Seventh Station of the Cross

Jesus falls the second time 

  Have you ever fallen on pavement or gravel and scraped yourself badly?  Falling a second time and reinjuring the wound is often more painful than the pain of the initial wound. 

   Now consider what that pain would be if you had been beaten by a seven or nine tailed scourge such as the Romans used.  Embedded in each of the tails were bits of metal, bone, or rock to ensure that the flesh was torn, ripped, and flayed away.  This was the scourging of Jesus.

   Have you ever reached into a rose bush and grabbed a thorn rather than a rose?  Now imagine a thorn several times that size in a branch woven into a crown and pushed onto your head until the thorns tore and penetrated your flesh.  This was the crowning of thorns Jesus endured.

   Every inch of His body was in excruciating pain as He carried the cross through the streets of Jerusalem.  I can’t begin to comprehend the pain He must have felt throughout His body when He fell this second time.  Every wound would have reopened and filled with dirt and gravel.  Quite likely the Roman soldiers began beating Him again, screaming at Him to get up.

   I’ve been graphic in my depictions of Jesus’ agony for a purpose.  When we look at the crucifix we see Jesus portrayed nailed to the cross but never truly depicted is the physical horror that He had endured just getting to the cross.  His body would have been a mass of bloody, torn flesh from head to toe.  He would have been virtually unrecognizable even to those who knew Him well.

   We need to look upon the pain and suffering He endured if we are to fully appreciate what He did for us; the reality of it, not the sanitized version we so often see.  We must see the beaten, bloody body of our Lord and fully accept that it was for our sins that He suffered.  Maybe then we can more willingly and lovingly accept whatever suffering comes our way and offer it to Jesus in thanksgiving for the great gift of our salvation.