My new painting...

Last week, thanks to The Estate Sale Guys of South Carolina, I acquired this picture for my home.  I recognized it as the 6^th station of the Stations of the Cross.

Just a few years ago I became aware of the Stations of the Cross as a visual medium for contemplation, to remember the walk Jesus took up Calvary to die for the sins of the world.  Our church, Church of the Apostles in downtown Columbia, SC, had decided to present its own version of the stations with artwork created by our congregants. I wrote a reflection on the stations that was used during the participants’ walk from station to station.  The following is a section of that writing focusing on the 6^th station. I had been especially interested in this station as it had been assigned to my daughter, Sarah, to paint:

 

The Stations of the Cross put us in the fray as observers on Christ’s path of affliction that day.  They lead us up with him to behold this act of ultimate sacrifice.  Several of the stations remind us that, while most of his male disciples deserted Jesus (though John, the beloved, is said to have been near the foot of the cross), many of the women did not abandon him.  The ‘weeping daughters of Jerusalem’ are present.  The women who had followed Jesus from Galilee to care for his needs did not all desert him.  Some of those named to be present include Mary Magdalene (“from whom 7 demons had come out”), Mary, the mother of James and Joses, Salome, Mary the mother of Jesus and his mother’s sister.   (John 19:25, Mark 15:40-41)  The Bible says there were also “many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem” who were present along the way of the cross.  (Mark 15:41)

   Think of some of the unnamed women Jesus touched in his ministry who could have been present:

• The “sinful” woman who wept at his feet and offered her perfume to him. 
  (Luke 7:36-50)
• The widow whose only son Jesus raised from the dead. 
  (Luke 7:12-15)  
  (Mary’s Son, Jesus himself, would indeed similarly be resurrected, but unlike this widow, he will not be given back to his mother.)
• The Canaanite woman who begged for her daughter’s deliverance from demon-possession (Matthew 15:21-28) and the daughter who was delivered.
•  Jairus’ 12 year old daughter who was brought back to life (Mark 5:37-43) and her mother whose child was given back to her.
• The “bent over” woman who straightened up after 18 long years and was set free by Jesus. 
  (Luke 13:10-16)
• The “husbandless” Samaritan woman who was given a private audience with the Messiah.
  (John 4:4-42)

And finally consider the woman who was subject to bleeding for 12 years.  (Matthew 9:10-22, Mark 5:25-34 and Luke 8:43-48)  This woman was not named in the Bible, but Apocryphal and historical writings gave her the Latin name of Veronica (Greek:  Berenice).  It is just this woman who is conjectured to have met Jesus along the way at Station 6 of the cross.  Tradition holds that she wiped the face of Jesus with a cloth.  While I would not suppose or desire to elevate this story to biblical status, the speculation that this woman might have been at the cross is certainly valid.  She was a woman who had previously approached Jesus anonymously in a “large crowd” that “followed and pressed around him” and crowded “against him”.  She had been willing to reach out to Jesus and trust a cloth, the hem of his garment, to be the conduit of her help and healing.  If this woman were present and she saw Jesus’ face dripping in sweat and spit (Matthew 27:30) and possibly tears and blood from his “crown” of thorns, wouldn’t she want, once again, to reach out to him, to wipe his face; but this time to allow the cloth to be a channel of mercy and presence for Jesus and to help redirect, but not stop, his issue of blood that had to be shed on her behalf, on our behalf?

In considering this we can remember the pain and sorrow of Jesus as he walked to Calvary, and in prayer we can reach out and touch him and know that his sacrifice of blood and body will heal us and free us from our sin and suffering. 

But he was pierced for our transgressions,
    he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
    and by his wounds we are healed

Isaiah 53:5 (NIV)

And so now, as I pass by this new picture that hangs on the walls of my home, I can use it to remind me of His wounding and receive anew this healing that brought the hope, and reality, of peace with God.