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HERE IS THE MAN!
EPISODE 11 STATION 10: THE CRUCIFIXION
In the Book of Judges, chapter 9, there is quite a strange tale
about trees choosing a king out of themselves.
It's about the trees that got together
in order to anoint the future king.
The trees were asking a number of another very nice trees
bearing a lot of fruits if they want to take up such a position.
Among asked trees were an olive tree, a grapevine, and a fig tree.
But there was always one answer
to a question about becoming a king: 'Not really because I have good fruits
which are favoured by people
and which make the gods happy
so I don't wanna lose them.'
In the end the desperate trees came to a thorn-bush
and asked him if he wants to become a king.
The thorn-bush agreed.
He said he would become a shelter
casting a shadow for the rest.
But in case they don't use this shelter
a fire will blaze out of his thorny branches and burn up everything.
This tale from the Book of Judges is strongly related
to the political background of those times,
however, it is also a kind of forecast
- a tale about what will happen to Jesus Christ.
In the Lord Jesus' life there is also a moment
when a thorn-bush becomes a king.
For the first time, few stations ago, He was crowned with the thorny branches
and people called Him a king, of course making fun of Him.
And today, when He was crucified
and when He was put up in the thorny crown,
the thorny-bush eventually started to reign.
It's exactly the same like in the previous tale.
This tree says it will be put up over the others
and will swing over them.
Exactly the same happens to Jesus Christ - crucified in the thorny crown,
is put up over the other trees
and becomes the king.
What for? For the shadow to be cast by Him.
For each of us to be able to come to the cross
in order to find a shelter there.
Why did Christ have a thorny crown?
Why was He a thorny-bush who reigned?
It's because at the beginning of the history of mankind,
when Adam was driven out of the Paradise,
God said since that time, since the time of the original sin,
the ground will produce weeds and thorns
which means the world before the original sin was a world without thorns,
where nothing disturbed a man.
Today Christ has taken all existing thorns,
put it on His head, and started reigning in this way
so that nobody will experience this pain again.
This is a tale about Christ
who is a thorny-bush who took the reign over the world.
This tale about the thorny-bush reigning over the world
is also about how one should, or even must, take control over the others
wherever it is - church or the whole world.
Christ shows us there is only one way of reigning,
and there is only one way of being a ruler.
Namely, he has to become a shadow for others
so that they may easily find comfort and rest,
peace and security,
and relief in this scorching heat in their lives.
Whether it is in church or family, or anywhere else
we do exactly the opposite.
There are just a few such superiors, such rulers, and such parents
or whoever having control over somebody else,
that understand their mission in this way.
If you have power over somebody
and it means you may be a parent,
or you teach somebody,
or there is someone dependent on you,
then you have to carry out one task:
you should provide this dependent person with a relief.
If your power is something different than this
probably it will end up like in the tale:
the fire will blaze out of it and burn up everything
destroying the whole world.
The power which is something else, destroys.
Such a power is not about giving relief but about killing
and destroying like the fire does.
What we need to do today is to look at Christ
because each of us has a power over somebody.
We have to ask ourselves with all honesty:
Am I a shadow?
Do I give relief to somebody dependent on me?
There is one thing more to remember.
If some scorching heat annoys you in your life,
if you feel sad and down
you need to do what we try to do from the beginning of this retreat.
You doesn't have to understand much
or see everything from a new perspective
but just sit down the cross
quite literally - find a church with the cross
where the thorny-bush is over everybody else
and sit down in its shadow.
In our dominican tradition it's a thing
taught from the first days of joining to the order.
It's because usually in our monasteries
there is a reproduction of Fra Angelico's paiting
where St. Dominic is kneeling in front of Jesus' Cross.
It is the best tradition in the world.
If you suffer a pain because it's scorching,
and you have something burning you from the inside,
just sit in this tree's shadow,
sit down in the shadow of the thorny-bush that has become a king.
This is where you'll feel relief.
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Produced by stacja7.pl Recorded and edited by Marcin Jończyk