SPEAKER_00: Good evening and welcome.
SPEAKER_00: I wanted to talk about the stations briefly before we do them, tell you a little bit about their history, but I don't want to um jump too far forward because the stations are really a reenactment of Friday without reminding you what happens on Monday.
SPEAKER_00: So Monday, the catalyzing event is that Jesus is at some wealthy person's home, receives essentially very bad hospitality from the host, and a woman, she may or may not have been sinful, depends on which gospel you're reading, comes and breaks an alabaster jar holding pure nard on his head.
SPEAKER_00: And this is a really important event because in order to be a Messiah, Messiah means anointed one, you have to be anointed with oil by a prophet.
SPEAKER_00: John the Baptist used water, not oil.
SPEAKER_00: So this is the anointing of Jesus that makes him the Messiah, and the prophet is a woman that some gospels call a sinful woman.
SPEAKER_00: And if you remember this story, this is a perfume that's worth a year's worth of wages.
SPEAKER_00: It's made of pure nard.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to smell that, I have it here in incense form, but also in extract form.
SPEAKER_00: And Judas is very upset because it was a year's worth of wages.
SPEAKER_00: So just consider in this neighborhood, I don't know what that is,$120,000 is probably the main income here.
SPEAKER_00: Gone.
SPEAKER_00: Once it's poured out, it cannot be retrieved.
SPEAKER_00: And Judas says, you could have sold that.
SPEAKER_00: You could have sold that and given it to poor people.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus has this really interesting reply, and the reason this is so important is that this is the one that sends Judas off.
SPEAKER_00: The reply is, the poor you'll always have with you.
SPEAKER_00: But you won't always have me.
SPEAKER_00: I can't tell if Judas didn't realize that Jesus was quoting the book of Deuteronomy.
SPEAKER_00: The book of Deuteronomy has this phrase the poor you will always have with you because you are hard-hearted and stingy.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe, you've got to figure out what this means.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, maybe Judas makes a fine point about stewardship.
SPEAKER_00: But once she's offered it, there's no one offering it.
SPEAKER_00: So Judas' objection takes this woman's gift and makes it potentially shameful.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus sticks up for her.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know, I wrote a blog about this that said, you know, sometimes we give people who look like they're hungry, we say, well, if you're really hungry, you'll eat whatever I give you.
SPEAKER_00: And we give them stuff we wouldn't eat ourselves, even if we were hungry.
SPEAKER_00: And we expect them to be grateful.
SPEAKER_00: So it's an interesting thing, right?
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we give the needy the worst things, because that's good enough if you really need it.
SPEAKER_00: It's an interesting question, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: But without the perfume story, we don't have a Messiah and we don't have a traitor.
SPEAKER_00: So holy week hinges on some perfume.
SPEAKER_00: Sort of interesting to think about.
SPEAKER_00: Stations of the cross.
SPEAKER_00: You probably heard of them.
SPEAKER_00: They're very strong in the Roman Catholic tradition, and they date back to the Crusades.
SPEAKER_00: So the earliest Christians did not do them at all.
SPEAKER_00: And it turns out if you go to Jerusalem today, it looks nothing like Jerusalem at the time of Jesus, which was not very big.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the scale model that I used on Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to actually use this one as well to give you an idea.
SPEAKER_00: That the trial happens right outside the Antonia.
SPEAKER_00: The fortress built right onto the temple.
SPEAKER_00: And from the Antonia, people took the cross right outside the city gate.
SPEAKER_00: You can even see one there.
SPEAKER_00: There's a small gate.
SPEAKER_00: There's another gate right over here.
SPEAKER_00: So at the time of Jesus, the stations of the cross would have been about a hundred yards long.
SPEAKER_00: Because you went right outside.
SPEAKER_00: People were crucified outside of the city, mainly because people who lived in the city didn't want all the gross.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: It's sort of gross.
SPEAKER_00: The major reason, though, is because very few people lived in ancient cities with walls.
SPEAKER_00: They lived out in the fields.
SPEAKER_00: They came in the city to do business.
SPEAKER_00: So by putting crosses right by the city entrance, everybody has to pass by on their way in and out.
