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A Journey of Passion
Our Walk
with Jesus
Through the
Week of Passion
and
Through His
Incarnation in the World
a call and
response reflection by:
Steve Taylor
(reflection flows from The New Stations of the Cross)
Written by Megan McKenna
DOUBLEDAY & CO
ISBN: 0385508158
Suggested Price: $9.95
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Click below to move through the Work
Introduction
Jesus enters the Garden
Jesus is Betrayed
The Soldiers Mock Jesus
Jesus is Denied
Jesus is Condemned to Die
Jesus is Beaten
Jesus is Led out to be Crucified
Simon is Made to Bear the Cross
The Women Weep for Jesus
Jesus is Stripped
Jesus is Crucified
Mary and
the Beloved Disciple are Given to Each Other
Jesus Dies on the Cross
Jesus is Laid in the Tomb
Conclusion
Introduction
The
Voice of Jesus:
I
walk this way of the cross, my friend …
And you walk it too.
We walk this path together,
you and I.
One voice, one life, one
journey.
When I walk, I walk with the
little ones of our world;
the outcasts, the poor, the
sick, the mourners.
I walk with those who have
lost all hope.
I walk with the brokenness
of the world,
and I also walk with you …
My Two in One.
As I walk, I listen to the
hearts of those to whom no other will listen.
As I walk, I offer
companionship to those for whom no other will be a friend.
As I walk, I walk not in
robes of purple,
but in the garb of a
servant.
It was my walk two thousand
years ago,
and it is my walk still.
And because it is my walk,
now, it is your walk too.
We share the brokenness of
the cross, you and I,
and yet, it is only in the
sharing that we can make this walk at all.
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Jesus Enters the Garden – 1
The Voice of Jesus:
It is into Gethsemane that I
retreat, a sanctuary of flowers that become the receptacle of my agony.
It is there, where I fall to
the ground.
Yet, when I fall, I fall so
that I might drink of the cup that is set before me,
the cup of pain,
the cup which contains the
violence of the world.
It is the cup of which I do
not wish to drink.
But I also fall, so that I
might pray.
And because I pray, I am
able to choose the cup.
So can you, My Two in One.
You can choose too.
My response:
My Jesus, My Lord, I wish to
stay awake with you,
but my eyes are so heavy.
In my sleep, I close my eyes
to the violence.
In my sleep, I can dream
away injustice.
In my sleep, I have no need
to drink.
Take me to my knees and help
me pray.
Help me pray, so that you
are not alone.
Help me pray, so that the
garden might be restored.
Help me to pray, so that I
might know you,
so that I might know myself.
Help me to pray, My Jesus.
And then …I might be able to
share your cup.
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Jesus is Betrayed – 2
The Voice of Jesus:
Judas, my friend, the one
with whom I journey,
this Judas betrays me.
He sees my life,
He enters my walk,
He eats with my friends,
And then, he gives me up
with a kiss.
Do you betray me, My Two in
One,
when you arrest my work in
the world,
when you turn away from my
friends,
when you betray one another
for petty reasons, nameless squabbles, and angry demands?
Do you betray me,
even as you offer me a
kiss?
My response:
Lord, Jesus, help me to hold
on to you;
By love when I would rather
hate;
Through peace when I choose
war;
In humility when I have to
be right;
Under the shadow of the
cross;
when all I seek is my own
selfish way.
My Savior, Lord, I offer you
an empty kiss,
while you offer me the
breath of life.
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The Soldiers Mock Jesus – 3
The Voice of Jesus:
A homeless man is mocked
because he pushes a shopping cart full of dirty bags.
A hungry child’s self-esteem
is once again smashed because she acted out in class.
A poor man goes to prison,
not because he is guilty, but simply because he is poor.
As these little ones of mine
are beaten and insulted,
so too am I.
And yet, My Two in One,
their existence, their very lives, critique the faith of the world.
My response:
Lord, Jesus, I feel so
powerless to challenge such injustice.
I want to shout, to act, to
be hope, to bring joy,
to proclaim life.
And yet, I do so little.
Teach me to embrace my own
pain, the pain that is uniquely mine, so that I might finally be able to bear
the pain of my neighbor.
Lord, Jesus, teach me to
bear the injustices of my neighbor,
that I might finally know
you are there as well,
that I might finally know
you were there all along.
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Jesus is Denied – 4
The Voice of Jesus:
Three times my friend is
asked, “Do you know me?”
Three times he answers, “I
do not know him.”
You, My Two in One, how
often you deny me.
Like Peter, you start with
the small denials,
acting as if you did not
know that this road calls for a different walk.
Like Peter, you deny me when
you refuse my path of peace.
Like Peter, you deny me when
you condemn those who choose to love.
Like Peter, you disappear
when you should instead have stood for my truth.
I believe in you My Two in
One, and if you would only walk in faith, you could believe in me as well.
My response:
My Lord, My God, the world
calls to me.
It says that there is only
power, and privilege,
and possession.
It refuses you and desires
that I refuse you as well.
