These reflections are written by Rachel Grayson, a parishioner from the Wilmslow Circle. We hope these articles will be helpful for our Lenten meditations as we journey towards Holy Week and Easter.
1. Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus to carry the Cross
“A certain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was passing by on his way in from the country, and they forced him to carry the cross.” Mark 15: 21 “Without beauty, without majesty, we saw him, no looks to attract our eyes.” Isaiah 52:14
He was worn out already. His friends had been no help, falling asleep – they couldn’t even watch one hour. Pleading with his father, in his humanity, to take the cup away. Scourged, thorns twisted into a crown pushed onto his head, spat upon, mocked. This once vibrant man, this perfect man, looked appalling – his face was so disfigured, he seemed hardly human. But the soldiers didn’t care about that. They couldn’t have him dying too soon. That wouldn’t do at all – a public spectacle of crucifixion on Golgotha was required.
Simon was only there for the Passover. He didn’t volunteer to get involved in any of this. The soldiers forced him. They forced him to carry the cross and to head to Golgotha. They forced him to give Jesus comfort and relief. They forced him to play a role in Jesus’s mission of salvation for mankind. Do we have to be forced to share the weight of His Cross?The only way to heaven is the Way of the Cross (Matthew 16:24). The only way to see God face to face is the Way of the Cross (Rev 12:11). The only way to union with Christ is the Way of the Cross (Rev 7:14-17) We know this as truth and we can believe this intellectually, but in our hearts it is very hard to accept.
We don’t like sacrifice; we don’t like suffering. We certainly don’t like being told what to do. We like easy. We like to stay in our Hobbit holes – its comfortable there; it’s safe. But that isn’t the way of Christ; it isn’t the way of the Cross. We know death in this life is inevitable. We cannot escape the Cross; Golgotha is for everyone. The paradox of Christianity – why so few people can accept it, particularly in contemporary culture – is that suffering, sacrifice and love are totally intertwined; they are inseparable. In His sacrifice for our sins, in His suffering and His total self giving for us, Jesus shows a love that goes to the end. A great audacious, reckless love that goes beyond any other love we can ever experience. And the only response to that is to love Him back, to open our heart to His heart. When we agree to follow Him we die to the world. We are in it for the long term. And to the world it looks like madness, because this is His command:
“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.” Matthew 16: 24 The hills of Jerusalem were scattered with crosses and our lives are too. We have our own cross, our friends and family have their crosses. War torn nations and suffering peoples have huge crosses. And often they seem too heavy for us to carry or to help others to carry. But every time we show mercy, kindness, compassion, forgiveness, patience, forbearance, humility, gentleness we help to carry those crosses because we show something of Jesus’s love.
We bear our own suffering and the sufferings of others out of love for Him. By ourselves this would be impossible. But He gives us the grace to do this and to be able to bear all for His name. He calls us to be fearless, not timid. If we ask, he will fill us with His Holy Spirit as he filled the disciples at Pentecost (Acts 2:1-4) and when we become docile to the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives we begin to become like Christ. Can we bear one another’s burdens? (Gal 6:2)
Lord by your cross and resurrection you have set us free. You are the Saviour of the world.
2. Jesus consoles the women of Jerusalem
“A large number of people followed him, including women who mourned and wailed for him. Jesus turned and said to them, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children.” Luke 23: 27-28 “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.” Isaiah 40: 1-2 When we are suffering physically or in our hearts, it is hard to see the suffering of others. It is hard to see the grief in the eyes of another. It is hard to notice their tears. When Jesus passes by the women as he walks, ahead of Simon who is carrying the cross behind Jesus, Jesus turns. He turns. He turns round to face the women and to speak to them, who he sees mourning and weeping, and to comfort them. They are seen by him, recognised and known by him, and loved by him. In his physical suffering, and in the emotional torment of what is to come, his focus at that moment is on the suffering of others. His gaze is upon them.
In an address in 2021, Pope Francis describes ‘God’s style’ as having three traits: closeness, compassion and tenderness. But it is only Jesus who can fully reveal the loving heart of God, the Father. That is why God sent His Son to us – to make known the love of the Father. A father will always console his daughter, even when he himself is suffering. Our earthly fathers, whether familial or spiritual, are only an image of the Form of the one true Father, but they are a precious image. And here our heavenly Father, through the heart of his beloved only Son, consoles his beloved daughters, the daughters of Jerusalem.
