STATIONS OF THE CROSS

Station 12: Jesus Dies on the Cross

Location: Steps of Grace Church, corner of N. Carroll St. and W. Washington Ave.

A reading from the Gospel according to Luke

It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, while the sun’s light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.’ Having said this, he breathed his last. (Luke 23: 44-46)

Psalm 22: 1-2, 7-11

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me,
       and are so far from my cry and from the words
of my distress?
O my God, I cry in the daytime, but you do not
answer;
       by night as well, but I find no rest.
All who see me laugh me to scorn;  they curl their lips and wag their heads, saying,
“He trusted in the Lord; let him deliver him;  let him rescue him, if he delights in him.”
Yet you are he who took me out of the womb,
       and kept me safe upon my mother’s breast.
I have been entrusted to you ever since I was born;
       you were my God when I was still in my mother’s womb.
Be not far from me, for trouble is near, and there is none to help.

SILENCE

NOTE:  At noon, the Solidarity Singers may be singing in this area. For the past five years, people have gathered every weekday from noon to 1pm to sing songs of protest, solidarity, anger and hope. If the Singers are present, we may choose to pause nearby and read this Station in silence.  Who sang and shouted for justice and a better world, in Jesus’ Jerusalem?

Meditation

What deaths weigh on the soul of our city?  A homeless man dies on the steps of Grace Episcopal Church on a January night.  A child takes his own life.  An unarmed African-American teenager is shot by a police officer.  We grieve, and wonder: could it have been otherwise? As Christians, we believe Jesus was unique; but he chose to die like one of us. In the eyes of many in his own time, he was nameless, insignificant.  An outsider, an oddball.  Disruptive, non-conforming, possibly mentally ill.  When people suffer unnoticed or die needlessly in today’s world, how are we called to respond, as disciples of a teacher who told us that we serve him by serving those in greatest need?

A Prayer for Those Dying Unknown

All-seeing and ever-present God, no person slips through the cracks in your perception. We pray for all those who will die uncomforted, or pass from among us unremembered. Make us all matter to one another as seriously as we do to you; let not one of us given into your Son’s care be lost,  but bring us all to a share in his glory. Amen.
- Linda Murphy

Holy God,
Holy and mighty,
Holy immortal one,
have mercy upon us.