Good Friday: Outcast, Oppressed, Abandoned
The symbol of the cross in the church points to the God who was crucified not between two candles on an altar, but between two thieves in the place of the skull, where the outcasts belong, outside the gates of the city. It does not invite thought, but a change of mind. It is a symbol which therefore leads out of the church and out of religious longing into the fellowship of the oppressed and abandoned. On the other hand, it is a symbol which calls the oppressed and godless into the church and through the church into the fellowship of the crucified God. –Jürgen Moltmann The Crucified God
Stations of the Cross
1 Opening Prayer
2 1st Station: Jesus is condemned to death
3 2nd Station: Jesus carries His cross
4 3rd Station: Jesus falls the first time
5 4th Station: Jesus meets his mother
6 5th Station: Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus to carry his cross
7 6th Station: Veronica wipes the face of Jesus
8 7th Station: Jesus falls the second time
9 8th Station: Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem
10 9th Station: Jesus falls a third time
11 10th Station: Jesus clothes are taken away
12 11th Station: Jesus is nailed to the cross
10 12th Station: Jesus dies on the cross
11 13th Station: The body of Jesus is taken down from the cross
12 14th Station: Jesus is laid in the tomb
The last day of Jesus is similar to the situation that LGBT people find themselves in today.
LGBT people are condemned to death and discrimination. Initially they chose to bear the label of intrinsically disordered. Just as Jesus was helped by various people on his last journey so too are LGBT people helped along their way. They stumble through life along the Via Dolorosa imposed on them, helped by various people, sometimes family, sometimes strangers. Jesus’s clothes are taken away before he is nailed to the cross and the psyches of LGBT people are striped bare as they are nailed into a false identity. Jesus rose from the dead. With the advancement of science LGBT people are taken down from their crosses and freed from the classification that has crucified them. They are rising in victory.
Something else to remember is that the Roman Empire that condemned Jesus has disappeared because it is unable to change and adapt to challenges within and without while Jesus rose and is remembered, venerated by some and admired by many. The message is “change or die never to rise, becoming only a footnote in history”. The Church should begin to listen to science and all those it marginalizes, the disaffected LGBT people and women in general. Church enrollment in the West continues to decline steeply as it fails to deal with the many challenges within and without.
“Change or die never to rise again, becoming only a footnote in history ”.