1. Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane

Then Jesus went out and made his way, as he customarily did, to the Mount of Olives, and the disciples followed him. When he came to the place, he said to them, “Pray that you will not fall into temptation.”

He went away from them about a stone’s throw, knelt down, and prayed, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me. Yet not my will but yours be done.”

Then an angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. And in his anguish he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. When he got up from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping, exhausted from grief. So he said to them, “Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray that you will not fall into temptation!”

While he was still speaking, suddenly a crowd appeared, and the man named Judas, one of the twelve, was leading them. He walked up to Jesus to kiss him. But Jesus said to him, “Judas, would you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?”

When those who were around him saw what was about to happen, they said, “Lord, should we use our swords?” Then one of them struck the high priest’s slave, cutting off his right ear.

But Jesus said, “Enough of this!” And he touched the man’s ear and healed him.

Then Jesus said to the chief priests, the officers of the temple guard, and the elders who had come out to get him, “Have you come out with swords and clubs like you would against an outlaw? Day after day when I was with you in the temple courts, you did not arrest me. But this is your hour, and that of the power of darkness!”
Luke 22:39-53 (NET Bible Translation)



O Lord,
how the garden was filled
with moonlight peaking through the shadows
that last night.

How you suffered -
your desire to escape,
your grief,
your sure knowledge was in store,
the weight of sin,
all shadows trying to wrap themselves around you,
and yet you stayed,
obeyed the Father's will,
and saved us all.

O Lord,
how today my life is filled
with dark shadow trying to cloak the light
you give me,
my garden experience.

O Lord,
I offer you up my sorrow,
my pain,
my grief at sin, and failure, and weakness,
my groaning under loads I don't know how to bear,
my forgetfulness of your kindness,
my longing for escape.

O my Lord,
I am such a weak person.
Hold my hand each step of the way
as I walk through this valley of the shadow of death,
and though I sorrow,
I will fear no evil
for in the end, I know the light,
your light,
will lead me home to you at last.


2. Jesus Is Scourged

So Pilate went back into the governor’s residence, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?”

Jesus replied, “Are you saying this on your own initiative, or have others told you about me?”

Pilate answered, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own people and your chief priests handed you over to me. What have you done?”

Jesus replied, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my servants would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jewish authorities. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.”

Then Pilate said, “So you are a king!”

Jesus replied, “You say that I am a king. For this reason I was born, and for this reason I came into the world – to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

Pilate asked, “What is truth?”

Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged severely.

John 18:33-38, 19:1 (NET Bible Translation)






The First Blow

The whip travels in a descending arc,
three thongs carrying weights of lead
double headed cargo
to increase the impact.

The hand that wields is
the rough and calloused hand
of a soldier doing a duty,
unknowing,
uncaring
of whose back it was in front of him.

Perhaps as he swings,
he thinks of all the looks of disdain,
the women who turn away,
the men who spit when he passes
and they think he does not see,
this strange people
with their strange hates
and strange language
and strange god,
and in retalliation,
he swings harder.

Yet his hand is not alone
on the braided leather of the handle,
his hand,
shadowed by every hand,
my hand,
my arm swinging the leather,
my sin adding to the agony
of that blow,
my darkness slapping against his skin,
causing him to gasp for breath
as it bites
my weakness the lead gouges digging.

Mea culpa,
mea culpa,
mea maxima culpa.

3. Jesus Is Mocked and Crowned with Thorns

Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the governor’s residence and gathered the whole cohort around him. They stripped him and put a scarlet robe around him, and after braiding a crown of thorns, they put it on his head.

They put a staff in his right hand, and kneeling down before him, they mocked him: “Hail, king of the Jews!” They spat on him and took the staff and struck him repeatedly on the head.

When they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes back on him. Then they led him away to crucify him.

Matthew 27:34-52 (NET Bible Translation)









O my Jesus,
I contemplate your poor battered face
after the soldiers had had their way with you,
Your hair sticky and wet from the blood beneath your crown,
your cheeks bruised and bloodstreaked,
your nose swollen.

I behold you, my King on his way to his betrothal,
in just those garments that show
the depth of your love,
how far you are willing to go
in pursuit of you bride,
what a bride price you are willing to pay
to dress her in the dazzling white you promised.

Let me contemplate this gift,
and not forget the pain throbbing through your body
because of me, and all like me,
brother and sister in our lack of holiness,
pain you bear willingly,
pain rooted in our lack of perfection,
and our turning away from your light,
pain rooted in our hunger for good twisted into things we should not want,
all braided together like the thorns you wear around your head.