SPEAKER_00: And they sort of served as a marquee in the ancient world.
SPEAKER_00: This is what happens when you resist Rome.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was like a billboard.
SPEAKER_00: What used to be a hundred yards, if you go to Jerusalem today, because the walls have moved and buildings have come up, is now like a mile and a half.
SPEAKER_00: The Via Dola Rosa is about a mile and a half long to do the stations.
SPEAKER_00: And there's a little apple by each one of the stations.
SPEAKER_00: Even when the crusaders were there, the city looked a lot more like this than it does now.
SPEAKER_00: But as the Turks came in and sort of built up the city, things got moved around.
SPEAKER_00: Hence the Via Dola Rosa had its chapels.
SPEAKER_00: The Crusaders found that it was really important for them to try to remember the story physically.
SPEAKER_00: So when they went to Jerusalem, this was sort of revelatory that they could kind of walk in the footsteps of Jesus, and that this was not just a literal walking, it was a contemplative walk.
SPEAKER_00: So many of the stations we have, they don't show up in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Like Jesus falling three times.
SPEAKER_00: That comes from tradition and it comes from symbolism, and it's meant to really invite us to consider what our spiritual pilgrimage is so often like and how it is that we can walk like Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Hope that's okay.
SPEAKER_00: I hope I'm not overdoing this introduction for you.
SPEAKER_00: If you go, I do recommend walking the Via de La Rosa.
SPEAKER_00: It's full of shops, it's full of tourists, and it's full of lots and lots of turns and heels in the time of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Straight shop.
SPEAKER_00: Straight shot right outside of the city.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if it's helpful either.
SPEAKER_00: Even some of the art that we have shows Jesus carrying a T-shaped cross.
SPEAKER_00: And at the time of Jesus, he would have only carried the horizontal.
SPEAKER_00: Right outside the city where people were crucified, they were already telephone poles in the ground, about five and a half feet tall, and the accused carried a cross being that they were tied to, and then just took two soldiers just to lift him up and put him in a little spot.
SPEAKER_00: So sometimes you see an artistic depiction of a really big, heavy cross.
SPEAKER_00: And that's just not historically accurate.
SPEAKER_00: It's an artistic picture.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm saying it's symbolic.
SPEAKER_00: So historically, Jesus carried a little two by four.
SPEAKER_00: That's so he didn't get tired.
SPEAKER_00: They wanted you to have all your energy when you got on the cross so you could suffer longer.
SPEAKER_00: So you're going to see a bunch of different art media, and I'm going to invite you to walk.
SPEAKER_00: I know it's not a long walk.
SPEAKER_00: It's not even a hundred yards in here, but there is something about walking station to station.
SPEAKER_00: And over the last few years, we've picked up different artists that have done mixed media depictions in keeping with, hey, this looks like and means a lot of different things.
SPEAKER_00: So each one chooses to highlight a few different things according to the artist.
SPEAKER_00: It's okay if you want to talk about them.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't, that's okay too.
SPEAKER_00: But um I know most of the artists, so uh, so I'm happy to speak to them if if you like.
SPEAKER_00: Um but uh I'm gonna I'm gonna invite you now.
SPEAKER_00: Can everybody get one of these?
SPEAKER_00: So I I'm just gonna sort of go by the book here.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I didn't write this, I adapted it a little bit, and and I hope it will be meaningful for you.
SPEAKER_00: And I'll start at the beginning, and then when it's time for station one, I'll pick up our processional cross and we'll sort of make our way around.
SPEAKER_00: As we accompany Jesus on his journey to Calvary, let us take a moment to remember how difficult that journey was.
SPEAKER_00: He carried his cross through the narrow, crowded streets of Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: It was Passover time, and the city was full of people, many of whom mocked, jostled, and took pleasure in watching as Jesus struggled with his heavy burden.
SPEAKER_00: The way was often steep.
SPEAKER_00: The journey Jesus made on that day remains a symbol of Christianity in the world, as we struggle with our own crosses and failures and the challenges of modern life.
