Good morning…
When we were in Israel, we went to Yad Vashem – The World Holocaust Remembrance Center. Intense. Heartbreaking. A reminder of such excruciating pain and suffering. I took a photo of this quote from Benjamin Fondane, who was murdered at Auschwitz in 1944: “Remember only that I was innocent and, just like you, mortal on that day, and, I, too, had a face marked by rage, by joy and pity, quite simply, a human face!”
Visiting Yad Vashem in the afternoon, this chilling quote connected me back to our powerful morning experience of walking the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem with our traveling group of thirty.
The Via Dolorosa is a processional route in the Old City of Jerusalem which represents the path that Jesus would have taken, forced by the Roman soldiers, on the way to his crucifixion. Via Dolorosa means ‘Sorrowful Way’ in Latin and is often translated ‘Way of Suffering’. This place of pilgrimage for many winds through the Old City, symbolizing the actual path Jesus walked to Mount Calvary. The Via Dolorosa is marked by fourteen Stations of the Cross, a series of images depicting Jesus Christ on the day he was crucified. Nine stations are outside, in the streets, with the remaining five are found inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. These Stations of the Cross are arranged in numbered order along a path widely visited by worshippers, individually or in a procession. People reverently move in order, stopping at each station to engage in prayerful reflection of Christ’s sacrifice. Depicting the sufferings and insults Jesus endured along the way, these stations are most commonly pondered during Lent, especially on Good Friday, which we celebrate today.
For this year’s confirmation retreat at Northside Church, I was invited to create a 16 x 20 image of Station Eight: Jesus is Helped by Simon the Cyrenian to Carry the Cross. There was a man from Cyrene named Simon walking into the city from the fields. He was the father of Alexander and Rufus. The soldiers forced him to carry Jesus’ cross (Mark 15:21, ERV).
The thing that struck me most about walking the Via Dolorosa last month was how crowded and narrow the streets felt. Somehow I thought that Jesus’ exhausting walk with his cross was a solitary experience, but, no, quite the opposite. Crowds of people would have been bustling and busy, wrapped up in the middle of normal life, and Jesus, beaten and battered, would have been led forcefully through the center of it all. This public humiliation was by design. Onlookers would see Jesus fall repeatedly beneath the weight of his heavy cross. People, just like you and me, would smell his sweat and blood, would hear the ugly mocking, would rub up against his broken body. Jesus’ walk of shame served as a visceral deterrent to any would-be followers.
That brings me back to the haunting quote from Yad Vashem. Extending a hand to all of us who walk the ‘Sorrowful Way’, the ‘Way of Suffering’, Jesus could have spoken these words himself: “Remember only that I was innocent and, just like you, mortal on that day, and, I, too, had a face marked by rage, by joy and pity, quite simply, a human face!”
Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit (Matthew 27:45, 46, 50, ESV).
On this Good Friday morn, I am just like you. We are just like Benjamin and Jesus, mortal and innocent. As Ecclesiastes 12:7 (ERV) reminds us all: Your body came from the earth. And when you die, it will return to the earth. But your spirit came from God, and when you die, it will return to him.
…Sue…
