Oh my, we have arrived finally at the fifth part of the stations. I don't know about you, but my Facebook wall turned a little crazy yesterday. There were a lot of red equal signs and a lot of back and forth discussion about equality and love. A lawyer friend of mine pointed out the case in front of the supreme court has nothing to do with love and everything to do with the constitutionality of a voter passed amendment in California. It is funny to me though because marriage has nothing to do with equality and very little to do with how the world defines love either.
Leron and I absolutely love each other. This love is not the puppy kind of feel good thing society tries to tell us is love. This is the love demonstrated by love incarnate himself, Jesus Christ. This is the love that means even on days when I can hardly look at you because you are driving me crazy, I would still die for you because you are that important to me. I would die for you because I love you and want to do that for you. I would die for you and it doesn't really matter to me if you would die for me in return. Our marriage is not about equality either. We both know we must give 100%, not 50% each, in order for our marriage to work. Above all, our marriage is a sacrament, defined and regulated by The Church not the government.
This may seem like a misplaced rant for a blog post about the 12, 13 and 14th stations but I promise it fits in, if only in my slightly deranged mind. I also feel the need to defend myself right here and say I am not a bigot nor am I afraid of people with homosexual tendencies. I am not sure if homosexuality is something a person is born with. I am really torn on this one because I know God created us male and female with a very specific purpose in mind, to procreate. Regardless if someone is born with homosexual tendencies or heterosexual tendencies, I also believe sexual acts outside of a sacramental marriage are sinful, possibly sinful on a mortal, or death to the soul, level. I think a heterosexual couple living together engaging in sexual acts is not living the life God intended for us to live any more than a homosexual couple in the same situation or a divorced person who has been remarried. What is important when regarding popular culture and their current agenda is to recognize what is truth, what is opinion and what is emotion. When you can sort through those things, it all becomes a little easier to deal with.
Station 12: Jesus Dies on the Cross
I promised my marriage "equality" rant would tie in, so here it goes. Jesus died. He died for you and for me and for everyone before Him and us and after us. He died for a crime he absolutely didn't commit (I mean really how could he break the laws he set forth??) He died because he made people uncomfortable and telling them they were behaving wrongly. He died knowing he would save the same people that would put him back on that cross each and every day. And we do. We sin and drive those nails in time and time and time again. You would think we would learn what he meant when he told us to LOVE!!
So we are stubborn humans really set in our ways. We don't like to hear that we are wrong or that we should be doing it differently. We don't like to be confronted with the truth because once we know the truth we are required to change our way of life. In Jesus' death he gave us new life, but he also showed us how to live and how to die. In order to die well, you must live well. Jesus demonstrated this clearly. It doesn't matter the manner of death, or how unjust it may be. If you live well, you will die well. He also showed us who we should have with us while we live and when we die. At the foot of the cross with Jesus were his mother Mary and his beloved disciple John.
Mary represents the church. This is both the place and the people that make up the church. We should carry the church with us every day. The easiest way to carry the church with us every day is to be the church for others. John represents the Gospel. We are to live and preach the gospel every day. A favorite quote of mine from Saint Francis of Assisi is, "Preach the Gospel always, if necessary use words." It is this beautiful simplicity for our lives that means we are living well.
Station 13: Jesus' body is handed over to his mother
I just explained how Mary is the church. Jesus forever rests in the lap of the church. If you want to find him, find the church. The church is not a building. We are the church. We need to have Jesus resting within us all the time so people can find him easily.
Station 14: Jesus is laid in the tomb
I have heard a lot about the two men who prepared Jesus' body for burial. How these men risked their lives because they were secret disciples. But that is not what I want to focus on in this station. After all, these station are about how you are to live your life as evidenced by Jesus' death.
Think of Jesus entering that tomb dead and on the third day coming out alive. Now consider yourself, if you could take all of the things that make you dead on the inside, dead to love, dead to life, and lay them somewhere and emerge without those things and full of life, what would those things be??
Take the things in your life and bury them in the tomb with Jesus on Friday. Cast them off. Let. Them. GO! Rise a clean new creation, remade in God's infinite love, this Easter. Rise to new life with Jesus.
God Bless!
Hannah
The Farmer's Wife
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