SPEAKER_00: The streets of our towns are filled with people who carry their personal crosses, who are bruised, battered, and broken.
SPEAKER_00: Through the stations of the cross, Jesus is inviting us to journey with him and to reflect on his suffering as it continues in the lives of his people.
SPEAKER_00: In solidarity with all who suffer, let us pray that we will be open to whatever he wants us to see, hear, and understand.
SPEAKER_00: We remember Jesus was captured at night, taken away by soldiers, stripped of his garments, interrogated, tortured, crowned with sharp thorns, and now handed over to be condemned to death by Pontius Pilate and death on a cross.
SPEAKER_00: We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is condemned unjustly by those who did not understand him, and by those who were frightened of what he did and said.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps they sensed that this man could make a difference, that he could turn their world upside down.
SPEAKER_00: We continue to condemn people unjustly today.
SPEAKER_00: People are condemned because of the color of their skin, their gender, their beliefs, because they are born with a disability, because they don't conform to our way of thinking.
SPEAKER_00: The list is endless.
SPEAKER_00: There are also the people who have been justly condemned, who have been found guilty, served their sentence, and asked for forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: Does our society really forgive, really believe that people can change?
SPEAKER_00: Or do we continue to condemn them over and over again?
SPEAKER_00: Let us pray.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, what a terrible injustice to see you condemned to death.
SPEAKER_00: Your own people, the Roman judges and the soldiers, didn't recognize that you were the Son of God.
SPEAKER_00: Give us the grace to see, respect, and love you in all people, both innocent and guilty.
SPEAKER_00: Change our hearts that we may see with new eyes those we might otherwise condemn this earlier.
SPEAKER_00: This is a photograph of an Episcopal priest uh holding a cedar beam on his back.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you remember him.
SPEAKER_00: Charles Graves came and preached here uh two or three weeks ago.
SPEAKER_00: And um it's very intimate to me to see a real body.
SPEAKER_00: Not a swarthy muscular body, like a normal body, just holding that crossbeam without the eyes.
SPEAKER_00: This was Todd Parker's contribution to us.
SPEAKER_00: Um it it's backlit, but there's there's something about the intimacy of a real, not exaggerated human body that is very striking.
SPEAKER_00: Assistation too, Jesus takes up his cross.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was led away carrying the cross by himself.
SPEAKER_00: The cross is not just a piece of wood, it is everything that makes life difficult.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus carried the crosses of his life on complaint, as a poor person and as an itinerant prophet.
SPEAKER_00: In the calm and courageous way, he put up with the threats of the Pharisees and the lack of understanding of his own disciples.
SPEAKER_00: In the way that he carried all the burdens of his life, but in particular the way in which he carries this awful final burden, he transforms the cross from a symbol of condemnation into one of liberation.
SPEAKER_00: We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.
SPEAKER_00: There are burdens that we all carry.
SPEAKER_00: Some are very obvious, and others we take great care to hide.
SPEAKER_00: There are the burdens of illness, pain, and disability, of old age dependence, and caring for someone who no longer knows who we are.
SPEAKER_00: There are the burdens of constant fear, of loneliness and of isolation.
SPEAKER_00: The invitation of Jesus on the cross is to hand over these burdens to him.
SPEAKER_00: Let us pray.
SPEAKER_00: May we see your presence, Lord, in all the burdens we carry today.
SPEAKER_00: Help us to share our burdens more freely, not to be afraid to acknowledge our fears and our pain.
SPEAKER_00: May we be more aware of the crosses that others bear and make time to alleviate their burden.
SPEAKER_00: May your face shine on each one of us through the crosses we bear.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Station three.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus falls for the first time.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus falls.
SPEAKER_00: Here Jesus shows us that being heroic does not mean staying on one's feet at all costs.
SPEAKER_00: Being heroic might mean getting up again after falling and starting off on the road chosen.
SPEAKER_00: Human beings will never resign themselves to stay flat on the ground.
SPEAKER_00: Like Jesus, they will get up again, pick up their crosses, and keep on searching for a promised land of total liberation.
SPEAKER_00: We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.