We are, of course, all adopted as God’s children through the waters of Baptism, co-heirs with Christ, but it is important that here Jesus addresses the women as the ‘Daughters of Jerusalem’. The city of Jerusalem was home to the Temple – the central place of worship for the Jewish people. For years the Jews had carried a portable ‘temple’ around in the form of the Tabernacle of Moses as they travelled. Wherever they were, they viewed the Tabernacle as God’s dwelling place on earth. In the mid to late 10th Century BC a splendid temple, the Temple of Solomon, was built in the City of Jerusalem. It lasted only a few centuries before its destruction during the Babylonian invasion and 2 Kings Chapter 25 narrates the dramatic and shocking story of the Temple’s destruction. A Second Temple was built in Jerusalem not many decades later and was still in existence at the time of Christ’s death.
Jesus prophesies the destruction of the temple (and the Second Temple of Jerusalem was indeed destroyed in 70AD by the Romans) in John 2:19-22. It will be, he says, destroyed and rebuilt in three days. The temple he is speaking of in this context is, of course, his body. But while the Second Temple of Jerusalem was seen as the place where God dwells among his people, where offerings were made and worship took place, biblical imagery makes clear that Jerusalem, and specifically its temple, is an image ultimately of the heavenly city, it points towards the heavenly Jerusalem described in Revelation chapters 21 and 22 – the final dwelling place of God with man. So the daughters of Jerusalem are also a symbol of those who will inherit eternal life in the heavenly kingdom. A symbol of the people of God – the Church – “prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband”. (Rev 21:2)
Going back to our opening bible passages, we see that Isaiah’s prophesy is fulfilled in Luke’s gospel narrative. God will comfort his people. He does this through the love of Jesus His son, whose heart reaches out in love to each of us. Who speaks tenderly to each one of us. Whose heart desires to speak to our heart. “Cor ad cor loquitur’ – heart speaks to heart – a phrase St. John Henry Newman adopted as his motto, himself repeating words which the gentle saint, St Francis de Sales was fond of saying. When we are baptised in Christ, and commit our lives to follow Him, we are all the daughters of Jerusalem – men and women – we all form ‘the people of God’, the Church, the bride of Christ. When we allow Jesus to truly love us, to truly console our hearts, we begin to be able to experience a deeper level of love and compassion for others as our hearts begin to unite with His heart. Can we console the heart of Christ?
Lord by your cross and resurrection you have set us free. You are the Saviour of the world.
3. Jesus is nailed to the Cross
“Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed. When they came to the place called the Skull, there they crucified him, along with the criminals – one on his right, the other on his left. Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”” Luke 23:32-34 “But (Thomas) said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it.”” “Then (Jesus) said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”” John 20: 25&27 Jesus is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29). Jesus climbed willingly onto the cross in atonement for our sins. The Nicene creed reminds us, ‘For our sake he was crucified..’ Jesus pays the price, the ultimate price – he gives His life for us. His sacrifice removes the barrier of sin and enables us to be reconciled to God; to be restored to a right relationship with God the Father. Saint John Henry Newman, in his meditations on the Stations of the Cross, comments upon Jesus’ condemnation to death by Pontius Pilate, “Jesus is condemned to death. His death-warrant is signed, and who signed it but I…?”
We each individually helped to sign Jesus’ death warrant when we first seriously sinned. Do we not also each help to hammer those nails in just a little bit harder when we continue to sin? Particularly when we consider what we are about to do and think, ‘I know what you want God, but I don’t care what you want, I want what I want.’ That type of sin? I watched an Italian film recently where a little boy loves Jesus so much, spends so much time looking at Jesus on the cross that, in a dream-like sequence, he goes up to the cross and pulls the nails out of Jesus’ body as it is crucified and Jesus is able to climb down from the cross and walk free. Jesus walks right out of the church in which the crucifix the boy is contemplating is hung. It struck me as a hugely powerful image of what we could achieve if we really loved Jesus. Do we love Jesus enough to want to go up to Him and pull the nails out of His hands and His feet, because we can’t bear what our sins have done to Him and because we want to relieve His suffering?
Are we resolved to live our lives so that we can be confident that, at the hour of our death, Jesus will say to us, as he did to the ‘good’ thief, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise”? The gospel narratives of both Luke and John make certain to tell us that Christ’s resurrected body carried the scars of the nails from the cross. If they did not tell us, it might be easy for us to assume that His resurrected body would have been healed of the scars. That the evidence of His suffering would be somehow wiped away. But no, His scars remain; a sign of His true humanity as well as His true divinity. He was “made like (us) in every respect..” Hebrews 2:17.