Cars, houses, vacations,
investments, things,
more for me, more for those
I love,
even if they deny my time
and my resource from those who have nothing;
even from you, Oh Lord, from
you.
Lord, teach me to deny
myself,
that I may never again
choose to deny you.
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Jesus is Condemned to Die – 5
The Voice of Jesus:
Into Pilate’s hands, My Two
in One, I am delivered.
I stand before him, silent.
I do not defend myself, I do
not strike out.
I give myself to this
moment, this humiliation,
this horror.
I give myself for you.
Can you give yourself for
others, My Two in One?
Can you give yourself for
me?
My response:
My Jesus, Lord, In your love
you are condemned.
In your love, will I be
condemned too?
I hunger for the truth,
I hunger to stand with you,
but I am afraid.
Remove my fear, Lord.
Remove my fear so that I
might stand with all those whom the world condemns.
Those who are shut out, put
down, shoved aside,
and shut up.
Those who have no one else
to stand with them.
Remove my fear, Oh Lord, so
that I can stand with them …
So that I can stand with
you.
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Jesus is Beaten – 6
The Voice of Jesus:
Behold, My Two in One, for
they beat me.
They press a crown of thorns
into my flesh.
My blood, your salvation,
flows slowly down my
battered face.
They spit and they hit, they
mock and they hate.
It happened to me
two-thousand years ago,
and it happens to me now,
each time you hate that part of me that lives in you;
That little wounded Jesus
who bears your scars and carries your pain.
It happens when you take
this crown upon yourself, this crown that was meant for me.
My response:
My Lord, how often I find
myself with those that hit, with those who deny humanity.
Judging, condemning,
dismissing, refusing.
How often I fail to see that
I wound you,
just as surely as they wound
you.
Jesus, extend me generosity
for those who are hated –
the homeless, the widow, the
orphan, the beggar,
the prisoner.
Allow me tenderness for my
friends – my brother,
my daughter, my father, my
wife.
Give me kindness for those
who hate me.
And Lord, grant me
gentleness for me,
where finally, I might offer
gentleness to you.
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Jesus is Led Out to be Crucified
– 7
The Voice of Jesus:
I showed you healing and you
told me not to heal on the Sabbath.
I offered you my good earth
and you said to partake of it was blasphemous.
I cared for a blind man and
you wondered whose sin he carried.
I loved everyone and you
sought to throw me off a cliff.
I came so that all might
have life and you led me out to be slaughtered.
My Two in One, each time you
allow anything to come in the way of my love for all my children – your country,
your job, your family, your aspirations, your goals, your rules, your
understanding of what is and what is not – you lead me out again.
I came to live and to die
for you,
Why would you have me
killed?
My response:
My Lord, Jesus, why is it
that I cannot understand that by loving the other, you love me as well?
Why is it that I cannot see
that in their wholeness, resides my wholeness?
Why is it that I refuse the
possibility that my life can only be complete when their lives are also
complete?
Forgive me, Brother Jesus.
Forgive me, Sister Christ.
You died for me. Help me
now live for them.
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Simon is Made to Bear the Cross -
8
The Voice of Jesus:
An orphan, a child whose
parents die from AIDS,
rises this morning, alone.
A widow, a poor elderly
soul, agonizes as rain pours through her rotting roof.
A prisoner, a murderer, goes
to his death and no one laments his passing.
A young prostitute sells her
body and knows that at least her children will eat.
Simon carries my cross. He
is pressed into service.
He is forced to bear this
burden.
Yet, I will not force you,
My Two in One.
Will you willingly carry the
cross I bear in my many faces of distressing disguise?
Simon is remembered still.
For whom and what will you
be remembered?
My response:
My Lord, my Friend, so often
I wish only to live for myself.
But your communion, your
life, is always connected to the life of the other.
I will bear your cross,
Lord, and I will bear it freely.
As we bear this cross
together,
as we work to heal their
brokenness, the world’s brokenness, your brokenness, I too, will be healed.
And in the songs of the
Saints, we will be remembered.
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The Women Weep for Jesus – 9
The Voice of Jesus:
Bombs explode, children die,
the world weeps.
Famines come, death reigns,
nations weep.
Winter rages, old men
freeze, cities weep.
I am led to a cross and
women weep.
And yet, My Two in One,
tears can be a selfish act,
a catharsis of one’s own
soul that offers nothing to the other.
I desire your tears that
wash away your sorrow.
More, I desire your love
that washes away injustice.
My response:
Suffering comes so easy to
me, Lord.
I see the faces of starving
children on television and I simply change the channel.
I hear of wars and threats
of war and I think,
“There is no peace.”
I see a man upon a bridge
and I look the other way.
Lord Jesus, help me to mourn
the horror of this world.
Let the things of this world
that break your heart,
break my heart as well, and
then … help me to act,
to right the wrong, to
struggle for justice.
And when my actions have no
affect,
when I can do no more,
then let my tears, and your
life,
wash over the pain of us
all.
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Jesus is Stripped – 10
The Voice of Jesus:
As they ready my death, they
take even my clothes.