SPEAKER_00: Look at Jesus fall under his cross.
SPEAKER_00: He might have fallen into the gutter or be slouched into a doorway on Skid Row.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't look much like God there.
SPEAKER_00: But he didn't look like God when he fell into the dirt on the way to Calvary either.
SPEAKER_00: The crowds look on with disdain at this man whom they see as a sinner, who's been condemned to death by the authorities.
SPEAKER_00: Like the crowd, we have only some we often have only condemnation and rejection for those we see as sinners.
SPEAKER_00: We judge them without knowing about their trials, scourging and crowning with thorns.
SPEAKER_00: Do we even suspect the part we might have played in knocking them down?
SPEAKER_00: What do we do to help them?
SPEAKER_00: Let us pray.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, it's easy to see your image and the saints.
SPEAKER_00: Help us to see you and the sinners too.
SPEAKER_00: You have a place in your heart for the divorced Samaritan woman, Zacchaeus, the good thief, and for those who crucified you.
SPEAKER_00: Give us this same compassionate heart.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: This station, if you have time later, there are titles and verses embedded in the art itself.
SPEAKER_00: You have to be right up on it to see it.
SPEAKER_00: It's rather, rather interesting.
SPEAKER_00: This is by one of our friends and Bastriptoben.
SPEAKER_00: This is station 4.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus meets his mother.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus and his mother meet, they just look at each other.
SPEAKER_00: Words cannot express how they feel.
SPEAKER_00: What he saw in his mother's eyes must have hurt him more than the raw pain of his wounds.
SPEAKER_00: This for Jesus might be the most painful time of all.
SPEAKER_00: This is his bereavement.
SPEAKER_00: We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus carries the heaviest burden of the loss of his family.
SPEAKER_00: The sundering of the earthly loving relationship between mother and child.
SPEAKER_00: This was not at his making.
SPEAKER_00: The violence inflicted upon him etched into the very heart of his mother as she watched the agony of her son.
SPEAKER_00: We see Mary's pain in the mothers and fathers who watch their children giving up their lives to drugs, addictions, and suicide, and the women and men who suffer violence and the ongoing threat of violence in their home from spouse or child.
SPEAKER_00: We see Mary's pain and the child coping with the breakdown of a parent's marriage and the couple trying desperately to rebuild their relationship and family anew.
SPEAKER_00: Let us pray.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, we remember the gaze that rested between you and your mother.
SPEAKER_00: In that moment of pain, there was also a moment of deep and enduring love.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, give us the courage to bring that love into the deepest recesses of our homes, to our children and to our spouses, to those places of fracture and disharmony in our circle of relationships.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Simon helps Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Simon the Cyrene, a stranger in the city, did not know Jesus, but that did not matter.
SPEAKER_00: What matters here is that in this moment of need, Simon was capable of lending his shoulder to one whose own had given out, of offering his strength to one who had nothing left, of taking on himself the cross which Jesus could no longer carry.
SPEAKER_00: We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.
SPEAKER_00: Look at Jesus who lies hidden and unknown beneath every person in need.
SPEAKER_00: Across our world we see human suffering in the faces of strangers, in the faces of those struggling for democracy in the Middle East and beyond, in the faces of those dealing with the loss of life and destruction of property.
SPEAKER_00: People we know of, but might not know, must live with the aftermath of the ravages and destructive forces of nature, coping with floods and drought, with the devastating effects of climate change.
SPEAKER_00: Let us pray.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, help us to grasp our opportunities to be a Simon in our world.
SPEAKER_00: In those times when we can help, let us have the generosity to do so.
SPEAKER_00: May we continue the spirit of Simon through our support of agencies such as Lord of the Streets, Episcopal Relief and Development, and all who work to alleviate suffering in our world.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, may we have the humility to accept all the Simons along our road who reach out to help us in our moments of need.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: This is a major Eastern European tradition that the woman who wipes Jesus' face is named Veronica, and that the cloth she used is imprinted with his face.
SPEAKER_00: You can see it in the country Georgia.
SPEAKER_00: You can look it up online as well.
SPEAKER_00: So the shroud of Turin is the death shroud.