Graham Kendrick, in his beautiful hymn ‘The Servant King’, reminds us: Come see His hands and His feet, The scars that speak of sacrifice, Hands that flung stars into space, To cruel nails surrendered
After His resurrection, Jesus’ wounds become a sign of victory over sin. The evidence of what he suffered remains, but He is glorified through that physical testimony – He bears His scars to fully reveal His glory. The cross becomes a place of victory – victory over death and over the power of Satan. When we sin, we wound Christ, we wound the church – the body of Christ – other people, but most of all we wound ourselves. Even after we are forgiven, we carry the wounds of sin. Some of those wounds can be healed on earth through reconciliation and restitution but some cannot and we carry those scars with us through the rest of our earthly life. When we hide ourselves in the wounds of Christ, we unite ourselves with the suffering of Christ and we allow ourselves to be healed by His grace, through the power of His infinite mercy, in a mystical way that draws us closer to His heart, even while we remain on earth. While we ourselves, ‘look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.’
Lord by your cross and resurrection you have set us free. You are the Saviour of the world.
4. Jesus dies on the Cross
“When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing near by, he said to his mother, “Dear woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.” John 19:26-27 “But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water.” John 19: 33-34
“Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.” Luke 2: 34-35 Mary stands at the foot of the cross and ponders. She casts her mind back thirty-four years. An angel had been sent to her by God, the angel Gabriel. He told her not to be afraid. He told her the Holy Spirit would come upon her, that the power of the Most High would overshadow her and that she would give birth to the Son of God (Luke 1:26-35). When Mary conceives by the Holy Spirit, she bears in her womb the heart of God made man. She carries the heart of the Christ Child beneath her own heart. Both hearts beat within her.
The mystery of the cross begins to be more fully revealed to us when we contemplate it in the context of the Incarnation of Christ. The spirituality of Christianity is an Incarnational spirituality. God becomes man for us. He becomes a zygote. Fully human and fully divine. The union of heaven and earth. It was common practice for the Roman soldiers to break the legs of their victims – crurifragium it was called – to hasten death. This was done for a number of reasons, one of which was to ensure compliance with the Jewish custom requiring that bodies were buried before nightfall. Psalm 34:20 tells us that the Lord “protects all his bones, not one of them will be broken.” Not one of Jesus’ bones were broken – he was already dead when the soldiers came to him. Isaiah 53:5 tells us “he was pierced for our transgressions”. And so he was.
As Mary watches the soldiers pierce her son’s heart with a spear – at that precise moment – Simeon’s prophesy is fulfilled. Her soul is pierced with a sword. But it is a sword of love. She is pierced through with love for her son. In that moment, her heart is united with the heart of God; Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The church, which will be born on Pentecost, is conceived on the cross. It is notable that the Gospel of John alone relates that, when the soldier’s pierce Jesus’ side with a spear, out flow blood and water. This detail is absent from the synoptic gospels but, in his high descending Christology, it is important to John to communicate that the blood of Christ is a sign of his redemptive sacrifice as the Lamb of God for us on the cross. It is also an important reminder of what Jesus said to his disciples (John 6:54-55) “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.”
Out of Christ’s side also flows water, both the sign and symbol of new life with Christ in baptism and of the coming of the Holy Spirit. Christ becomes the fountain of water out of which flows the Holy Spirit. The exchange of love between the Father and the Son at the point of Christ’s death bring forth in a unique way the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, which reaches its visible fulfilment at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit descends like tongues of fire upon the Apostles (Acts 2:3).
Before he died, Jesus gave his mother into the care and keeping of his beloved disciple. Jesus entrusted Mary to John, for him to be a son to her. To take on the role of caring for her as a son, as Christ himself had done. And the disciple who himself had rested his head upon Jesus’ chest, close to His heart, at the Last Supper (John 13:23) is given Jesus’ mother to console him. To be a mother to him. And Mary is there in the upper room with the Apostles after the Ascension, joined with them in constant prayer (Acts 1: 14). Praying for the Holy Spirit to come upon the Apostles. As the Holy Spirit had come upon her, who is highly favoured (Luke 1:28), all those years ago. And as she prays, she ponders all these things in her heart… (Luke 2:19)
Lord by your cross and resurrection you have set us free. You are the Saviour of the world