I watched them walk for nearly an hour. The room was silent, save for a soothing offering of instrumental music. If someone spoke, they did so in barely audible whispers, using only the barest number of words necessary to communicate a need or an invitation. None of the walkers spoke aloud, though I'm sure internal conversation took place.

The path did not change.. Each person took the path at their own pace, with only their thoughts to accompany them on the journey. The path is designed for that. The walkers measured each step carefully with their eyes downcast, heads lowered. Only peripherally aware of others along the path, they somehow avoided overrunning the walkers who had departed on the seemingly solitary journey before them.

The walk was designed to quiet the mind. The intent this day was to use that quieted mind to walk in concert with Jesus, seeking him in prayer, learning to follow him by following the carefully laid path, meeting with him in the center of the path.

The path was a re-creation of a labyrinth found in the carefully laid stones in the Chartres Cathedral in France. The original model, built around 1200 and laid into the floor with paving stones, could be walked as a pilgrimage -- a journey taken in the hope of becoming closer to God. Sometimes, it also would serve as a substitute for a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. As the walkers meander through  each of the four quadrants of the 11-circuit labyrinth, an expectancy as to when they will reach the center builds.

Another path will soon be followed, according to a tradition first found in the Catholic Church. Based on a journey taken by a fourth century nun to the Holy Land, the Stations of the Cross depict scenes from what are presumed to be the final steps Jesus took on his way to the cross of Calvary.

According to Wikipedia, "The object of the Stations is to help the faithful to make a spiritual pilgrimage of prayer to the chief scenes of Christ's sufferings and death." 

Traditionally, the Stations of the Cross, also known as The Way of the Cross, take place on Good Friday, and end with the death of Jesus, leaving believers bereft until the dawn of the the first day of the week.

This path, also, is designed to draw those walking to a closer fellowship with Jesus, that they may appreciate more deeply the suffering he endured to rescue them from their sins.

The traditions of men. Each has at its beginning a desire to know God more fully, to walk with Jesus more closely. And each, it seems, can become an end unto itself, the destination reached, the journey over. And therein lies the danger.

By my reckoning, Jesus didn't hold much with traditions. In fact, he took the religious leaders of his day to task for their adherence to tradition and the letter of the law, rather than allowing the love of God to increase in men's hearts, allowing him to write the spirit of the law in those hearts. That was one of the things Jesus did that earned the animosity of the religious leaders, one of the many steps he took on the path to Calvary, one that, sadly, is not reflected in the Stations of the Cross.

Every step that Jesus took, from his first toddling steps as he exited infancy to that stumbling gait caused by the hideous wounds he endured to heal us, led inexorably to the cross and then, we must never forget, to his resurrection and victory over sin and death. Because those final steps depicted in the Way of the Cross were not his final steps at all. He had yet to walk the road to Emmaus. He had yet to meet Peter at the seashore and he has yet to step again on this old sod, the final battle to engage.

 

The labyrinth is a depiction of what could be termed a long and winding road with eternity at its center. The Way of the Cross looks back at a journey -- taken once for all.

Both are traditions of men, and as such, fall far short of what it means to follow Christ. Because, as surely as he died, so we too will one day taste death. And as surely as he rose again, so we too will one day rise -- to join him in his kingdom forever or to face his righteous wrath.

 

Discover who the Christ is and what it means to truly follow him, not through the traditions of men, but from the accounts recorded and preserved for us by God's own hand. Learn fully the cost of discipleship and the true measure of a man of God. Find out what it means to follow Jesus every day and then pick up your cross, just as he commanded, and follow only him.

 

"Ask and it shall be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." Matthew 7:7 (NIV)

Things you won't see in heaven: Easter eggs