SPEAKER_00: The veil of Veronica is purportedly the last and only image of Jesus miraculously given in the cloth.
SPEAKER_00: Veronica was so moved by the sight of Jesus that she courageously moved out from the crowd to wipe the blood and sweat from his face with a towel.
SPEAKER_00: She was rewarded when the image of his face was transferred to the towel.
SPEAKER_00: It is a suffering face, dispigger with wounds.
SPEAKER_00: Yet this is the only image of Himself that Jesus chose to leave with us.
SPEAKER_00: We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.
SPEAKER_00: Today the visible face of Christ, the church, stands before us still wounded and disfigured.
SPEAKER_00: Disfigured by its own sins of abuse of children and power, increased with the wounds of hurt and betrayal.
SPEAKER_00: Bearing the scars of the Murphy and Ryan reports, the face of Christ calls us to look upon and heal the sins of our church.
SPEAKER_00: Let us pray.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, give your wounded church the courage of Veronica, so that we may wash the face of Christ clean from the disfigurements of our sin.
SPEAKER_00: Help us to bring healing to the scars that hide the beauty of your face to our world.
SPEAKER_00: Give us the face to continue to build your church as a visible sign of your love and compassion.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus falls for the second time.
SPEAKER_00: Stretched to a breaking point by his awful scourging, bowed under the weight of the cross, worn out by the abandonment of all his friends, Jesus stumbles again.
SPEAKER_00: We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.
SPEAKER_00: All around us, people are overburdened by the crosses they carry.
SPEAKER_00: They struggle and sometimes fall.
SPEAKER_00: There are those who have lost their jobs and feel that they have little hope of finding another.
SPEAKER_00: Those who live with the prospect of unemployment, and those who struggle to keep others in work.
SPEAKER_00: There are those who suffer because of failures in our financial health and political systems.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is with each one of us however we fall, and there he chooses to love and save us.
SPEAKER_00: Let us pray.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, from deep within yourself, you found the courage and strength to get up once again and continue the journey.
SPEAKER_00: Give us your strength to keep going even when hope is dim.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Station 8, Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: The women of Jerusalem wept when they saw how Jesus suffered.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus recognized their distress.
SPEAKER_00: He broke his silence for the first time, spoke to them, and said, Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me.
SPEAKER_00: Weep for yourselves and for your children.
SPEAKER_00: We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.
SPEAKER_00: Look at Jesus and listen to his message for us today.
SPEAKER_00: Weep for the children who are abused.
SPEAKER_00: Weep for the women who are victimized.
SPEAKER_00: Weep for men and women alike who suffer from the tyranny of today's body image that controls their lives and prevents them from feeling lovable.
SPEAKER_00: Weep for the young who cannot find a job or a way in life.
SPEAKER_00: Weep for the old who are forgotten.
SPEAKER_00: Weep for people who starve in the shadow of abundance.
SPEAKER_00: Weep for people who are homeless, in exile or seeking refuge.
SPEAKER_00: Weep for them.
SPEAKER_00: Let us pray.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, open our hearts to the suffering of all people in our world.
SPEAKER_00: Give us the generosity of Spirit to help us recognize their pain, the courage to challenge the systems that place intolerable burdens on them, and the compassion to support them.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus falls for a third time.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus falls for a third time, broken and exhausted physically and emotionally.
SPEAKER_00: Lying on the ground, Jesus must decide.
SPEAKER_00: Does he get up once more or does he just stop and give up?
SPEAKER_00: We see him rise again, and with all his power he continues on his journey.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus shows us that we can go on, even if nobody else thinks that it is possible.
SPEAKER_00: We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.
SPEAKER_00: Many in our world today feel that they are at that moment of final falling, that their burden is too much to carry.
SPEAKER_00: They cannot bear anymore.
SPEAKER_00: Crushed by the weight of their cross, they feel unable to get up, unable to go on.
SPEAKER_00: Some may look for relief in addiction.
SPEAKER_00: Some may look to escape through suicide.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus, we find our hope and our encouragement.
