Sometimes we are in too much of a hurry to get to a destination. There’s no doubt that we’re going to have a great time when we get there, but there can be so much joy in the journey as well! I can think of so many times and places as we traveled with the kids we had the grandest adventures in unexpected places. Some of the greatest stories were unexpected discoveries or crazy “misadventures”.
I think this is especially true of most Evangelical church traditions. We are all about Easter (and rightly so!), but, we miss so much of the richness in the story of GOD’s love, grace and redemption when we don’t spend some time dwelling on the stories and symbolic meaning of Passover, The Lord’s Supper and the Crucifixion!
For many years, on or near Good Friday, I would lead our church in something I called “The Living Stations of the Cross”. I started with the youth group for a few years and then opened it up to the whole church. Initially I did it “church-wide”on Wednesday night since we had Wednesday programming already and many were already in attendance, but later I moved it back to Fridays where it belongs. Below is a link to the participant guide for the service I used to do.
One of my sons is now doing The Living Stations of the Cross. We will get to join as participants this year. It will be my first time to follow the Way of the Cross rather than lead it!
The Stations of the Cross is traditionally 14 points from Pilate’s condemnation to Jesus being laid in the tomb. The traditional form includes extra-biblical stories from church history. I adapted my 9 stations from the “Scriptural Stations of the Cross”, combining some points (combined The Garden/Betrayal and Sanhedrin/Denial) and omitting 3.
