The Ninth Station: Jesus falls for the third time
Jesus falls again.
There is to be no other ending.
There will come no rescue, no reprieve.
Nor now would he wish it.
Exhaustion has wasted him.
He desires only rest,
even that rest which only comes with death.
He falls.
But, even in collapse, God’s plan is fulfilled.
To be broken is not to be worthless.
The history of Man began with a Fall.
This fall completes the pattern.
To be broken is not to be useless.
In wasted weariness,
lost in the desert places,
with hope only a mirage on the long horizon,
we can still surrender to God’s purpose.
It is not for us to comprehend
how God will work anything so piteous to the good.
It is for us to trust,
even as we lie sobbing in the dust,
that our destitution will lead to restitution.
A fall is a prelude to a rising,
as dusk anticipates the dawn.
Others haul Jesus to his feet,
take his cross and drop it in the pit made ready.
Resistance is futile
when it delays the inevitable.
He is ready.