected to our gathering, but then I realized they were singing, “Will the Circle Be Unbroken.” Not a bad pick for Good Friday.

As the priest climbed up the portable riser and starting reading the Scripture, all other sounds faded in the background. We heard the agony of Jesus as he cried out, “Abba Father, all things are possible to thee; remove this cup from me; yet not what I will, but what thou wilt.” We breathed the words of Jesus in prayer.

The priest called out, “We adore you, O Christ and we bless you.”
We responded, “Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.”

The priest invited volunteers to step up and help carry the cross. Standing only a few feet away, I stepped forward with a few other people. Silently we walked the square. Although we shared the burden, the weight surprised me.

With each step, the weight of the cross pressed us down. We walked by people eating, children running through the park, musicians playing their songs. I cannot help but think of people carrying the weight of suffering while surrounded by a world that never stops. Never notices.

I cannot help but realize that we cannot bear this weight. We are the weak and slumbering disciples. And He is the suffering servant.

“We adore you, O Christ and we bless you.”
“Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.”

At each station a different minister climbed the portable riser. At each station the Word of the Lord was read. At each station we paused and contemplated our Savior.

I thought of the early church remembering the steps of Jesus. Just like the ancient Hebrews remembered Passover by rehearsing the last night in Egypt, the followers of Jesus remembered the Lamb of God by rehearsing His final hours. In the early centuries of the church, processions became a way of remembering.

The processions often lasted for hours as believers walked from church to church with a short ceremony in each church. Historian Jaroslav Pelikan explains that these early processions played an important evangelistic role as the gospel was proclaimed in song and images and sermons.

So we walked from station to station. We listened to the Word of the God. We proclaimed the goodness of God.

“We adore you, O Christ and we bless you.”
“Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.”

As we walked, the cross seemed obscured in a sea of faces. Round faces. Faces full of vitality and beauty. Faces aged and distorted by time and tragedy. Faces worn by the sun. Faces scarred. Faces covered with long and short beards.

As I gazed out, my inward eye beheld a painting by Hieronymus Bosch called, Calvary. In the vivid painting, Jesus is carrying the cross in a mass of people. Eyes closed and head leaning toward his destiny, Jesus is pressing through the rabble.

Calvary by Hieronymus Bosch

Most of the other faces form grotesque shapes of flatted lips, crumbling teeth, bulging eyes, and jutting chins. The faces are distorted and grotesque. They remind me of the orcs in the Lord of the Rings. In the midst of this ugliness, Jesus presses forward. The monstrous crowd is so preoccupied they fail to notice God-in-the-midst.

My inner vision of Bosch’s unsightly painting and my outer vision of the faces surrounding the cross collided. I suddenly realized it. Bosch was painting us. He captured our deformities, our misshapen heads, our twisted mouths and darkened eyes. He painted our corruption.

As Athanasius reminds us, we turned from God toward corruption. The Lord steps into our vile ungodliness and redeems us. He names us. He bears our shame, so that we might bear his glory. He declares us beautiful and we are beautiful.

As the final station came to a close, the crowd sang the old spiritual, “Were you there, when they crucified my Lord.” On this sunny, Good Friday evening, we were there. And ever-so-briefly, we beheld Him lifted up for all mankind to see.

“We adore you, O Christ and we bless you.”
“Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.”

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