Thomas Griffin 3/15/24
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Each Friday this Lent we will investigate and reflect on a few of the fourteen Stations of the Cross. This is an ancient practice that desires to make contact with what it would have been like to walk with Jesus on that Good Friday two thousand years ago. Lent is all about gaining more access to the events of Jesus’ life, especially those that revolve around his suffering.
Traditionally, there has always been an invitation from the Church to make Fridays different for just that reason. Friday was the day that Christ died. It is a holy day that beckons to the world for notice. Not because God needs us to notice Him in order to be fulfilled but simply because ignorance of his passion leads to an empty life.
Today we will continue our journey by looking at the ninth, tenth and eleventh stations where Christ reaches absolute exhaustion, is humiliated and is pierced with nails.
Ninth Station of the Cross: Jesus Falls the Third Time
For the last time, Jesus cripples under the burden of the cross. At this point, he could probably see the location of Golgotha, but he cannot go any further. The beating that he has been taking is exhausting every muscle in his body. As his face hits the dirt, he thinks of you and your heart when it has experienced despair. He wants you to know that you can go on. He wants you to know that falling is often the result of being beaten down by the world but that we can rise up no matter the obstacles. He wants us to know that your suffering is intimately accompanied by his suffering.
On that first Good Friday the third fall of Jesus showed us that our exhaustion and pain lies on the ground with another: with God. While we lie there he wants to help us rise up and continue to carry our cross.
Tenth Station of the Cross: Jesus is Stripped of His Garments
As the soldiers arrived at the place for Jesus’ execution they would have stripped him completely naked. This was done to humiliate the criminals. They want these individuals to feel like animals. They wanted them to be treated as sub-humans so that all would know that if you crossed the Romans, you would get the cross.
As they moved to take off his garment, Jesus simply allowed them to. He did not fight them off. He was not ashamed or embarrassed. He let the soldiers continue to mock, beat and humiliate him. This is the effect that sin has on God. It mocks God. The weight of human sin looks at God in the face and spats upon Him.
So often this is how we act towards others and towards God. We decide to reject a Church teaching, miss Sunday Mass, gossip about others, or treat others as an object. All of these actions attempt to strip God down into something that we have control over. Those soldiers appear to be savages, but they represent us and our sin.
Eleventh Station of the Cross: Jesus is Nailed to the Cross
The Romans used six to nine inch nails when they crucified people. That is roughly the width of an iPad. Crosses were raised ten feet in the air for all to see. That is the height of a basketball hoop.
Think about the force that would have been needed to drive those nails through the flesh, muscles and bones of a full grown man. Not only did they have to penetrate his hands and feet, then they had to be driven deep enough into the wood of the cross so that Jesus’ body would not fall down as he was ten feet in the air for three hours. Most likely, the soldiers would have used small (hammer-like) sledge hammers to do so.
The agony that Christ must have felt in this moment is beyond comprehension. The physical pain would have sent shock waves through his body which are not quantifiable. As the cross is raised the blood would have been dripping down from his body as the fresh wounds of his sacred hands and feet were just pierced.
As he hung up there, gasping for air – he looked down from the cross with eyes of painful but deep love. He was looks for you.
Thomas Griffin is the chairperson of the religion department at a Catholic high school on Long Island where he lives with his wife and two sons. He has a masters degree in theology and is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Empty Tomb Project: The Magazine.
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