All the three synoptics note that "they led him" from Gethsemane to the High Priest's house. John states that "they sent him bound to Caiaphas." We read in Matthew and Mark that "they bound him and led him to Pilate." Finally, all the four evangelists say that "they led him away to crucify him." Jesus' judges and executioners thought that he would try to escape and therefore they held him by a rope. Never was a prisoner under a death sentence more willing to go along. There is a profound significance in this. Its depth shows through in the measure in which man boasts of his freedom and takes on the shackles of licentiousness and arbitrariness, in thought as well as in deed. Jesus' station in life was a voluntary act of taking on the form of a servant, nay, of a slave, who at that time was never without some form of chain on him. Jesus literally emptied himself of all his prerogatives as if to let others chain him totally. Such was his way of chaining himself totally to us, to our destiny and to our eternal salvation. We fight against admitting the truth that our station in life becomes all the more a trap for us, the more we conform to the spirit of the age. It is the spirit of boasting of four freedoms: freedom from hunger, freedom of speech, freedom from fear, freedom of religion, though at the exclusion of freedom from sin. No wonder that we try to overlook the gist of all revealed truth: liberation comes to us only if we die with Christ. We can rise, but only in him and only if we first died with him. Our burying ourselves into his suffering and death shall forever remain the sole channel to a life free of eternal misery. This is the gist of the message of the real Station Master in life, the One who proved himself the Master of fourteen awesome stations so that our lasting station in life may be heaven itself.

By Fr. Stanley L. Jaki

ISBN 978-1-892548-15-3  •  33 pages  •  softcover