Stations of the Cross: An Introduction

The stations of cross have been used for centuries as a way to teach Christians the essential elements of Jesus’s final days. In churches throughout Europe, you will see the scenes painted on the walls or presented in stained glass windows. A gentle reminder that for most of Christian history most Christians could not read. They learned the Easter story, not by reading it from their Bibles, but by re-enacting it through the stations of the cross.

In modern times the stations are frequently done in a service where the observers will walk from the station to station stopping to hear the passage of scripture that corresponds with what was happening in the life of Jesus. They are then invited to pray and reflect on Jesus’s love for them and Jesus’s call to join him on his journey. The service is often one of the few truly interactive worship services on the Christian calendar. 

The present reality of our world makes such a service impossible. We cannot gather in a large group and walk through the final days of Jesus’s life together. Instead, we will walk through it together through this series of posts. Traditionally, there are fourteen stations that believers walkthrough starting with Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane and ending him being laid in the tomb on Good Friday. 

Over the next fourteen days, I will walk through one station a day. I will set the scene for those who have never heard the story. then I will provide the scripture and a brief guided prayer activity. The goal is to simply help you feel the reality of our Lord Jesus’s final days. 

Finally, these are challenging days we are living in. In difficult days it is worth remembering the timeless truth that Steven Colbert so eloquently said to Anderson Cooper in an interview last year: “The great gift of the sacrifice of Christ is that God [suffers] too.” It is my hope that you will join us on this journey and draw near to our Lord Jesus Christ.