Via Crucis: The Second Station
The Via Crucis Grid Blog has over 30 folks from around the world from a wide variety of faith traditions who are committed to be part of daily reflections this week on the Stations of the Cross. The schedule for each day's writings can be found here.
I will be doing Stations 2, 10 and 11.
Station 2: Jesus carries the Cross.
The cross is at the core of our faith, yet is largely ignored in day to day life except as part of an overall theological formula for "salvation". It has been made like pabulum in an ornamental bottle. It has lost its harsh bark, its weight and the long wooded drag that leads to death when nails bark into that wood and the warm blood of God spills on the Earth.
The ornamental bottle sidesteps the raging bull of death that is implied by such a cross and its dark earthy undertaking. It makes the turning point of history into a mere emblem, a proposition, and at times, almost a piece of a mathematical equation.
This moment of the laying of the cross on Jesus is a terrifying moment for both God and Humanity, and continues to be in some ways, at least for us.
But let us start with the One who bore this solitary cross. His was a cross unlike any we may carry. While there have been handfuls of men and women who seem to embody the continued sufferings of Christ…what is “lacking” (whatever that means), we are not like them, not even when we die of various diseases, or in a random act of violence, or perhaps simply because the body gives out eventually. We were never going to get out of this alive anyway…but we stand in facing our own mortality still in selfishness, even if it is with hope.
The Son of Man allowed the rough lumber to be laid upon Him knowing what we know not. And it was even for that selfishness in death that Christ self-lessly gave up His life for love's sake.
He had already been beaten, crowned with thorns and whipped. It is all your worst nightmares mixed into one. Torture, nakedness, shaming, ridicule, being spat upon, exhaustion and watching your own life being bled out a bit at a time. Then comes the lumber and you are driven to carry this cross to your own imminent death.
We are tempted to skip to the end of this story now…to resurrection. Let’s not (actually I cannot as I am assignment station 2). Better to linger with Jesus in this moment and feel that terror that is unlike our own as intense as that may be at times.
I wonder what was going through His mind at that moment.
Not many of us die for love's sake, or for God, even metaphorically. I do not. Maybe you do, but I do not. I am supposed to “take up my cross and follow Him”. I am not so very good at this. I find that I whine a lot instead, or I deflect or try to bargain. I have only advanced to the point where I do not wish to nail others up myself. Not very impressive progress, really.
It’s not about being resolute enough, or being tough. Ha! Back in the 90s Darrell Johnson was preaching the cross and Jesus to a good old dead Presbyterian congregation and he asked me if I would dress in tatters and drag a huge wooden cross up the main aisle and up to the alter as he preached. I guess I fit the bill as I had long Jesus hair down to the middle of my back.
Now I am 6’6” and at the time weighed in around 250 pounds and I did as Darrell asked and hauled a 120 pound cross down that center aisle and laid it down on the alter. It felt solemn and heavy. It stirred something in me and in others. I was brooding on it afterward when a session member, a woman came and thanked me for not damaging the stone work on the alter. Then one of the pillars of the Session, a burly man came by and slapped me on the back in a hearty way and said “Yeah huh...gotta be strong to carry the cross!”
Then he gave me a couple of other slaps on the back and moved off.
I was speechless on both occasions, which is far from usual.
No. That's just not it.
What takes more love and power? To herd humanity by rules and give them the right principles…or to bear the lumber in weakness headed to death on a hill named “skull”?
Why do we still want to take the easy way out via rules or “principles” instead of taking up our cross to follow Him?
I can tell you why I do. It’s far easier. It is, ostensibly, even "God's way" and gives one a sense of rightness that dragging a cross behind an unmanageable God will never do. To follow Master Jesus is not glamorous, clean or peaceful. Echoes of His own sufferings will be evident. In weakness, Jesus became the most powerful as the cross was laid upon Him.
It’s a defining moment, perhaps the defining moment.
Gospel is paradoxical. It takes love and humility to carry the cross, not overt power and strength. “The way up is down” which is really a major part of our whole problem now. We have ceased to believe Jesus and His way of cross-bearing, even in a metaphorical sense. We simply want no part of it. It's too real and I suspect the incarnate Way, Truth, and Life Himself may impinge upon my often vaporous ways, personal truths and lifestyle.
Station 2 was the shouldering of this coarse and splintered weight to save us from our lostness. There is nothing more insane than crucifiying your God and Creator. Yet even in this, Christ is able to make His death the apex of sanity. When Humanity is most insane, God brings the way of the cross front and center.
The sins of humanity. The writs, decrees, accusations, and all our lostness would soon be nailed to that tree with Him. But the cross started at that moment that we call Station 2, and it is no less real today.
posted by Obi-Mac BakDon @ 7:38 AM
Comments: 2
