Chose to Identify: Tenth Station of the Cross

Jesus Chose to Identify…

Covide-19 brought a new dimension to this fasting and sacrifice season of Lent. Not only is the body dealing with saying NO to something, we are  emotionally battling the negative choices humanity is making toward one another. If you feel stretched, it is no wonder. You are not alone. In fact, if time and space permitted, I would share, through each of the ₁Fourteen Stations of the Cross, how Jesus chose to identify deeply with that stretching, that pain you feel. The passion of Holy Week brings us face-to-face with Jesus’s love for us. 

As a Creative, Artist, Friend, I ask you to slow down and give yourself permission to approach each Station from a different perspective. 

To offer healing to a hurting world, Jesus chose to identify with our humanity. Why? The Old Testament commanded the requirement of sacrifices for the atonement of sin, but humanity kept turning away. Larger and larger barriers were built on one side of the bargain. God always kept His side of the covenant, wanting relationship, but we would not. Therefore, one final sacrifice to last for eternity was made. As Jesus paid for the sins, once and for all, He also came to show us that He understands.     

Jesus chose to identify…

In the First Station of the Cross, Jesus received beatings, the crown of thorns, rejection, and false accusations. The week before, Jesus had ridden in on a donkey with palm branches waving. Now, He stands innocent before that same crowd as they yell for His death. Jesus doesn’t defend Himself.  Remember being falsely accused, torn to shreds for something you did not do. Remember the feeling of anger or resignation rose up inside, but beneath both of those emotions was an underlying pain. Jesus chose to identify with the pain of the innocent accused of baseless crimes. Jesus knows that pain. He chose to walk that path to identify with you. He loves You. 

The Second Station has Jesus receiving the Cross. Crosses are made of wood. As a child growing up, Jesus worked with His step-father, Joseph, in the carpenter shop. Jesus experienced joyful times by creating things from toys to practical household items, all out of wood. Also, Jesus was with His Heavenly Father, if you recall, IN THE BEGINNING, creating the forests. Now, the very wood which served and brought delight was serving a third purpose. Jesus chose to identify with the pain of creating beauty, watching it flow into its fullness. Then, in cruel hands, seeing it used for destruction.

Jesus chose to Identify…  

Jesus chose to Identify with our shame. This is the devotional reading taken from the Tenth Station at the Diocese of Ossory.

As the clothes were ripped from Jesus, he was stripped of his dignity in front of an irreverent mob. Jesus sacrifices everything. He holds nothing of himself back. Here, on the threshold of death, even more intensely than during his lifetime, he is a being-for-others. He surrenders everything in order to ransom all.

the Diocese of Ossory

 Place yourself at Golgotha, near the cross, and reread this quote. 

You can see the cloth blending with flesh, sweat, and blood as it is violently torn from Jesus’s body and wounds are reopened to bleed. 

Have you experienced a time when everything you held dear or worked for was violently stripped away from you and the choice was not freely yours? Your insides are exposed, and wounds thought healed are bleeding again.

Jesus knows the shame. Jesus chose to identify with that pain in His love. He sees you in the crowd and smiles in love. You are not alone.

How do you choose to identify?

This is a different way of looking at the Stations of the Cross, but as artists, we have the beauty and challenge, if we so chose, to go to levels that take a person to a place in their heart not seen before. In Jesus choosing to say Yes and entering into this world, we can no no longer say He doesn’t understand us. He was God, but He also said Yes to being human with all of the feelings that come with that. 

This week celebrates Holy Week in many Churches both Protestant and Roman Catholic. It is a time to take your own journey into the gift of the Love Jesus chose to share with you. I opened only one door for you to spend time in reflection. There are many paths for you to choose to walk on, but you need to give yourself permission to slow down and choose to identify which door to open and walk through. 

I would be very interested to see how you engage. The fasting through Lent opened space to receive deeper engagement with God.    

₁Stations of the Cross, also called Way of the Cross, a series of 14 pictures or carvings portraying events in the Passion of Christ, from his condemnation by Pontius Pilate to his entombment.