The Stations of the Cross

Jesus’s last journey was from the place where he was tried and condemned by the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, to the place where he was crucified outside the walls of the city of Jerusalem. Pilgrims going to the city have, for over fifteen hundred years, followed his route as an act of devotion, stopping at a number of places to pray. We know where he was tried and where he was crucified; the other stopping places or ‘stations’ are reconstructions of what might have happened. In any case it has been a custom to undertake a little pilgrimage in churches, keeping the same stations.

At St Mary’s this custom was revived nearly a hundred years ago and this year, 2010, the devotion is undertaken on Fridays in Lent: 19 and 26 February, 5 and 26 March at 7 pm.

We offer this virtual pilgrimage to visitors to the website so that you may get a taste of what we are about and receive some spiritual benefit too.

The Roman governor appears reluctant to condemn a man who seems innocent, but he would avoid a riot and the easiest thing to do is to condemn him.

Jesus stands here for all those who have been unjustly treated; for all condemned to death.

Here we pray for those who administer the law that they may do so fairly and with mercy. We pray for those who bully or exert pressure on others; or who pervert the course of justice.

We also resolve to stand up for those of who are victimized, or who stand for unpopular causes, and for all who are unfairly treated.

He must carry the cross that will bear his weight to the place of crucifixion.

Taking up your cross is one of the things Jesus asks us to do. In fact, we all have burdens to bear: hard tasks and unpleasant obligations or even physical disability or pain. This is a normal part of the human condition. We are made to do things; we suffer. The question is how we deal with these things.

Christ shares our pains. He learned obedience by what he suffered. We too are called to form character by the pains we have and also to bear one another’s burdens (as also to share each other’s joys). We pray for strength to bear our pains with courage.

Jesus sometimes seems out of reach because he is too good for us. His physical weakness may stand also for the fact that he, like us, was mortal.

Being human means that we sometimes fail. Failure is a forbidden topic, but it happens anyway. Some burdens are too great for us. Our physical strength gives out; our spiritual stamina may not be enough. Sin is the word used for our failures to do what we are called to do.

Here on this walk of shame, Jesus is the friend of failures. The Christian faith is not held by those who think they are better than others, but by those who know that they fall short and that God, who knows this better than they do, still loves them.

The mother of Jesus is held in high regard in this church. And this is one of the reasons. We know that she was there on that day when almost everyone else had gone. She remained faithful.

Motherhood is, in nature as well as among human beings, overwhelmingly a pattern of self sacrifice and devotion. It is not always popular or encouraged. Paradoxically, when fathers are supposed to take their part, single mothers are much more the norm.

We give thanks for devoted parents, for all those who care, because children are always at risk, always vulnerable, however old and able they may appear to be. We pray for them and for their courage.

Simon is a stranger, coming in from the country, who is compelled to assist in the gruesome task. The gospel tells us that he is the father of Alexander and Rufus, two people known to the early Christians. Perhaps, through this accident of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, this stranger and his family became followers of Jesus.

But in any case, we give thanks for outsiders, for those who, whatever their motives or circumstances, find themselves supporting the weak. We pray too for all who live under the compulsion of cruel governments or who are pressurized into assisting with evil acts.

The story goes that the face of Jesus was left imprinted on the handkerchief that the woman gave him. (Her name comes from the words, ‘true image’).

Another stranger – there must have been many who saw this savage procession – is moved, this time without compulsion, to make a gesture of help.

Sometimes anything we can do seems too little to make any difference; but whenever we do any act, however small, we minister to Christ. Some people think that believers can do nothing, all is God’s work. Here we see that Christ blesses our every act of kindness. He calls and we choose how to respond.

The ‘way of sorrows’, as it is called, is quite long and even ten yards is too far to someone weakened by scourging and carrying a heavy load.

Life often seems unchangingly painful. One aspect of this is our own failure. One reason why people give up saying their confession is that they find themselves saying the same thing time after time. We are maddenly bad in the same ways. The truth is that it is other people who suffer as a result of our sins.

But we are not alone in this. Christ falls again and bears our sins upon him. Look to him and be both astonished and glad.

The women weep when they see him. He responds that they should weep for themselves and for their children; for the suffering imposed upon him will come to them too. The city will fall.

