Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
The collect appointed for today has a certain Anglican gravitas. It sounds like a prayer the church has been saying for centuries. And, indeed, the phrase “went not up to joy but first he suffered pain and entered not into glory before he was crucified” comes from the earliest English Book of Common Prayer and was probably penned by Cranmer at the time of the English Reformation.
But that’s the oldest bit of this collect. None of it comes from medieval Latin liturgical works, as do many of our collects. And although it incorporates Cranmer’s phrase, the collect as a whole was written by the American churchman the Rev. Dr. William Reed Huntington in the late 1800’s. Huntington was a significant leader of the Episcopal Church during the Civil War and worked for reunification of the church after the war. He wrote this collect for 1892 revision of the American Prayer Book. Ultimately, it was not included in that book, but did first appear in the 1928 book.
The relative modernity of this collect is interesting because of the phrase in the intercessory portion of the collect which refers to walking in the “way of the cross.” Well before the late 1800’s that phrase had taken on specific connotations. In addition to the general Scriptural meaning of following Jesus, the phrase “way of the cross” came to refer to the ritual also known as the stations of the cross. The liturgical pilgrimage that traces Jesus’ last steps. It is also called the Via Dolorosa or path of pain.
The number of stations has varied across the years. These days there are typically 14. Of those 8 have some source in Scripture; the other 6 are inferred from Scripture or based solely on pious legend.
The stations:
- Jesus is condemned to death. He is confronted by his human mortality.
- Jesus takes up his cross. Carrying all of the burdens of a sinful world.
- Jesus falls.
- Jesus meets his afflicted mother, seeing how the course of his life brings pain to someone who loves him.
- The cross is laid on Simon Cyrene. In a sense Simon becomes a caregiver, accompanying Jesus on his final journey.
- A woman wipes the face of Jesus.
- Jesus falls again.
- Jesus meets the weeping women of Jerusalem, weeping for their children, perhaps for the pain in their children’s lives in which they are complicit or simply for the pain in their children’s lives that they cannot remove.
- Jesus falls again.
- Jesus is stripped. Stripped of material possessions. Stripped of human dignity.
- Jesus is nailed to the cross.
- Jesus dies.
- Jesus is placed in the arms of his mother.
- Jesus is laid in the tomb.
In this collect we pray that the way of the cross may be for us the way of life and peace. Because Jesus was crucified and rose from the dead, the way of the cross has become a way of life and peace. Because Jesus walked the path of pain before us and for us, when we walk our own path of pain, he is with us, bringing us life and peace. Even in the midst of pain. Jesus is the source of life and peace as we walk the way of the cross our own via dolorosa.
When we face our own mortality or are burdened by sin, Jesus is the way of life and peace.
When we stumble and fall. And fall again. And again and again. Jesus picks us up and gives us life and peace.
When we hurt others or fail to protect them, Jesus is with us in life and peace.
When we are caregivers or need caregivers, Jesus is in our midst, walking with us in the way of life and peace.
Even at the moment of death, maybe particularly at the moment of death, Jesus is life and peace.
May we find the way of the cross to be none other than the way of life and peace.
