Third Station: Jesus falls for the first time
Scripture
“But I am a worm—inhuman, a disgrace, and held in contempt in the court of public opinion. Everyone who sees me turns away; they whisper to each other and shake their heads” (Psalm 22:6-7).
Meditation
Perish the day, I put forward my chest–
heroic insignia on display,
superhuman in the eyes of the world—
to find my cape tangled in the brush.
And let it never be that I stumble
down the grand stairs to the adoring crowd
destroying the vision of perfection
that I’ve managed to conjure to their eyes.
Else let the earth open and swallow me
to burrow like a worm in the darkness
where no one, never no one see me fall.
May God forbid I seem merely human,
like that weak and broken man over there:
an object of others’ scorn and shame.
Prayer
Incarnate One, sometimes it is too much to contemplate that you came, lived, died just like us since, in so doing, we must remember that you have shown us humanity. And in so doing we see ourselves as weary, weak, and stumbling into the dirt. As we try to follow in your Way, give us courage to live human lives that, with the Apostle Paul, boast of those things that show our weakness. We ask this so we may be humble as you were humble, and that we might draw others to look past us to you. Amen.