Our sympathy for those who suffer may produce crocodile tears. At any rate, having expressed our feelings we can get on with our comfortable lives. But we are part of humanity; anything which affects others in reality touches us.

We might ask that the keeping of Passiontide this year may move and change our lives, not out of self interest, but because God who calls us is the God of all people. We might pray too that God will be merciful upon us whose compassion is often skin deep.

It seems as the suffering will last forever. Those who have suffered torture or capture may think that there will be no end to it. Someone once wrote of ‘the banality of evil’, its boring sameness.

Having the strength to go on depends on whether there seems any point. Christians are not moral or physical heroes who can resist all. We can admire the martyrs who resisted and died in the faith; we pray to God for the strength to go on. In doing so we call upon him and not upon our own powers: that when we fail, humanly speaking, he will uphold us.

Thus, we gaze upon Christ, apparently defeated, and pray for the will not to avert our eyes.

Jesus is reduced to near nakedness in preparation for his being impaled on the cross.

Clothes are our statement of who and what we think we are, whether we choose jeans and sweatshirt or smart suits. Uniforms confer authority; dressing down is about attitude as much as comfort.

Underneath it all we are naked and our nakedness is not, by and large, sexually attractive but a sign of our weakness and vulnerability.

We may pray that Christ will reveal to us our common humanity and the vital need for humility towards others and modesty in ourselves.

The soldiers obey orders and do as they have often done – hammered the nails into the hands and feet of the criminal.

Violence and cruelty have a fascinating quality about them, as we see when a car accident takes place. People want to see. Those who enjoy hurting others are not totally removed from the rest of us. Christians have to beware of this temptation.

What we see instead is the self-giving of God himself in his son’s suffering with us. Love is at the heart of it, a love which extends to those who commit indescribable acts out of duty. Here are deep mysteries into which we can only enter safely in prayer.

The Son of God dies, bereft of friends, with only his mother and the beloved disciple to see.

Death comes to us all. It cannot be banished, even though it is often removed from homes to hospitals and delayed into old age. Christ’s death is untimely, unjust and cruel: all the things which make people doubt God.

What makes Christianity unique is that at its heart is the worst of the human condition. Because God enters into the depths he is able to save us out of those same depths.

We may pray for the mercy of God as we come to our own deaths. We may also pray for the strength to be with those who are dying that they may not be alone or feel abandoned. We may pray for those who minister to the dying and give thanks for their special gifts.

Pilate gives permission to Joseph of Arimathea to take down the body from the cross. By tradition his mother is there, loving that body to which she gave birth and which she knew before she saw it and which she now embraces though it cannot return her embrace.

Love is not rational if it really loves. It does not think about what it gets in return. We grieve in part for ourselves but also because love has to have somewhere to go.

One reason why people believe is because they can’t believe that the object of their love has ceased to be.

We give thanks for the gift of love, even in spite of its pains. We pray for those whom we love but see no longer and give thanks for having shared life with them. We pray for them.

Joseph of Arimathea begs for the body of Jesus that he may lay it in a tomb which was intended for himself. Bodies are not just waste matter. People have always buried their dead. It is an act of respect. For Christians there is another dimension. Because Christ lived and died, human beings, even in death, are icons of Christ.

More than that, Christians believe, not in immortality but in resurrection. It is true that what dies is perishable and weak whereas what is raised is glorious and imperishable; but what we shall be in heaven must be, in a sense, what we have been on earth. We are the same person. We give thanks that he, who gave life to Jesus, will raise us also gloriously from the dead and pray that, though we pass through the purging fires, we shall be saved.

This last station has been added to the tradition series. The passion ended, Christ was raised from the dead, early on Easter morning. The soldiers posted to prevent grave robbery were asleep; the act of God mysteriously gives hope to all people.

On Easter day, but also on every Sunday, Christians gather to proclaim that God works through human suffering in order to bring about his purposes. We do not pretend that the world is other than it is: full of flawed and sometimes thoroughly bad people; we do not pretend that we are somehow separated from this often wicked world. We believe, though, that God redeems it and gives hope to all who find him revealed in Jesus Christ, either in this world or in the world to come. We pray for the gift of hope that everyone may find it possible to hold onto it.

Top