First Station: Jesus Is Condemned to Death
ASV Mark 15:1-5 And as soon as it was morning, the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole Council. And they bound Jesus and led him away and delivered him over to Pilate. 2 And Pilate asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” And he answered him, “You have said so.” 3 And the chief priests accused him of many things. 4 And Pilate again asked him, “Have you no answer to make? See how many charges they bring against you.” 5 But Jesus made no further answer, so that Pilate was amazed.
Idealists, preachers, magic workers, and zealots were a dime a dozen in the Mediterranean world of the 1st century. This world was not short of religious, political, or social idealism, by any stretch of the imagination. Read More »
Second Station: The Cross is Laid Upon Him
The abuse of Jesus began long before his actual crucifixion. The abuse, according to the Synoptic Gospels, actually begins with the Council (i.e., high priest, chief priests, elders, and scribes), and their mocking, spitting, blindfolding, taunting, and punching. Jesus was then delivered to Pilate for further mistreatment before he was carted off to Herod and finally shipped back to Pilate where he became the recipient of a serious scourging.
Roman flogging was brutal and often resulted in the death of the individual. The practice was used in the attempt to speed up the end-result of crucifixion. Read More »
Third Station: Jesus’ First Fall
Jesus fell. This event is not recorded in the gospels, but in Christian legend and memory. Is it hard to imagine? No. Jesus of Nazareth, at this point, would have been seriously injured and extremely weak from the beatings, scourgings, and subsequent loss of blood. Jesus would have found it very, very difficult to just walk to the place of his crucifixion, let alone carry his own cross.
He falls, once, twice, three times. The continued snap of a Roman whip pushes him forward. Read More »
Fourth Station: Jesus Encounters His Mother
Docitism minimizes the human drama between mother and son. Jesus of Nazareth was a son, in the fullest sense of the word. He most assuredly lived his life as a son. His mother lovingly cleansed him when he soiled himself miserably as an infant. She fed him when he stomped and screamed for nourishment with all the fierce, selfish, and necessarily instinctive temper displayed by infants to this very day. She nursed his bloody elbows and knees on more than a few occasions when his outside play was performed with too much reckless but youthful abandonment. Mary was mother. Jesus was son.
The encounter of Mary and Jesus, which is not attested to by scripture, but by Christian legend, as he was being forced toward his crucifixion, must have been heart-wrenching. Read More »
Fifth Station: Simon Carries Jesus’ Cross.
Exhaustion is the human body’s way of telling us it needs a break. We all are incurably strapped to physical limitations. A serious lack of sleep magnifies these limitations. Jesus of Nazareth is no exception. He must have been incredibly exhausted. The weight of his cross must have been steadily multiplying as his flayed arms, shoulders, and back struggled wearily beneath it. How much further could he be pushed, physically speaking? Not much further …
Jesus was beaten and ferociously lacerated by a gruesome Roman scourge. He was also deprived of sleep. Read More »
Sixth Station: Veronica Wipes Jesus’ Face with a Cloth
The Gospels say nothing about a woman named Veronica actually wiping Jesus’ face. The Gospel of Luke, however, does cite a small group of people following Jesus as he was marched toward his crucifixion. Women were a part of this group, if not the entire composition of it! These women were beating their breasts and wailing for him, says Luke. I’m sure this would be so. Jesus was adored, after all, by many, many women.
Jesus had enough time to turn to these women, and, according to Luke, say, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.” Read More »
Seventh Station: Jesus Falls a Second Time
Jesus falls, a second time. The event is not recorded in the gospels, but it is not difficult to imagine. Jesus probably fell a dozen or more times, given his mental and physical condition.
I wonder what flashbacks were playing in Jesus’ mind at this point? I’m sure he, as most of us do, was rewinding to where he had been, and cognitively screening his own home movies. Read More »
Eighth Station: Jesus Speaks to Jerusalem Women
ASV Luke 23:26-31: 26 And as they led him away, they seized one Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, and laid on him the cross, to carry it behind Jesus. 27 And there followed him a great multitude of the people and of women who were mourning and lamenting for him. 28 But turning to them Jesus said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. 29 For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ 30 Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’ 31 For if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?”
Women stayed with Jesus until the very end. Perhaps, in him, they saw their freedom, or equality? Perhaps they invested their personal worth in the kingdom to which he pointed? Read More »
Ninth Station: Jesus’ Third Fall
One fall is … a fall. A fall is just a fall, usually. A second fall is a sure sign of repetitive stumbling. Yes, a bit of vertigo may be the trouble. A third fall is, however, no fall at all. It is a continuation; a small, isolated look at a much larger and combined chain of events. Yes, a third fall is but one small frame of a moving picture composed of many, many similar shots. Jesus did not fall once, twice, or three times. No, Jesus bounced, rolled, scraped, and crawled his way - the entire way - toward Glogatha, aka “The Place of the Skull.” Read More »
Tenth Station: Jesus Is Stripped
ASV Matthew 27:27-36: 27 Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor’s headquarters, and they gathered the whole battalion before him. 28 And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, 29 and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head and put a reed in his right hand. And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” 30 And they spit on him and took the reed and struck him on the head. 31 And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him and led him away to crucify him. 32 As they went out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name. They compelled this man to carry his cross. 33 And when they came to a place called Glogatha (which means Place of a Skull), 34 they offered him wine to drink, mixed with gall, but when he tasted it, he would not drink it. 35 And when they had crucified him, they divided his garments among them by casting lots. 36 Then they sat down and kept watch over him there.
Roman crucifixion was designed to be as humiliating as it was painful. Yes, torture and capital punishment are fused. Why? Well, to send a message to all those would be subversives, of course. Read More »