easter icons guide : station by station

This year we saw over 400 people visit (including approx. 250 primary school children) during holy week. This is what we did. photos can be found here.

1. Jesus weeps over Jerusalem (Luke 19.41-42) | a video meditation reflecting on different cities around the world and how we still don't know what makes for peace

2. Jesus clears the Temple (Matt. 21.12-13) | a giant wailing wall in which people were encouraged to write prayers and place in the cracks

3. Jesus is anointed at Bethany (Mark 14.3-9) | a chance to be sprayed with perfume, for just as the woman wanted Jesus to feel special, so we wanted people to be reminded how they special they are to God. There was then an opportunity to write on a post-it how they wanted to be remembered

4. Jesus washes the disciples feet (John 13.1-15) | There was a photographic display of feet and then an opportunity to have feet washed with this reflection

5. Judas (Matt. 26.14, 47-50) | borrowing from kester brewin's 2006 blog post on the judas i never knew, this was a monologue of judas' story and then an invitation to reflect on different "villians" and ask whether any are wholly evil

6. The Garden of Gesthemane (Matt. 26.36-46) | we made a garden with real grass using the baptistry. in the garden the words of jesus spoken to the disciples we're heard. this reflection went with it.

7. Jesus before the High Priest (Matt 26.57-68) | an opportunity to reflect on jesus' trial in light of unfair treatment of prisoners today. we had an orange jumpsuit. this reflection went with it.

8. Peter (Matt. 26.69-75) | matt smith made some excellent newspaper front covers that told the story of 9 episodes from peter's life. we gave every school child who visited a t-shirt with 9 symbols representing the 9 stories.

9. Jesus before Pilate (Matt. 27.1, 11-26) | this reflection encouraged people to make a difference, we had 5 examples of people who had made a difference. to go with this we had cards from tearfund on life the label, fair trade and cutting carbon footprint.

10. Jesus carries the cross (via dolorasa) | this was a video filmed in the narrow streets of bath, reflecting jesus' journey to the cross.

11. Gologotha (mark 15.22-24) | we made an easter egg cross with this reflection.

12. 'Father into your hands, I commit my spirit' (luke 23.44-46) | an opportunity to write a prayer of something that they wanted to commit to God and place it his hands.

13. 'Surely this man was the Son of God' (mark 15.37-38) | an opportunity to reflect on who is jesus. there were sets of different glasses / binocoluars through which people could view a picture which depending on how you looked it, could be seen the centurion's words. this reflection went with it.

14. Jesus is laid in the tomb (luke 23.50-56) | a bench to sit and wait and reflect on the death of jesus. this reflection went with it.

Geoff Colmer on Easter Icons

Geoff Colmer (Regional Minister, Central Baptist Association) gives some of his reflections on his visit to this year's Easter Icons. He writes

For now, this Easter space helps to stay with the story from the inside, its building tension, its pain, its desolation and hopelessness. For me it was another meaningful and enriching Holy Week experience.

4. Jesus washes the disciples feet

Lots of us don’t like our feet and perhaps the thought of someone touching our feet and washing them doesn’t feel right. Our feet have trodden in many places and carry many stories. When you first look at the foot display, they all look similar. Look closer, and you will see the differences which tell of all sorts of experiences and lives lived. When Jesus washed his followers’ feet, he embraced them as people whose feet told a story of joy and sorrow, of love and hate and through his act of cleansing, also a story of God’s grace that calls us into a real and close (and for some like Peter sometimes too close!) relationship with God. We want God, but we want him to keep his distance. God in Jesus Christ, comes into our messy lives, over looking our claims to be too unworthy, and embraces us, feet and all.

5. Judas

We often think of Judas as the villain of the Easter story … but is anyone all evil. We live in a world that likes to think in black and white, good and evil, where you’re either with us or against us. As you listen to the CD and what Judas might have been thinking, perhaps those other villains become less clearly black or white, good or evil.