They strip me and leave me
naked, humiliated, degraded, a portrait of suffering for all to see.
And so you shall see me, My
Two in One.
For, I am the man who lies
on the grate,
dismissed as the world steps
over him.
I am the shattered body that
disease comes to claim when all drugs fail.
I am a child. I am hungry.
I am lost.
I am holy. I am life. I am
light. I AM.
My response:
Lord Jesus, you bear my
suffering.
Each time I choose grandeur,
you point me back to
littleness.
Each time I seek greatness,
you point me back to that
which is small.
Each time I want more,
you promise your life in
that which is less.
When I can finally lose my
life with you,
then I will discover what it
means to live.
Thank you for your beauty,
Lord,
in all the wrong places.
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Jesus is Crucified – 11
The Voice of Jesus:
They push me down on the
rough wood.
The splinters rake the flesh
on my naked back.
They stretch my arms wide
until the tendons tear and bones pop.
A hammer crashes down and
all I feel is …
Pain … agonizing and brutal
pain.
And then, hour after hour,
all stand by and watch me as I suffer and die.
Where are their hosannas
now?
Where are the cheering
crowds?
Where are you, My
Two in
One?
My response:
They tell me Lord, that this
is what you had to do …
for the world, for life, for
me.
In truth, I don’t know about
that,
whether you had to be
crucified or not.
But you were crucified,
wholly innocent, without blame.
We put you on a Roman cross
and we brutalized you.
We crucified you because
your love, the way you lived, your very life, was a threat to the powers of that
age,
is a threat to the powers of
every age.
We crucified you because you
loved us and we could not embrace a love so pure.
Lord, help me live my life
as if it is worth the cost.
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Mary and
the Beloved Disciple are Given to Each Other – 12
The Voice of Jesus:
Woman, here is your son.
Here is your mother.
Mary is my mother.
And, My Two in One, she is
your mother too.
In her sorrow, in her pain,
in her continued life,
she has no one left to care
for her, but you.
You, My
Beloved One, you will
care for her.
She is all the mothers of
the world,
all who grieve the loss of a
child,
all who are left behind,
all who have no where else
to turn.
She is the first disciple.
She is the one who stands at the foot of this cross.
As you receive her, you
receive me.
My response:
My Lord, my Jesus, this
relationship you have for me is never to be mine alone.
And so you offer me a
precious gift,
you offer me the life of the
other.
Help me be as passionately
attached to the many Marys in my world, as you are attached to the Mary in your
world.
I stand with her at the foot
of your cross, bearing your pain until it births in me, the seeds of
compassion.
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Jesus Dies on the Cross – 13
The Voice of Jesus:
I cry out and breathe my
last.
In a cry, I give up my life,
but only to this death,
only to this ending.
For my cry, is the cry of
life itself.
It is a cry of new
beginnings.
It is a cry for
the hope of the world.
In my cry there is
connection with the little nobodies
of the world, the poor, the blind, the captive.
My cry is their
cry.
It is a cry that
carries across two millennium.
It is the voice of
that age and is
the voice of every age.
It is a cry for
all of those for who so few cry.
It is a cry for you,
My Beloved One.
A cry of love so that you
might cry out too.
My response:
I cry, “My God, why have you
forsaken me,”
for the powers of death seem
so complete.
They arise out there,
crushing those who appose them.
They arise in here, in me,
Oh Lord, stealing my courage and confusing my faith.
And yet, in your cry, I have
the audacity to believe in life, to believe in love,
to believe in this broken,
stumbling self that I am.
To believe in you, Oh Lord,
in you.
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Jesus is Laid in the Tomb – 14
The Voice of Jesus:
The powers meant that it
would be finished.
In this, the finality of
death.
To stop the voice, to end
the life, to crush the hope of today and obliterate the promise of tomorrow.
This is how it was to end.
And yet, in my one life
there was ending,
and that ending was you.
It is on you that I lay my
hope,
in you where I now reside,
and through you where I
continue as that beating, pulsing, yearning Spirit, who knows love and is love.
As I said in the beginning,
My Beloved One,
you and I are one, one
voice, one life, one journey.
There is nothing for you to
do.
Simply BE. My disciple, my
child, my life.
My response:
My Lord, in the darkness of
the tomb,
there is peace, an inner
solitude,
a comforting stillness where
finally,
in the quiet, I can feel
your breath.
And for this moment, and in
this place,
it is enough to simply BE.
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Conclusion
The Voice of Jesus:
It is really not so
difficult, this walk of ours,
a passage of a few steps,
or a journey of a life-time.
Look for
me on the road,
look for me in the midst
of everything,
and you will find me
there.
In beauty, in pain, in joy
and sorrow,
in hope and despair, life
and death,
in those places where human
pain and human compassion meet,
there you will find the
cross and the Christ.
And, My
Beloved One,
as we share the brokenness
of the cross,
we will know that it is only
in the sharing that we can make this walk at all.
This is grace. This is
Christ.
Go now and
enter the hope of this death,
go
and discover the joy of this resurrection.
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