{Lent 2021 has brought some faithful folk back into their church sanctuaries for worship, but others of us are still waiting until the coast is clear. Thus, I’ve been looking at my files of photos from our various travels and some of the churches I’ve served as pastor, and posting one a day since Ash Wednesday. Along with writing. Good grief. The writing. You’d be surprised how long it takes each day to do this. I can’t wait until Easter!}

I don’t know when I first noticed the “Stations of the Cross” in Roman Catholic Churches. But having discovered them, I am drawn to the many creative ways those fourteen scenes of Jesus’ last days are depicted along sanctuary walls, or in this case, in the aisles of Southwell Minster, the Cathedral and Parish Church of the Virgin Mary in Southwell, Nottinghamshire, England. (Southwell Minster is not, by the way, a Roman Catholic Church, but in the Church of England.)

In some churches, the “stations” are relatively small paintings; in others sculptures. Usually the stations are attached to the side walls of the church so that worshippers can walk the aisles and stop at each one to meditate on each scene. I won’t go into details here except to note that the first station shows Pilate condemning Jesus to die. And the last is Jesus being placed in the tomb.

In this series of Lenten reflections, I’ve already mentioned Southwell Minster and noted its 900 year history. And once one has stood in awe of its soaring beauty, one looks for detail. The detail I centered on previously was the mice there. The ones playfully carved into various wooden structures like pews and columns. On the way down a side aisle, we saw these metal sculptures. I took the time to frame several of them with my compact Sony. Here are a few.

Jonathan Clarke is the artist who created these. His website describes his process this way:

Jonathan works in sand-cast aluminium, initially carving his sculpture in polystyrene. This method – pioneered by his father and mastered by Jonathan – relies on the destruction of the original mould as it is vaporised by molten aluminium. The result is an entirely unique, one-off sculpture.

As you look at the figures there, your assignment is to link the art to the stations along the way of the cross that you perceive there.

The Stations of the Cross are not only absent from Protestant churches in the U.S. (but if you know of exceptions, please add a comment here), but most Protestants would rather not be bothered by the darker days of Holy Week to begin with. The faithful choose to move from one festival to another, from the “glory, laud, and honor” of Palm Sunday’s procession to Easter’s joy and praise. When it comes to Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, attendance at our churches is way lower. We’re really into the good news stuff, but don’t want to make time for Jesus’ pain, the betrayals, the denials, the nails. The tomb. Our complicity. Paying more attention to the scriptural stories of Jesus’ last days would help us appreciate to a fuller extent Easter’s ultimate surprise.

The Stations took on significant meaning for me when I served my last church before retirement. Each Thursday, most of the ministers in our small village met for breakfast at a local restaurant. Besides me (the Presbyterian), a couple of Methodist pastors, the Episcopal rector, one of the Baptist pastors (the other was too holy to join us commoners), and the Catholic priest enjoyed meeting without an agenda except pancakes, eggs, and coffee. Lent and Holy Week were the exceptions to that no-agenda thing, for we recognized the value of sharing that part of the liturgical calendar ecumenically. So we did some planning together. We had our own individual Maundy Thursday services, but on Good Friday the Protestants joined for a noontime service at the Episcopal Church, and the priest invited us to the Stations of the Cross service at his church that evening. He’d greet us in his office, distribute little devotional booklets to the gathered (and vested) clergy, and we’d move to the sanctuary where the Catholic congregation was awaiting the journey to the cross. We would rotate the readings and prayers among us as we walked the aisles of the church, stopping at each station. The people would shift their gaze to each station as we paused to read the booklet’s pages.

I loved the sharing of our common faith in that way, and yearned for other occasions when the people of the village could gather across denominational lines to pray and sing together. One in the Spirit.

Those stark gray aluminum stations pictured above prompt us to place ourselves along Jesus’ path. We can imagine the fear of his followers, their sorrow, perhaps disillusionment, as well as Jesus’ own suffering heading to the cross, his death, and burial. We would do well to pay more attention to the hard days between the easy festivals.

I doubt these stations will ever become a “thing” for churches outside the Roman Catholic or other “high” liturgical churches. That’s our loss.