6. The Garden of Gethsemane

There is something darkly funny about disciples who can’t stay awake, while Jesus prays in agony. The disciples throughout the gospels are always getting it wrong. They don’t recognise the danger that is coming to the Garden. They never do what Jesus asks, but they also never stop following. This seems so much like the Christian life, we are forever ignoring Jesus or doing the opposite, but we also find we can’t stop following, we keep coming back to listen again to what Jesus demands.

7. The House of the High Priest

Jesus’ trial was far from fair. He was arrested secretly in the middle of the night and the witnesses coached to lie about Jesus couldn’t even agree on their story. The trial was illegal. Once they had convicted him, they abused and humiliated him.
I wonder how he felt, standing before the religious leaders of his people, knowing that they had the power to do anything to him and he had no protection… Scared? Alone? Despairing?

There are lots of people who face similar illegal trials today. Many people are imprisoned for the “crime” of opposing their government, or for their faith. Some are imprisoned and tortured without having had a trial.
The jumpsuit and cuffs represent the uniform worn by the prisoners of the “war on terror” in Guantanamo Bay. They are one example of many around the world today. I wonder how easy it is to misuse power when we have it?

9. Jesus before Pilate

When Pilate washes his hands and says ‘I am innocent’, he is really saying that he believes that he has done all he can to save Jesus and that there is nothing more he can do …

When we are faced with issues like global warming, buying fair trade, making poverty history or campaigning against human trafficking, we too can easily become like Pilate and wash our hands and say I’ve done all I can, there’s nothing more I can do …

The difference between Jesus and Pilate, is while Pilate washes his hands, Jesus washes his disciples feet … who are we more like? Do we give up and say we’ve done all we can? Or do we get down on our knees, and get stuck into making the world a cleaner and fairer place. Around the board are some examples of people (martin luther king, helen prejean, steve chalke, philip lawerence, ruth hulser) who have not given up and have made a difference.

13. The Centurion’s words

Throughout Jesus’ life on earth the question everyone asked was ‘who is this man?’ It’s a question people have been asking ever since. The Roman Centurion had his own ideas.

There are many different ways of looking at Jesus. The picture shows many of these ways. Try looking at the picture through different glasses. Which words can you see clearly? Which glasses help you to see the picture best?

What “glasses” do you use when you look at Jesus? Do they help or hinder in seeing him clearly?

Who do you think Jesus is?

11. Golgotha

When I think about the chocolate eggs of Easter, I can't help but think that we, in some way, are the disciples at Gethsemane and Golgotha. We, by buying chocolates, are buying into the dominant worldview. We are all aware that the chocolate we buy is more often than not made by the sweat and labour of oppressed workers. By buying chocolate, we endorse this system. And by doing that, we abandon Jesus in his hour of need: we become the disciples at Gethsemane; we become Peter as the cock crows; we become the scoffers by being the 'scoffers'. What reaction do you have to the easter egg cross?

14. Jesus is laid in the tomb

It is hard to imagine the Easter story without thinking of the resurrection, and often we teach the Good Friday message as if it was Easter Day. The Disciples and followers of Jesus, and his family, did not have the luxury of being able to skip to the end of the book. Good Friday is the day where all hope is lost. While Jesus remained alive on the cross, there was still some hope of a miracle. But, by the end of Good Friday, Jesus is dead. All hope is lost, and it becomes clear that Jesus is not the Messiah. The Disciples look and feel like fools. The strange and horrific events they had just experienced would still have been fresh and vivid. Saturday would have felt decidedly unholy for the Disciples, whilst the majority of people around them, including perhaps their family, were celebrating the festivities of Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread. They were alone and abandoned, and all hope was gone... This is the Christian story, this is the Christian faith: Jesus dies. This is no pretence. Jesus is laid in a tomb. This is no fairytale. Death comes and death is faced … and death is defeated … but not on Good Friday or on the Saturday. Today we wait and contemplate the death of Jesus.