How heavy this burden you carry
on that abused but precious head, O Lord,
and I, with all of mankind, heaped that burden on you,
hammered the thorns into your flesh,
mocked you for who you are,
King and Bridegroom for an unfaithful world.

What reparations could I make
that would make this reality go away?
Nothing.
But, pricked to the heart,
I offer you my tears,
and grief at the necessity,
and bowing before you,
offer you the little love I have,
my heart,
my abject sorrow,
and eternal gratefulness at your willingness to love.

Amen.

4. Jesus Carries His Cross

Pilate addressed them once again because he wanted to release Jesus. But they kept on shouting, “Crucify, crucify him!”

A third time he said to them, “Why? What wrong has he done? I have found him guilty of no crime deserving death. I will therefore flog him and release him.” But they were insistent, demanding with loud shouts that he be crucified. And their shouts prevailed.

So Pilate decided that their demand should be granted. He released the man they asked for, who had been thrown in prison for insurrection and murder. But he handed Jesus over to their will.

As they led him away, they seized Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country.They placed the cross on his back and made him carry it behind Jesus.

A great number of the people followed him, among them women who were mourning 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. For this is certain: The days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, the wombs that never bore children, 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 such things are done when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?”

Luke 23: 20-75 (Net Bible Translation)

Each step, each breath, each beat of your heart - pain.
The weight of the cross so heavy,
each step a small miracle of your perseverance,
the determination to pay that price,
no matter how shaky the legs,
how short the breath,
how much it costs to make each step.

Glorified.
This is how the Father does it,
the way he did not ask Abraham to take,
no sacrifice of the firstborn for his chosen people,
sacrificed by blood and fire.
No.

But through you, his only-begotten,
laboring there beneath the crossbeam,
Your hair and face streaked with blood beneath the thorny crown,
face beneath the smears ashen with pain,
and the gathering doom in your chest,
already making you hungry for breath,
Scapegoat,
bearing the sins of the world,
each bruise, each welt merely a token of what they deserve.

Glorified as you walk,
the smell of blood and fear and sweat and death and pain
swirling around you,
our deaths, our pains, our griefs
on your one set of shoulders,
each movement crying out its pain,
only a foretaste of the pains ahead,
until, fulfilled,
you slip away,
glorified indeed by the hands of your loving Father,
and in that new dawning,
hope born in the birthpangs we can only imagine,
you will stand glorified,
our Lord
world without end,
Amen.


5. Jesus Is Crucified and Dies on the Cross

They came to a place called Golgotha (which means “Place of the Skull”)and offered Jesus wine mixed with gall to drink. But after tasting it, he would not drink it. When they had crucified him, they divided his clothes by throwing dice Then they sat down and kept guard over him there. (Matt 27:33-36)

Pilate also had a notice written and fastened to the cross, which read: “Jesus the Nazarene, the king of the Jews.” Thus many of the Jewish residents of Jerusalem read this notice, because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the notice was written in Aramaic, Latin, and Greek. Then the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The king of the Jews,’ but rather, ‘This man said, I am king of the Jews.’” Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.” John 19:20-22

But Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing." The people also stood there watching, but the rulers ridiculed him, saying, “He saved others. Let him save himself if he is the Christ of God, his chosen one!” (Luke 23:34a,35)

One of the criminals who was hanging there railed at him, saying, “Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself and us!” But the other rebuked him, saying, “Don’t you fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we rightly so, for we are getting what we deserve for what we did, but this man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come in your kingdom.” And Jesus said to him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.”

It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, because the sun’s light failed.(Luke 23: 39-44)

Now standing beside Jesus’ cross were his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. So when Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing there, he said to his mother, “Woman, look, here is your son!” He then said to his disciple, “Look, here is your mother!” From that very time the disciple took her into his own home.
(John 19:25-27)

At about three o’clock Jesus shouted with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46)

After this Jesus, realizing that by this time everything was completed, said (in order to fulfill the scripture), “I am thirsty!” A jar full of sour wine was there, so they put a sponge soaked in sour wine on a branch of hyssop and lifted it to his mouth. When he had received the sour wine, Jesus said, “It is completed!” (John 19:28-30a)

Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And after he said this he breathed his last. Luke 23:46

Just then the temple curtain was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks were split apart. (Matthew 27:51)

Now when the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and what took place, they were extremely terrified and said, “Truly this one was God’s Son!” (Matthew 27:54)

Now when the centurion saw what had happened, he praised God and said, “Certainly this man was innocent!” And all the crowds that had assembled for this spectacle, when they saw what had taken place, returned home beating their breasts. And all those who knew Jesus stood at a distance, and the women who had followed him from Galilee saw these things. Luke 23:47-49
(all verses from the NET Bible Translation)

I kneel here,
pebbles and sand grinding into my knees,
at this place dedicated to death,
and ignore the flies,
the smells of blood
and fear
and dying,
longing to shield my eyes
from the reality of what we have wrought
with our anger
and greed
and pride
and hate,
and yet,
as you call my name
and I look up into those eyes
in spite of myself,
in spite of my guilt,
in spite of my remorse,
"It's really about love, you know," you whisper,
and I collapse
and watch you die,
knowing never
can I deserve this gift
so freely offered
in pain,
in knowlege,
in love.

