12. JESUS RISES

Verses

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd sacrifices his life for the sheep.”
— John 10:11 (NLT)

Questions

What have been the harder parts of your human experience?
When have you felt best in your body?
When have you felt the worst in your body?

Meditation

This final station shows a new shoot growing from a stump beside the staff of a shepherd.

The image reminds us that what appears cut down can grow again.

Traditionally, the Stations of the Cross end at the tomb. They are meant to follow Jesus on the road of suffering and death, and in doing so, to help us face the reality of our own frailty, sorrow, and mortality. These meditations have been about descent. They have lingered in betrayal, pain, shame, silence, and grief. Rising is usually saved for Easter morning.

And yet the story of Jesus does not remain in the grave.

What these stations reveal is that God is not distant from the hardest parts of human life. In Jesus, God entered fully into them. From betrayal to heartbreak. From pain to silence. From appearance to disappearance. Christ did not insulate Himself from the hardest parts of being human. He entered them completely, so that no part of human suffering would remain untouched by His presence.

Although the traditional Stations end at the tomb, the gospel does not.

Jesus partook in being embodied.

Being in a body. Being here. Being finite. Having limitations and weaknesses. Having a heart that beats apart from human control. Human life itself is marked by dependence, fragility, and need.

And yet on the third day, Jesus rose from the dead.

He did not merely escape death as though the body no longer mattered. He rose bodily. The resurrection declares that the hardest parts of being human were not the end of Him. Death did not erase Him. The grave did not keep Him. The body laid down in death was raised in glory.

So this final image becomes a fitting one: a new shoot growing out of what looked finished, placed beside the staff of the Good Shepherd who still declares,

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd sacrifices his life for the sheep.”
— John 10:11 (NLT)

The Church proclaims with joy:

“Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us; therefore let us keep the feast.”
— Book of Common Prayer, p. 332

And the Church prays:

“O God, who for our redemption gave your only-begotten Son to the death of the cross, and by his glorious resurrection delivered us from the power of our enemy: Grant us so to die daily to sin, that we may evermore live with him in the joy of his resurrection.”
— Book of Common Prayer, p. 237