Grace Church during COVID-19 (March 3rd)

Lent: This year the first day of the season of Lent (called Ash Wednesday by many) is Wednesday, February 17th, 2021. Lent (Latin for Springtime) refers to a forty-weekday period of penitence and prayer leading to the feast of Easter. It became a 40-day retreat during the seventh century to coincide with the 40 days spent by Jesus in the desert. Every Friday of Lent is a day of abstinence to serious observers. As a reminder of what Jesus sacrificed for us, during this Lent season some Christians will abstain (excluding Sundays) from a specific pleasure (examples, all sweets, wine/alcohol, internet activity); others will spend extra quiet time with God or devote themselves to reading parts of the Bible or an appropriate book; still others will find a specific way to serve others or to better care for the planet. You may consider doing something similar on your own during this season of Lent. 

14 Lenten Posters by Adolfo Pérez Esquivel of Argentina, Argentinian Nobel Peace Prize Laureate: (2019 03 27)

The posters that you see above are the result of a commission to the Argentine artist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Esquivel to paint a series of posters around the theme “1992". The aim was to express feelings, particularly those of Latin American groups, generated by the then upcoming celebration, “500 Years Since Columbus.” The themes of the fourteen stations of the cross powerfully and dramatically illustrate the inclusiveness of the cross on which the Saviour of the world died. The fourteen themes are: human rights, the big city, civil war, the slums, slavery, native people, land claims, women and development, children and youth, nature preservation, debts, divided world, re-awakening, and environment. All of these aspects of our global village are in the loving embrace of our crucified but risen Saviour, Jesus Christ.

The posters were a gift from former pastor of Grace Church, Simon Wolfert.

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Stations of the Cross from Latin America 1492 - 1992: 

<1st Station>

Condemnation to Death

“Pilate handed Jesus over to be crucified.” - Mark 15:15

Theme: Human Rights

Christ is led from prison, watched by the mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires – the mothers of the disappeared. Their posters read: “No more repression” and “Where is my son?” Jesus himself is also a victim of false accusations, of unfair arrest and torture. And in the 21st century, European airports have been used by America for “extraordinary rendition” torture flights in violation of human rights, and people jailed for years without trial in Guantanamo Bay.

(note: the description of each station was written by Alastair McIntosh of Scotland) 

<2nd Station>

Rejected and Abandoned

“And carrying his own cross he went out of the city.” - John 19:17

Theme: The Loneliness of Cities

Christ in the scarlet mocking coat is arrested in the city of São Paulo. The “Roman” soldiers are armed not with swords, but guns. Meanwhile, most people go about their daily business, turning a blind eye to and taking no action over the tyranny being played out before them. The only witnesses are a shoe-shine boy and an elderly couple – people of low social status. Liberation theology is “contextual theology” – the stories about Jesus are contextualised in our world today, for we imprison them if we trap them in the past. 

<3rd Station>

Crushed by the Cross

“He has sent me to set the downtrodden free.” - Luke 4:19

Theme: War & Civil Wars

Jesus falls for the first time under the burden of the Cross. Brutal violence has weighted him down, just like that which afflicts peasants, farm workers and the urban poor today. In the foreground we see Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, a man of peace who was assassinated at the altar when celebrating Mass on 24 March 1980. Jesus never taught “just war theory”; he taught nonviolence, telling Peter to put away his sword - “No more of this” (Luke 22:51). As such, the cross becomes the supreme symbol of nonviolence – the power of love that exceeds the love of power.

<4th Station>

Mother and Son

“His mother stored up all these things in her heart.” - Luke 2:51

Theme: Suffering, Solidarity & Community

In one of the favelas or urban slums of Latin America, Mary, overwhelmed with grief, meets her condemned son. The people lack such essentials for life as safe water, sanitation, nutritious food, transport and “wonted” work – work that is meaningful. In spite of this, they survive by self-help and solidarity that builds community. Mary’s suffering is that of all those who are unable to do enough to save their loved ones. It is our suffering, too, when beauty is crushed around us and we are unable to do enough to save our world. 

<5th Station>

Helped by an Outsider

“They compelled a passer-by who was coming in from the country, to carry his cross.” - Mark 15:21

Theme: Racial Prejudice

Simon of Cyrene is portrayed as one of the millions of black people living in Latin America – descendants of those who were brought there under slavery while the native Amerindians were being exterminated. This ethnic group have the lowest status in Latin America. They are often subject to “victim blaming” - a form of prejudice where the powerful scapegoat the powerless to justify their power. Because of this, Paulo Freire of Brazil said that the great work of the oppressed is to liberate both themselves, and their oppressors!   