SPEAKER_00: The third fall of Jesus reminds us that even in our moment of complete helplessness or our experiences of depression, in our own Calvary, we can stand it again.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is with us, and Jesus would be our strength.
SPEAKER_00: Let us pray.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we pray that when our strength fails, when our hope fades, and when our spirit grows weary, that we will put our unbounded trust in you.
SPEAKER_00: In turn, may we bring your love in a word or action of comfort to another in their moment of meaningless dispression or despair.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: It's a mixed media project, and there are actual thorns on it.
SPEAKER_00: And she cut herself several times making it.
SPEAKER_00: So she really sort of identified with the pieces.
SPEAKER_00: There are all kinds of things embedded in that.
SPEAKER_00: So also worth a close look.
SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't pet the thorns.
SPEAKER_00: They're actually still very sharp.
SPEAKER_00: Station 10.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is stripped of his clothing.
SPEAKER_00: The clothes were ripped from Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He was stripped of his dignity in front of an irreverent mob.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus sacrifices everything.
SPEAKER_00: He holds nothing of himself back here, on the threshold of death, even more intensely than during his lifetime.
SPEAKER_00: He is a being for others.
SPEAKER_00: He surrenders everything in order to ransom all.
SPEAKER_00: We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.
SPEAKER_00: It's worth adding that we, for a number of reasons, typically depict Jesus with a loincloth when historically he would have been completely exposed.
SPEAKER_00: Particularly to a Jewish man at the time, it was extremely degrading to do.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know churches that don't have a loincloth for good reasons, right?
SPEAKER_00: But it is helpful to remember the complete exposure and lack of dignity that happened at crucifixion.
SPEAKER_00: Look at Jesus and the absolute indignity inflicted upon him by society.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus continues to be stripped of his dignity in those who have their good name taken away from them and the intimate details of their lives exposed through the media.
SPEAKER_00: Society takes on the role of judge and jury as we curiously devour the details.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is stripped again when men, women, and children are portrayed as objects in a pornographic manner in magazines, DVDs, TV, and the internet.
SPEAKER_00: Let us pray.
SPEAKER_00: Forgive us, Lord, for being an irreverent mob prying into people's lives.
SPEAKER_00: Forgive us for being consumers of gossip under the name of news.
SPEAKER_00: Let us never expose anyone.
SPEAKER_00: May we respect the dignity of others and leave judgment to God.
SPEAKER_00: Let us see the good in those around us and so enable them to reach their full potential.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: So you almost have to get again up on it to see that there's layer and dimension because there's four pieces.
SPEAKER_00: This was done by the granddaughter of one of our parishioners who was got an MSA at Rhode Island School of Design.
SPEAKER_00: Station 11, Jesus is ONR.
SPEAKER_00: She used her father's hand as the model for the hand in the middle.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is nailed to the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Huge iron nails are hammered through his wrists and through his ankles, ironed through human flesh.
SPEAKER_00: The flesh must yield.
SPEAKER_00: There is no defense.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus nailed to the cross cannot move.
SPEAKER_00: The hand that has wiped blindness from the eye is the hand that opened the seal of deafness, the hand that touched a heart and cured a leper, the hand that blessed children and those with a disability.
SPEAKER_00: The carpenter's hand is joined to the wood again.
SPEAKER_00: As the cross is put in place, he hangs there between us and God, a bloodstained victim for love.
SPEAKER_00: We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus continues to be crucified in the ten children who die every minute of hunger in our world.
SPEAKER_00: He is crucified in the twenty-two veterans that take their own life every day.
SPEAKER_00: He is crucified in all who are maimed, damaged, and displaced because of war.
SPEAKER_00: He is crucified in all who are marginalized in our society because of their race, sexuality, or gender.
SPEAKER_00: He is crucified in those who are abused physically, sexually, or emotionally.
SPEAKER_00: He is crucified in those who are trafficked across the world.
SPEAKER_00: He is crucified in the exploitation of the earth and its resources.
SPEAKER_00: Let us pray.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, we pray on behalf of those who cannot reach out to you at this moment.
SPEAKER_00: We pray for all victims of violence, those who suffer it and those who inflict it.
