II- Jesus Carries His Cross

 

"Station 2: Jesus carries His cross" by kissingtoast is marked with CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you. Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world. 

I don't know what it would have taken to embrace a job that unpleasant, especially in the state He was in. 

A man kept up all night by taunts and blows, in a state of extreme emotional stress and exhaustion (from the Garden of Gethsemane, if nothing else), beaten within an inch of His life, probably weak from blood loss and dehydration, being told to carry a heavy piece of wood a couple miles (and we know there was a storm that afternoon, so it was probably a hot, stifling day)  so they could nail Him to it. 

We're told it was love. A love not for "humanity" as a whole, but a total love for each individual person. 

There's a hymn about the crucifixion, 

"Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble..."

It isn't the pain that causes me to tremble so much as the act of considering what that moment must have cost, that accepted burden, and then realizing that it was done for love.  

Of me. 

Go to third station.