a series of reflections based on this online stations of the cross
It’s getting harder, this journey to the cross. The images of what is happening to Jesus are getting more painful. I’m being asked to follow Jesus into this part of the journey that can only have been unimaginably painful…and I don’t like that. I’d rather stay as a member of the crowd. I’d rather stay as one who relieves his burden for a spell. I’d rather stay in my own space and let Jesus have his.
But it’s getting personal, and I don’t like that.
As a member of the Deaconess Community, I wear a cross on my necklace. Recently in my visit to the Holy Land, I added to the budded cross of the Deaconess Community another pendant called the “Jerusalem Cross.” This cross is commonly seen throughout the Holy Land sites, and while I had seen it before, I did not really appreciate the symbolism of it.
The central cross symbolizes the Holy Land as the place where the story of Jesus originates and the place from which it goes out into the whole world. The four ends of the central cross symbolize the 4 corners of the world to which the Gospel is sent. The four smaller crosses in each quadrant symbolize the 4 gospel narratives.
Like other parts of this story, it’s easy for me to sanitize the cross with sentiment. But Jesus was nailed to the cross. That HURT in ways I cannot even conceptualize. And while theologians argue about how exactly the cross works for us today, they all agree that somehow it does. Whatever fancy theological perspective is right, somehow Jesus being nailed to the cross changes things for all of humanity.
And so, when I put my hand around the crosses on my necklace, or when I make the sign of the cross over my body when I am in worship, or when the sign of the cross is marked on my forehead at a remembrance of baptism, I somehow get caught up in what Jesus did, and something happens to me.
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