SPEAKER_00: We pray especially for children, for the elderly, and those too vulnerable to defend themselves.
SPEAKER_00: May victims of cruelty and oppression know that you are always with them.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: As the life of Jesus ebbs away, his words are not of condemnation or pity for himself, but of forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
SPEAKER_00: In the midst of his anguish and suffering, Jesus calls upon his Father to forgive those who are putting him to death.
SPEAKER_00: This is the real challenge of the cross, forgiveness even of those who hurt us most.
SPEAKER_00: We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.
SPEAKER_00: There is much to seek forgiveness for in our world today.
SPEAKER_00: Hunger, poverty, violence, abuse, war, neglect, corruption.
SPEAKER_00: The list seems endless.
SPEAKER_00: Each one of us praying these stations could continue the list on our own behalf and indeed on behalf of those who have hurt us.
SPEAKER_00: As Jesus dies on Calvary, he challenges us to love our enemies, to let go of hurt, to ask for forgiveness, and when we cannot find it in our own hearts to forgive, to ask God to do it for us.
SPEAKER_00: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
SPEAKER_00: Let us pray.
SPEAKER_00: Let us stand with those who watched and prayed in silence while Jesus breathed his last.
SPEAKER_00: As we cannot measure love, so we cannot dilute this ultimate act of love and forgiveness with words.
SPEAKER_00: Let our love span the silence.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, let our love and forgiveness speak your praise.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Our 13th station was actually written, not painted.
SPEAKER_00: It's what we use in the icon tradition, was written here by an iconographer in residence.
SPEAKER_00: It was actually a video of this took about two weeks to make, and it's like a fast-forward video of two minutes of sort of seeing the whole thing come from dark to light.
SPEAKER_00: And just an interesting thing to point out is that here you see Jesus crucified in Golgotha, the place of the skull.
SPEAKER_00: There's a tradition that says these are Adam's bones.
SPEAKER_00: So that Jesus is crucified on the place of the first human being as a way of offering what's called a recapitulation of being a new human being going forward.
SPEAKER_00: So this isn't part of the original icon.
SPEAKER_00: Kara added that.
SPEAKER_00: And Kara also added the poise our stars because we're across the street from NASA.
SPEAKER_00: So sometimes it's the small changes that make a thing happen.
SPEAKER_00: Now Mary takes the broken body of her son in her arms.
SPEAKER_00: In her grief, she remembers the words of her son over the bread.
SPEAKER_00: She remembers that little baby in Bethlehem, worshipped by shepherds and kings.
SPEAKER_00: She remembers the days when the crowds followed him, and she is full of sorrow.
SPEAKER_00: We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.
SPEAKER_00: Mary's grief is our grief too.
SPEAKER_00: As Mary cradles the lifeless body of her son and offers him back to the Father, she stands with all parents who have held their children close to them in death.
SPEAKER_00: Those lost through accidents or acts of violence, those who have died by suicide, those who have died suddenly or after illness.
SPEAKER_00: Mary grieves with all his sorrow for loved ones, patients, siblings, family members, friends.
SPEAKER_00: Let us pray.
SPEAKER_00: Help us, Lord, to accept the partings that must come.
SPEAKER_00: Help us to offer our loved ones back to you as Mary offered her son.
SPEAKER_00: Faced with the silence of death, let us not despair but find hope.
SPEAKER_00: May the finality of death not oppress us.
SPEAKER_00: Help us to trust in you, the Lord of the living and the dead.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Station 14 was a go by one of our school employees.
SPEAKER_00: He's also an artist, and it centers on the legend of the goldfinch, which, according to legend, saw Jesus with the crown of thorns and when to pick them away to ease his suffering.
SPEAKER_00: And in so doing, some of the blood of Christ fell on the head of the goldfinch, which is where the red feathers come from.
SPEAKER_00: So the goldfinch was aid and witness, and stands for us here also as witness.
SPEAKER_00: That night Jesus' body lay in the dark earth of the world, a seed dying in the winter of all spirits.
SPEAKER_00: All those who had loved him felt emptied and exhausted.
