Breathless knowing

 Ninth station of the cross: Jesus falls for the third time

I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast; my mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death (Psalm 22:14-15)

Jagged peaks and deep silence surrounds the sanctuary of Arantzazu in the Basque country of northern Spain. A Franciscan monastery clings to the mountainside, a place of pilgrimage and refuge for 600 years. From there, a narrow trail climbs ever higher into the mountain range.

Walking, I bent low, leaning into the steep incline, pressing my pilgrimage to unseen heights. Aching lungs pleaded for air until I stopped to drink in the rugged beauty. Bent and panting, I sat on a rock and studied tiny blue flowers spouting along the stony path, then looked up hoping the summit was in sight.

But no, there was further to climb, and sitting there I began to think of Jesus carrying his cross.

I thought of him every time I had to stop, breathless, feeling sympathy, and talked to him about how he felt, wondering how he pressed on when he could barely breathe, thinking maybe he just wanted it all over with.

But even as he fell one more time, there was further to go. The summit still lay ahead of him where we will see just how far love will go.

When I reached the summit, I looked back, surveying the mountain range behind me and the high meadow ahead. My lungs finally filling with air, I spoke everything that was in my heart.

“Thank you, my Lord,” I said into the waiting silence. “Thank you for what I know here, now.”

It was enough.

Pr. David L. Miller

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you

By your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

 

Love and sorrow

Ninth station of the cross: Jesus falls for the third time

 Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow, which was brought upon me ... . For these things I weep; my eyes flow with tears; for a comforter is far from me, one to revive my courage; my children are desolate, for the enemy has prevailed (Lamentations 1:12,16)

I watched my father fall more times than I can remember. Each time, he would drag himself to where he could grab something stable with his left arm because the right one had no strength. Twisting, he leveraged what still worked in his broken body until his leg brace snapped back into place, and he could slowly pull himself up again.

As a little boy I watched, silent, frozen in place, not knowing what to do. Older, I learned to reach out to help, but most often Dad refused my arm. It was a matter of dignity, pride and perhaps proving he could still do it despite all polio had done to him.

And each time I loved him more for what he was doing, for who he was, an average man living a life he would have never chosen, choosing to live, to do what he could while it was day knowing, as did I, that night would come all too soon.

Just so, in later years when he would let me help, I circled him with my arms and pulled him up, turning my head to hide secret tears lest I reveal the sweet union of love and sorrow for which I still have no words.

I don’t know when it first happened, but I began to think it was Jesus I lifted—beaten, drained, played out, having given all he could to live and love the life our good and gracious God appointed for him.

Maybe having lifted my dad, I feel the sorrow of Jesus and understand both the love that is in him and the love he awakens in this heart and always will.

Pr. David L. Miller

We adore, O Christ, and we bless you.

By your holy cross you have redeemed the world

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The only hope

The days are surely coming when they will say, “Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.” Then they will begin to say to the mountains, “Fall on us”; and to the hills, “Cover us.” For if they do this when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?’ (Luke 23:29-31)

Eighth station of the cross: Jesus and the women of Jerusalem

These are strange and bitter words. Jesus looks ahead, seeing a time when blood will run deep in the streets he now walks to his death. 

And so it was. Several decades after his crucifixion Roman forces surrounded Jerusalem permitting no one to enter or leave, starving the population. Breaching the walls, they unleashed merciless rage on everyone in sight, young and old, until the streets were obstructed with the bodies of more than 100,000 killed, carrying away as many others as slaves.

Jesus had brought the promise of spring to those streets. His words and mercy awakened hope and peace in open hearts. The clay of their souls sprang to life like willow branches greening in an April sun as they listened to him.

But the time of his presence on Jerusalem streets passed. Soon, the bitterness of life beneath the heel of Roman boots ignited the tinderbox of smoldering animosity, and it exploded in rebellion and an orgy of bloodlust.

It begs the question of whether there is any hope for the human race because this pattern of oppression, resistance and retribution keeps repeating itself throughout history.

The only way to break the cycle, it seems, is to follow the one carrying the cross, the one who refuses to hate even those who hate him.

Pr. David L. Miller

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you.

By your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

 

 

Eighth station of the cross: Jesus and the women of Jerusalem

A great number of the people followed him, and among them were women who were beating their breasts and wailing for him. But Jesus turned to them and said, ‘Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children’ (Luke 23:27-28)

Love beyond naming

Of course, the women are there. They are always there.

They bear life in their bodies. They nurture it with the substance of their own flesh. They are the first to help and refuse to flee when danger threatens their little ones.

For 20 years, I saw this again and again in hellish places where the specter of disease, hunger and war hovered over battered lands, killing hundreds of thousands. More than anyone else, it was women who denied themselves, hoping to save their children and often the children of those whose mothers had long since perished.

Blessed are they, these saints. The Spirit of the Great Giver breathed through their hope and became flesh in their sacrifice. I kneel at their feet and give thanks, for they reveal the truest beauty of the human heart and the indestructible love of the Love who loves us.

It is women like these who surround Jesus as he carries his cross. Some had likely been with him all along. Now, they must mourn with a sorrow he is powerless to prevent. Such is the cost of loving.

Jesus turns and looks with compassion at them as he stumbles along, knowing bitter days are coming when the violence that destroys him will scar their lives.

He looks at them and they at him, mirrors reflecting a love beyond naming.

Pr. David L. Miller

We adore, O Christ, and we bless you.

By you holy cross you have redeemed the world

 

 

Stations of the cross: Jesus falls a second time

Just then there came a man named Jairus, a leader of the synagogue. He fell at Jesus’ feet and begged him to come to his house, for he had an only daughter, about twelve years old, who was dying (Luke 8:41-42)

This time it is you who fall Jesus. The days are gone when others fell at your feet, bereft, desperate, collapsing beneath the weight of their need, hoping their pleas would move you to care.

It is easy to imagine the mercy in your eyes as you saw the crumpled mass of broken humanity at your feet. I wonder how many times you gently drew them up that they might look into the window of your soul ... and know.

But now you are a crumpled mass of broken humanity, and the eyes of compassion into which we long to gaze are hidden, cast down into the ancient cobblestones, no longer able to give what our hungry hearts crave.

Or do they? For even here we see into the window of your soul ... and know.

We see that it is the weight of love you carry, the burden of a love that doesn’t break even as your body fails and falls.

And here, we, who long to look into the eyes of your compassion, are moved to love you, to feel for you what you always have and always will feel for us.

“See,” you say to us on your hands and knees, broken and spent. “Now you know what is in me for you. The love I am ... I give to you, a holy gift.”

Pr. David L. Miler

We adore, O Christ, and we bless you.

By you holy cross you have redeemed the world