\u00a0<\/p>\n
He was a man who endured much suffering.\u00a0 Nothing could be clearer to us than that \u00a0\u00a0After pondering the readings for each of the stations tonight, it is clear Jesus suffered in mind, body, and spirit.\u00a0 He was falsely accused, betrayed, and misunderstood.\u00a0 He was physically abused, taunted, and humiliated.\u00a0 And finally, he was tortured and put to death in the most painful way the authorities knew of.\u00a0 But something else was clear in the readings.\u00a0 He was in love.\u00a0 True God and True Man, Jesus loved His own creation, mankind, so much that he suffered for us, and took on our own infirmities.\u00a0 Indeed, Jesus shows us the way.\u00a0 Every human life, and that includes yours and mine, will experience suffering and pain.\u00a0 The secret is to accept the pain and suffering that is part of our lives in the same spirit as Jesus accepted it.\u00a0 Because our bodies are imperfect; our minds imperfect, and our world is imperfect, the consequences of living God’s will for us will always mean a mix of good times and bad times, of joy and suffering.\u00a0 Jesus accepted his cross with love, and a sense of joy.\u00a0 Yes, he was afraid- that was what Gethsemane was all about.\u00a0 Yes, he was disappointed in his Apostles and followers-\u00a0 they fell asleep while he prayed, and then abandoned him.\u00a0 But it didn’t matter.\u00a0 He accepted the cross out of love, love for all of creation.\u00a0 The last couple of weeks of Lent are a good time for us to reflect on our own suffering.\u00a0 We will experience it; it is part of life.\u00a0 But, we need to accept it with the same spirit as the Lord did.\u00a0 Illnesses, stress, bad breaks in the world, and stupid mistakes- these are a few of the things that cause us suffering.\u00a0 What makes us truly Christian disciples of Jesus is our attitude towards them.\u00a0 Can we love even when we are afflicted, as Jesus did?\u00a0 Can we endure, even when we are in pain as Jesus did?\u00a0 Yes we can; because we know that Jesus will always be there for us for ever and ever.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 April 8, 2011 Stations of the Cross Reflection Dc. Larry Brockman He was a man who endured much suffering.\u00a0 Nothing could be clearer to us than that \u00a0\u00a0After pondering the readings for each of the stations tonight, it is clear Jesus suffered in mind, body, and spirit.\u00a0 He was falsely accused, betrayed, and misunderstood.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[32],"tags":[33],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}