The Fourteenth Station

thefourteenthstationJesus is Laid in the Tomb

The earth, which shook as its Creator died, now opens to receive Your body. A dark and solitary cell for Your human flesh to lie until You take it up once more.

Hastily, your friends prepare Your body for burial. They hurry for the Sabbath draws nigh.

Little do they understand that You are the Lord of the Sabbath, the Rest of God; that for the souls who have gone before, You proclaim the Good News, smashing open the gates of hell.

I will wait beside Your tomb my Lord, keeping watch for Your return.

Ya Know It’s Coming…

…but it still hurts. It doesn’t help that I was right all along. Oh well, congrats to the Highlighter Yellow & Blue for their miraculous win. No way you guys miss the Final Four…right?

While I sit in my puddle of bitter disappointment—again—join me won’t you in some music. And nothing expresses disappointment better than crappy music. Let’s go back once more to a time before indoor plumbing became all the rage.

Here’s one of the campiest and worst of the ’70’s…

To quote Chicago’s own Jim Nayder, “Sweet Lord!”

The Thirteenth Station

Jesus is Taken Down from the Crossthethirteenthstation

Limp and lifeless You lay in Your Mother’s arms. She holds You just like when You were small, and would climb on her lap to kiss her gently on the cheek. The Woman who gave You human flesh, now holds that battered flesh once more.

Beyond tears, beyond shock, the pain she feels is beyond all human understanding, and yet…

All Your life, she stored in her heart memories of You, her otherworldly child. Alone at night, she ponders them and knows that You are God, come to save His wayward children from eternal death. “But why must You die to accomplish it? Couldn’t You do more by living?” she wonders.

You whisper into her heart where only she can hear, “Before the world was, I AM. My Mother, and My child, how can I save them if I do not go where they are?”

The Twelfth Station

Jesus Dies on the Cross

thetwelfthstationThe end. It is finished.

Your throne in Heaven is now connected to earth by the rough-hewn wood of a cross. All around Your bloodstained body, stands a crowd of frightened, cowering people, suddenly engulfed in a strange, physical darkness that had but recently been only inside there souls. The Sun and stars hide themselves behind the glowering clouds, ashamed of the scene below them. The earth itself shudders violently in revulsion. No one dares to utter a word.

Your Mother stands beneath your cross, held in the arms of the disciple whom You love, gazing at Your now still body. The Romans think they have executed a criminal, a mere man. She begins to understand the words of the angel. She knows that You are much more than a man. Like the dawning of the day, the knowledge that You willed to die creeps across her consciousness.

No one can take Your life. You lay it down freely, and You will take it up again.

What Do You Do When You’re Broke?

Simple: You borrow 100 meeelion dollars! Good gravy! The thieves civil servants at piggybankCity Hall are going to purty-up the river from Wacker to State Street on YOUR dime dear fellow-taxpayer.

On behalf of the panhandlers, clockers, and bond traders who frequent the riverfront, I say thank you. Will the last person in Illinois please turn out the lights when you leave? Thank you.

Continue reading “What Do You Do When You’re Broke?”