SPEAKER_00: There seemed no longer any sense or purpose in anything, but at least no more harm could come to him.
SPEAKER_00: They closed the tomb and left.
SPEAKER_00: We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.
SPEAKER_00: There are times when we are overcome by the darkness of the tomb, by the countless deaths that we experience each day, literally and figuratively, by the answer to all our grieving and despair lies in this place.
SPEAKER_00: The world is now the tabernacle of God.
SPEAKER_00: The grain of wheat sown in darkness and in death has indeed yielded a rich harvest.
SPEAKER_00: Our presence here gives witness to that.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' death was not in vain.
SPEAKER_00: Let us pray.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, each day you put before us life or death.
SPEAKER_00: Help us always to choose life.
SPEAKER_00: We pray for all those we have known who have died, and for those who have no one to pray for them.
SPEAKER_00: We ask for the gift of faith when we are faced with the darkness of the tomb, and our own death approaches.
SPEAKER_00: May we have eyes to see the promise of new life that the darkness can hold.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And so if you would rather stand or sit or gather around the table, we're a small group.
SPEAKER_00: And it's an intimate liturgy.
SPEAKER_00: So you're invited up into the chancel or to your seat in the pew or to the kneeler as your your piety commits you.
SPEAKER_00: Actually, if you're interested, I'll come around with this while you're gathering and I'll offer you some Pyrinard on your wrist if you like to smell the day.
SPEAKER_00: You may not think it smells like a year's wages.
SPEAKER_00: Because that was heavy, I'm gonna offer us a little bit lighter one.
SPEAKER_00: This is the circuit that we do with our kids.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have a ton, so I'm gonna ask us to share.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord be with you.
SPEAKER_00: Lift up your hearts.
SPEAKER_00: Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
SPEAKER_00: Father, we bring you these gifts of bread and water.
SPEAKER_00: Set them apart by your Holy Spirit to be for us, the body and blood of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: On the night Jesus was betrinated, he took bread.
SPEAKER_00: Set the blessing, broke the bread, and said, Take, eat.
SPEAKER_00: This is my body, all that I am, which is given to build you up.
SPEAKER_00: Remember me every time you eat bread.
SPEAKER_00: After supper, Jesus took the cup of wine, gave thanks to God, and said, Drink this, all of you.
SPEAKER_00: This is my blood, my life force given to nourish your own.
SPEAKER_00: Remember me every time you drink wine.
SPEAKER_00: And with this holy bread and wine, we remember his sacrifice and proclaim his resurrection until he comes again.
SPEAKER_00: God gather us all together and make us living examples of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: All this we ask in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: As our Savior Christ has taught us, we are bold to pray.
SPEAKER_00: Our Father, who are in heaven, be the high day, and my kingdom come, I will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: And forgive us in our trespasses.
SPEAKER_00: And as we forgive those who trespass against us, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
SPEAKER_00: That is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Hallelujah.
SPEAKER_00: Christ our Passiver is sacrificed for us.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, let us keep the feast.
SPEAKER_00: Hallelujah.
SPEAKER_00: These are the gifts of God for you, the people of God.
SPEAKER_00: Feed on them in your hearts by faith and with thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_00: And we'll just make the tour of you if that's okay.
SPEAKER_01: If you'd rather go to the railway, there's a short Thanksgiving prayer.
SPEAKER_00: We just have to use the word church instead of school.
SPEAKER_00: Instead of school, we're grateful for our church.
SPEAKER_00: Thank God for feeding us.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, gracious Lord, for this holy time and holy meal.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for this new day.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for our family, our friends, and our church.
SPEAKER_00: Now send us into the world in peace, that we may love and serve you with gladness and joy through Christ our Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world.
SPEAKER_00: All things break.
SPEAKER_00: All things can be mended.
SPEAKER_00: Not with time, as they say, but with intention.
SPEAKER_00: So go.
SPEAKER_00: Love intentionally, unconditionally, extravagantly.
SPEAKER_00: The broken world waits for the light that is you.
SPEAKER_00: And the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit be with you this day and remain with you always.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks be to God.