While the inaugural Lakewood Anglican Prayer Walk may not take place in the way we expected it to, we will still be holding it! Our original plan was to walk through Lakewood, stopping at various businesses and landmarks to participate in a Station of the Cross, as well as pray for a specific need of the city. Our congregation is spread throughout the greater Cleveland area, and while we may not be able to walk together physically, we are still able to walk together in prayer.
There are 14 Stations of the Cross, and 14 days between now and Good Friday. I ask that you pray 1 Station each day, beginning Saturday, March 28. The liturgy of each station only takes a few minutes to read through. After meditating on the station itself, there are also prayer prompts at the end of each station. Each prompt will ask you to contemplate and pray for a specific need in our community.
Weather permitting, I’d encourage you to consider taking a walk as you read and pray through these stations. We are a church of embodiment, and physically participating in the Stations as well as mentally can also be an act of devotion. I’ve found that walking through my neighborhood can reveal opportunities for prayer to me, and connect me to my community during a time of isolation.
I will be posting each Station’s text daily on the Lakewood Anglican blog. The introduction, and first Stations’s text, is below.
I’ll close with these words from Henri Nouwen, whose book “Walk With Jesus: Stations of the Cross” the Lakewood Fellowship has been studying this term. “Anyone who enters into communion with Jesus will receive the Spirit of truth – the Spirit who frees us from the compulsions and obsessions of our contemporary society, who makes us belong to God’s own inner life, and allows us to live in the world with open hearts and attentive minds. In communion with Jesus, we can hear the Spirit’s voice and journey far and wide, whether we are in prison or not. Because the truth – the true relationship, the true belonging – gives us the freedom that the powers of darkness cannot take away…Jesus’ death , instead of being the execution of a death sentence, became the way to the full truth, leading to full freedom.”
I hope that you will join us in this time of prayer and devotion as we prepare our hearts for Easter Sunday, and that even in our isolation we can be a community of hope for our broken world.
THE WAY OF THE CROSS
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.
We will glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ:
In whom is our salvation, our life and resurrection.
Let us pray.
Assist us mercifully with your help, O Lord God of our salvation, that we may enter with joy upon the contemplation of those mighty acts, whereby you have given us life and immortality; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
FIRST STATION - Jesus is condemned to death
We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you:
Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.
Reading:
From then on Pilate sought to release him, but the Jews cried out, “If you release this man, you are not Caesar's friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.” So when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called The Stone Pavement, and in Aramaic Gabbatha. Now it was the day of Preparation of the Passover. It was about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews, “Behold your King!” They cried out, “Away with him, away with him, crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.” So he delivered him over to them to be crucified. John 19:12-16
God did not spare his own Son:
But delivered him up for us all.
Let us pray.
Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord. Amen.
Holy God,
Holy and Mighty,
Holy Immortal One,
Have mercy upon us.
Pray for Emergency Services and Systems of Justice
Pray for Godly wisdom and Christ-like integrity; for physical and emotional protection; for courage and blessing for their families. Pray that they will become agents of God’s hand to resist evil and bring an environment in which heaven’s justice can increase.