Station 7: Jesus Bears the Cross

As soon as the chief priests and their officials saw him, they shouted, “Crucify! Crucify!”

But Pilate answered, “You take him and crucify him. As for me, I find no basis for a charge against him.”

But they shouted, “Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him!”

“Shall I crucify your king?” Pilate asked.

“We have no king but Caesar,” the chief priests answered.

Finally Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified.

John 19:6, 15-17

There was a band I loved in junior high called The O.C. Supertones and they had this song called “Louder than the Mob” that connected me deeply with this moment in Jesus’ story. The chorus says “My sin yelled crucify, louder than the mob that day, my sin yelled crucify, louder than any mouth.” I, of course, rocked out to this ska song in the back of many a mission trip van, but it still reverberates in my mind today.

I think we can separate ourselves from bible stories and think “how could those people do that? How could the Israelites reject everything God was giving them on the way to the Promised Land? How could Adam and Eve try the apple? How could all those people want Jesus to die?” But these men thought they were right. They thought they were putting a rabble-rouser to death. They weren’t sure about Jesus, so instead of listening they wanted him gone. But Jesus died for them, too. 

The bridge of the song says “My God, I see not what you see, my God what do you see in me?” Let our prayer today be one of gratitude: that Jesus saw us when we didn’t believe, and still died for us.

For Kids: 

Tell your children the story of Daniel and the Lions Den. (Found in Daniel 6)

Ask them these questions:

Why did the King throw Daniel in the Lions Den? 

Did the King do the right thing? 

Why did he do the wrong thing? (Try to lead them to the fact that he didn’t know Daniel’s God, so he didn’t know that he should be praying to him).

Read today’s passage. 

Were the people doing the right thing? 

Why do you think they didn’t do the right thing?

Ask your kids where in their lives they struggle to do the right thing. Explain to them that even when they don’t do the right thing, Jesus still died for them just like those people in the crowd that sent him to the cross. Then pray with them that God will give them wisdom to do the right thing, even when it’s hard.