Via Crucis :: Immersion

Seventh Station:  Jesus Bears the Cross (John 19: 6, 15-17)

⁶ When the high priests and police saw him, they shouted in a frenzy, "Crucify! Crucify!"

   Pilate told them, "You take him. You crucify him. I find nothing wrong with him."

¹⁵ They shouted back, "Kill him! Kill him! Crucify him!"   Pilate said, "I am to crucify your king?"   The high priests answered, "We have no king except Caesar." ^16-19 Pilate caved in to their demand. He turned him over to be crucified.The Crucifixion   They took Jesus away. Carrying his cross, Jesus went out to the place called Skull Hill (the name in Hebrew is Golgotha), where they crucified him, and with him two others, one on each side, Jesus in the middle. Pilate wrote a sign and had it placed on the cross. It read: 
   Jesus the Nazarene the King of the Jews.

Jesus bears the cross, the burdens of all of humanity, the sins of all humanity. Jesus takes the weight of the entire world upon his shoulders and walks through the town to place of his crucifixion. "Truly He has born our sorrows; truly He has born our griefs. He was chosen for us; alone He stands there for us. The sin of all of us was placed on Him."


Father God, how can I thank you for sending YOUR son, your one and only son to carry the weight of my burden, my sorrows, my griefs, my guilt, my sin? What can I do in return? What of me is of worth for such a sacrifice?

 

Via Crucis :: Immersion

Sixth Station:  Jesus is Scourged and Crowned with Thorns (John 19: 1-3)

The Thorn Crown of the King

 ^1-3 So Pilate took Jesus and had him whipped. The soldiers, having braided a crown from thorns, set it on his head, threw a purple robe over him, and approached him with, "Hail, King of the Jews!" Then they greeted him with slaps in the face.

The pain that Christ went through as the whip drug across his back, as the thorns dug into his flesh, as he was mocked and scorned and ridiculed. In The Passion of the Christ, this was the most brutally intense scene - the image of the whip, similar to a cat-o-nine-tails with barbs, ripping and rending the flesh from the back of Jesus still haunts me to this day. I cringed and closed my eyes, but not soon enough. Not soon enough. It is a miracle that you survived the scourging. Or is it? Because you did, you died instead upon a cross. Would your sacrifice have led to the redemption of the world had you died at the hands of a Roman whip?


Father God, for His pain I am able to be reconciled to You. Through His suffering I am made whole. By His blood I am white as snow in You. May I never forget his agony. May I always remember that it was for me and all as I, all of humanity, that He was made to suffer so.

Via Crucis :: Immersion

Lenten Daily Quotes

Day 33 - a quote about faith in __________

"Have faith in God; God has faith in you."
~ Edwin Louis Cole

Via Crucis :: Immersion

Fourth Station:  Jesus is Denied by Peter (Matthew 26: 69-75)

Denial in the Courtyard

 ⁶⁹ All this time, Peter was sitting out in the courtyard. One servant girl came up to him and said, "You were with Jesus the Galilean."

 ⁷⁰ In front of everybody there, he denied it. "I don't know what you're talking about."

 ⁷¹ As he moved over toward the gate, someone else said to the people there, "This man was with Jesus the Nazarene."

 ⁷² Again he denied it, salting his denial with an oath: "I swear, I never laid eyes on the man."

 ⁷³ Shortly after that, some bystanders approached Peter. "You've got to be one of them. Your accent gives you away."

 ^74-75 Then he got really nervous and swore. "I don't know the man!"

   Just then a rooster crowed. Peter remembered what Jesus had said: "Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times." He went out and cried and cried and cried.

How can it be that one of the inmost of disciples, one of those closest to Him, could deny him? Recognized by many and fearful for his own life, Peter denied that he even knew who Jesus was. And Jesus? He knew before that such would happen. Was he surprised when the cock crowed the third time and found that Peter had in fact denied him? Did he speak the words to Peter to give warning of the frail human character, hoping Peter would find a strength to affirm and not deny? Already wounded by the betrayal and the condemnation of the Sanhedrin, was this merely a scratch to the already festering woundedness or was it the knife in the back that trumped all other pain?


Father God, Christ himself states that the only unforgivable sin is the denial of the Holy Spirit. However that may be, keep me ever on guard that I may find strength enough, boldness and courage to never deny who Jesus Christ is to me, for me, and upon me.

Via Crucis :: Immersion

Third Station:  Jesus is Condemned by the Sanhedrin (Luke 22: 66-71)

^66-67 When it was morning, the religious leaders of the people and the high priests and scholars all got together and brought him before their High Council. They said, "Are you the Messiah?"

 ^67-69 He answered, "If I said yes, you wouldn't believe me. If I asked what you meant by your question, you wouldn't answer me. So here's what I have to say: From here on the Son of Man takes his place at God's right hand, the place of power."

 ⁷⁰ They all said, "So you admit your claim to be the Son of God?"

   "You're the ones who keep saying it," he said.

 ⁷¹ But they had made up their minds, "Why do we need any more evidence? We've all heard him as good as say it himself."

You weren't just condemned, Christ Jesus, were you? You were self-incriminating. You spoke no word in your defense, stood silent before those that would accuse, allowed yourself to be condemned. What is one to think of that? What am I to make of that. You willingly walked toward your demise. Am I, as a follower of you Christ Jesus, meant to do the same? If ever a situation were to arise where I am to stand before accusers, would I be able to be so restrained? 


John Ericson spoke of a tale: In a future Earth where to be (as in verb - action) Christian meant to be condemned to death a man was brought before the judges to be condemned. The prosecutor presented evidence of the crimes - the man attends church every Sunday, he reads the Holy Bible and not only reads it but marks it and highlights the book. The man stood before his accusers and waited on baited breath. The judges deliberated and found the man not guilty. The man was at first thrilled but then shocked. He was not condemned? How could this be? The judge spoke, "he does act as a Christian." 


Father God, when it is that I stand accused, may I be so condemned that I am to be put to death for the deeds that I have done.

Lenten Daily Quotes

Day 32 - a quote about something you'd sacrifice everything for


“Self-sacrifice is the real miracle out of which all the reported miracles grow”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson