Station 12

Station 12.

Station 12. Everything was fine until I hit station 12. Things got a little shaky through the 6th and 7th stations of the cross as Jesus was being beaten and mocked. Spit on when His own spittle had healed the blind. Forced to carry a cross to His own execution when He was already half dead as it was.

But station 12. When Jesus looked down from the cross upon the faces of John - the One Whom He Loved, and His mother, Mary. When He charged John to take care of Mary, as if she were his own mother. Game over.

We talk about Jesus, our Savior, dead in His tomb and risen on Sunday. There are no words to describe my gratitude that my Savior conquered death. But Jesus wasn’t just a Savior.

Mary wept at the foot of the cross, because she was watching her son die.

John looked up in helplessness. There was nothing he could do, he was watching his best friend die.

Jesus the son. Jesus the best friend.

And I find myself asking this question a lot these days - Jesus has been a good friend to me, but have I been a good friend to Him?

When He’s praying in Gethsemane, sweating blood, begging God that He might not have to go through with this after all, and asking His friends to stay awake with Him, would I muster up the energy to stay awake and hold Him while He cried? Or would my eyelids grow heavy, like that of His disciples, and sleep through the moment He needed me the most?

When He got betrayed by one of His closest friends and sent into an unfair trial, would I make a run for it or stay with Him, risking my own arrest, just so He wouldn’t have to face it alone?

Would I claim to know Him, if asked by the fire, or deny it not once, but three times?

I want to say that I’d have it in me to stick by Him through it all, but I know better.

It is in the face of my own abandonment fears that I’ve come to remind myself of this truth: Jesus experienced ultimate abandonment by the ones He loved most. He knows it more than anyone, that I may instead now know the truth of His word, “I will never leave you or forsake you.”

Back to the foot of the cross - the torture, the abandonment, it’s almost too much to bear. But Jesus looks down. He sees His mom. And He sees John, His best friend. At least He did not have to die alone. Mary chose to sit with Him, as did John.

This expression of friendship - it’s one thing to show up for someone when it’s easy and convenient, another to sacrifice convenience and show up when it’s hard and costs us a little something. And it’s yet even another level to show up for someone when you know it will shatter your heart and forever alter the path of your life and the person you’ll become. John chose this.

Would I?

And in return, John gets the sacred gift of taking care of Mary. Of helping her pick up the pieces. Anyone who’s lost someone knows - letting someone come in and help pick up the pieces in your grief is not something you extend to just anyone. It’s sacred. For Jesus to entrust John with such a task is one of the highest honors to be given. And in His charge to John to take care of His mom, Mary, He’s in essence telling John that He views him as His brother.

As we were talking about this, a friend of mine mentioned that John likely wasn’t married in his life. But he was just given familial status by his Savior and best friend. This small snippet of scripture reframes family and friendship, and commitment and love.

So, this Easter, as a single woman, as an only child, as someone who’s navigated the loss the closest thing she’s ever had to a big brother, living in the growing pains of friendship as an adult, I gaze at Jesus not only with gratitude toward Him as my Savior, but as my brother and my best friend, and hoping to spend the remainder of my life being the kind of friend and sister He deserves.

In short, I look to the cross in a new way. this year. And I am undone by what I see.