Deo gratias.

Amen.

Labels: Passion of Christ, Rosary Meditation

The sword falls,
exposing a thin red line separating life and death,
today and forever,
goodness in a neighbor's eyes and the face of evil in human form.

See it cut,
that first blow,
brother against brother,
opening a red stream pouring out over the earth,
a river of grief and loss,
and sorrow and confusion,
exhilaration,
adulation,
oppression,
the mark of Cain ever with the human race,
as men see themselves
as more worthy,
more deserving,
more needy,
more right,
wallowing in the river
no matter the price
as demons howl.

The whip rips the flesh,
the thorn pierces he scalp,
the hammer rends as nail pierces muscle and nerve.
This blood trickles down like all the other blood,
yet where it touches,
light grows to combat the dark,
light to heal the anger in the neighbor's eyes,
to heal the hurt of the lost and bereaved,
to stand with the homeless,
the oppressed,
the needy.

All you who are touched by this light
offer up your hands,
hands for the light to use.

Pass it on,
this light given to us in blood,
in love,
in redemption.

Pass it on,
hand to hand,
word by word,
to heal the mark of Cain,
the death march of time,
and quell that demon howling,
the song of grief that has been mankind's birthright
since the fall.

Pass it on,
and one day, you will see it come back to you,
in the loving smile and shining eyes
of him who says, "Well done."

Susan E. Stone, 2006

Labels: Christian Living, current evils, Discipleship

O my Jesus,
I contemplate your poor battered face this evening,
Your hair sticky and wet from the blood beneath your crown,
your cheeks bruised and bloodstreaked,
your nose swollen.

I behold the King on his way to his betrothal,
in just those garments that show
the depth of your love,
how far you are willing to go
in pursuit of you bride,
what a bride price you are willing to pay
to dress her in the dazzling white you promised.

Let me contemplate this gift,
and not forget the pain throbbing through your body
because of me, and all like me,
brother and sister in our lack of holiness,
pain you bear willingly,
pain rooted in our lack of perfection,
and our turning away from your light,
pain rooted in our hunger for good twisted into things we should not want,
all braided together like the thorns you wear around your head.

How heavy this burden you carry
on that abused but precious head, O Lord,
and I, with all of mankind, heaped that burden on you,
hammered the thorns into your flesh,
mocked you for who you are,
King and Bridegroom for an unfaithful world.

What reparations could I make
that would make this reality go away?
Nothing.
But, pricked to the heart,
I offer you my tears,
and grief at the necessity,
and bowing before you,
offer you the little love I have,
my heart,
my abject sorrow,
and eternal gratefulness at your willingness to love.

Amen.

Susan E. Stone, 2006

Labels: Jesus' Love, Passion of Christ, Penitence

John 8:9-11

The fright had not yet drained from her eyes as they made their retreat.
Her dark kohl smudged eyes, looking worn and tired and resigned,
had not noticed their leaving,.
Instead, she huddled there, her heartbeat pounding in her ears
like a doe at the end of a hunt, wounded,
waiting for the last sharp blow that would carry her away into the darkness.

Yet, and yet.
How the chaos of her day faded, breath by breath.
A moment too many had passed, something had changed.

Finally, she shifted, daring to move, clutching her torn dress tightly.
Unbelieving at first, she noticed the rocks,
the rocks meant for her, the tools of her death scattered upon the sand.
Hope unsought, unexpected caught at her throat.
.
Glancing up, she saw him,
looking at her with a kindness that held no glimmer of lust
or lewdness or distaste or abuse,
a hand that helped her to her feet,
and the soft voice that offered new life.

O Lord, all of us are as guilty as she, deserving to be caught in the act,
pulled by rough, unforgiving hands to the place of our execution,
for we are all sinners, deserving to be displayed for what we are,
deserving to feel the stone's bite.

Yet and yet, O Lord,
you are our help when the darkness threatens,
our sure protector who lifts us out of the sands of death
O Lord, no matter how deep our stained souls,
if we are willing to look up into your loving eyes,
and like she did, find newness of life in your loving hands.

---

Labels: Jesus' Love, Need for God, scripture