Good Friday devotional

Station 1: Jesus is condemned to death

Station 2: Jesus takes up his cross

For this year’s Good Friday Devotional Service at St John's I will be using meditations and images from Hertford stns; a Stations of the Cross for Hertford.

The ‘Stations of the Cross’ is a guided meditation through the final hours of Jesus’ life, beginning with the moment he is condemned to death and ending with his body being laid in the tomb. Jesus’ ‘Passion’ or journey towards the cross is recreated in a series of fourteen ‘stations’ (in some versions a fifteenth station of ‘the resurrection’ is also included). The majority of these ‘stations’ are recorded in scripture, although some belong more to Church tradition. It is thought that it was St Francis of Assisi who first created this devotional re-enactment of Christ’s last hours, to aid pilgrims who could not make the long and dangerous journey to Jerusalem themselves

Usually the Stations of the Cross are represented pictorially, either in paintings or images carved in relief, and displayed on the walls of a church. For each station there is an accompanying prayer and reflection designed to help us meditate upon the significance of what happens, both for Christ and for ourselves; the lengths that His love has gone to and our response to that love.

During Lent in 2008, Hertford & District Churches Together have created their own ‘Stations for Hertford’. Through artist workshops, they have made six artworks inspired by six of the stations, in various different media. The remaining eight stations have been produced by local artists. These artworks are then being sited around the town in different places of worship and in other more public, civic and outdoor locations to create a pilgrimage around the stations for Holy Week (17th - 23rd March). I have written meditations for each of the Hertford Stations and these will be available for those making the pilgrimage in a printed guide to aid their spiritual journey.

It is these meditations and images that I will be using in our Good Friday Devotional Service and so I invite you to accompany me as we retrace Christ’s footsteps by following the stations that led him to the cross and the tomb. In doing so, we will remember his words that unless a grain of wheat (meaning his body) falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. We are among the many seeds that have sprouted from the ground in which his body was buried. In our gratitude for the new life we have received, let reflect on the lengths to which Jesus went in love to make that new life possible for each and every one of us.

Station 5 - Simon helps Jesus carry his cross

Blessed are you
when you recognise the agony of an other.
Blessed are you
when you respond to pain with relief.
Blessed are you
when you share the shame endured by an other.
Blessed are you
when you are reviled for the sake of an other.
Blessed are you
when you lift a burden from an other’s shoulders.
Blessed are you
when you enable an other to regain their footing.
Blessed are you
when you assist an other to arise.
Blessed are you
when you take up an other’s cross.

Station 6 - Jesus meets Veronica

Your face, set like flint,
set towards Jerusalem,
bears the mark of the cross.
You carry the cross
in the resolution
written on
your features.
Death is the choice,
the decision,
the destiny,
revealed
in the blood,
sweat and tears
secreted from
your face
in prayerful questions,
prophetic grief,
pain-full acceptance,
then
imprinted on
Veronica’s veil.

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Ben Harper - Picture of Jesus.