April 1, 2015
Stations of the Cross

“Jesus said, Have you not read this scripture:
“The very stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes”. Mark 12:11

“With sorrowful heart
Yet for the joy of atonement,
You went, O Christ, to Calvary.

If the stars ceased to twinkle
And the sun forgot to shine,
The ever-increasing rays of God’s love
Would find an earthward passage
Through you.

O Christ,
That a thousand and a thousand years
Have passed since Golgotha you braved;
And still men gasp with fear
And grasp with greed–and suffer:
Let us swing into the orbit of your love.”

Toyohiko Kagawa (1888 – 1960) ” “Via Dolorosa”

The Wednesday of Holy Week has been for me the night where I present the Stations of the Cross. Here are some words of clarification and the Word Origin:

Latin Calvāria, comes from the Greek Kranion (which means skull); Greek Golgothá; Aramaic gulgaltā, akin to Hebrew gulgōleth skull

The Stations of the Cross originated in pilgrimages to Jerusalem. There was a desire to reproduce this “Way” by not traveling to Jerusalem, and this seems to have manifested itself at quite an early date. At the monastery of Santo Stefano at Bologna a group of connected chapels was constructed as early as the 5th century, by St. Petronius, Bishop of Bologna, which was intended to represent the more important shrines of Jerusalem, and in consequence, this monastery became familiarly known as “Santa Gerusalemme”. These may perhaps be regarded as the germ from which the Stations afterwards developed, though it is tolerably certain that nothing that we have before about the 15th century can strictly be called a Way of the Cross in the modern sense. Although several travelers who visited the Holy Land during the twelfth, thirteenth, and 14th centuries (e.g. Riccoldo da Monte di Croce, Burchard of Mount Sion, James of Verona),[4] mention a “Via Sacra”, i.e., a settled route along which pilgrims were conducted, there is nothing in their accounts to identify this with the Way of the Cross, as we understand it.

And so, we carry on this tradition of traveling the “Way of the Cross” with the service of the Stations of the Cross. It is a proper and fitting way to begin the services of Holy Week.

Pastor Dave