<6th Station>

Community of the Oppressed

“If you did this to the least of my people, you did it to me.” - Matthew 25:40

Theme: Indigenous Peoples

Of the 22 million Aztecs alive in 1519 when Hernán Cortez entered Mexico, only a million remained by 1600. Here, Indian women represent Saint Veronica. They have wiped the face of Jesus. His features, now imprinted on the cloth, are their features. Could they be ours too? Once, we were all indigenous peoples. Perhaps today we must rediscover this quality if we are to re-make communities of place and care for the earth whereon we tread. But we must shape identity inclusively – just as Jesus was challenged to be inclusive by the Canaanite woman (Mark 7:24-30). 

<7th Station>

The Land Question

“Give us this day our daily bread.” - Matthew 6:11

Theme: The Landless Poor

Jesus falls for the second time under the weight of the cross. Each rope on the cross that can be seen amongst the land reform (Reforma Agraria) marchers represents a murdered Campesino – “Derecho a la tierra – Right to the land,” say their banners. Jesus taught people to pray for bread, and he rejected the temptation of landed power (Luke 4:5-8). Today, 2.25% of the people of Guatemala own 64% of the land. 

<8th Station>

The Outcry of the Women

“Many women cried and lamented for him.” - Luke 23:27

Theme: Women’s Empowerment

Full of compassion the women bewail the fate of Jesus. He, however, refers them to their own fate: “Do not weep for me…” The Biblical scene is transferred to Ayacucho, Peru, where many fathers and sons are killed and the women are left alone to provide for their families. They say: “Yesterday in the Bible group we read how the people of Israel were oppressed in Egypt. Aren’t we in the same position? God wants to lead us to the promised land too. We should discuss this with the others!”

<9th Station>

Cast Out and Abused

“Whoever welcomes such a child in my name welcomes me.” - Mark 9:37

Theme: Children in Need

Jesus falls for the third time, amid homeless children and unemployed youth. In Brazil hundreds of street children were murdered by death squads every year. In Scotland, youth at Govan’s GalGael Trust, who started on drugs as young as 12, say: “I took heroin because it took away the pain; but it also took away my soul.” Alice Miller’s work shows how a child not loved for itself – in its “primal integrity” - becomes destructive. Christ took children in his arms and blessed them. As a child, he himself was a refugee in Egypt, and Joseph’s love made him socially acceptable through fostership.

<10th Station>

Destruction of the Rainforests

“They divided his garments among them.” - Matthew 27:35

Theme: The Death of Nature

Jesus is stripped of his clothes by soldiers who gamble for them. In the same way, the Earth is stripped of her clothes - her soils, waters and forests - to fuel our great casino economy where need is dwarfed by greed. As the “Roman” soldiers prepare to crucify Jesus, the Brazilian environmentalist and rubber-tappers’ union leader, Chico Mendes, lies assassinated in the foreground (Dec. 22, 1988). To Jesus, the Earth was God’s “footstool” – the sacred resting place of divine presence (Matthew 5:35).

<11th Station>

Nailed to the Cross

“You cannot serve both God and money.” - Matthew 6:24

Theme: The Debt Crisis

Jesus is nailed to the cross, just as the poor are nailed by the rich through monetarism and the sin of usury (making money out of money by lending only for interest). Investors may think they’re innocently seeking “the best rate of return,” but so doing drives an economic system where the poor supply unearned income to the relatively rich. In this picture, the poor carry resources up the scaffold, transferring wealth from South to North. Might Christians consider learning from attempts within Islamic banking to overcome usury, as well as by promoting “Fair Trade”? (Ezekiel 28 & Rev. 18:11-18)

<12th Station>

Death on the Cross

“But Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last.” - Mark 15:37

Theme: A World Ripped Apart

The whole world is crucified by the spirit of violence. The two halves – rich and poor, North and South, Heaven and Earth – have been pulled asunder, yet still the Cross unites them. It is love that hangs crucified; a love that transcends even tortured death. All who take risks and put their necks on the line for justice in this world stand here in solidarity. Amongst this “communion of the saints” are those powerless to do anything but testify with their powerful presences – “the spirituality of the foot of the Cross.” Such, often, is our Station.

<13th Station>

The Seed of Hope

“If a grain of wheat dies, it bears much fruit.” - John 12:24

Theme: Base Communities

Jesus is taken down from the cross. The people gather in anticipation of Easter. All around the world, small groups gather, “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20). Jesus was a man who died, but “Christ” is an understanding of the deathless spirit of life as love made manifest, beyond gender (Galatians 3:28). We might see this as alive in all, also in other faiths. Where institutional churches flee, ego-inflated, from such mystical insight, “base communities” of grassroot seekers of truth can rise above “spiritual materialism” and so renew God’s “church”. 

<14th Station>

Walking in the Shadow of Death

“Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a linen cloth and laid it in his own tomb.” - Matthew 27:59

Theme: Return to the Earth

Jesus is laid to rest in a tomb, here beside a rubbish tip in a polluted industrial nation. We come from the clay of the earth’s womb, are nourished from the fields, and in the end return to the soil – ashes to ashes, dust to dust - at one with rock-building geological processes set in time when place began.