When Jesus Came to Camden: The Passion in the City

When it comes down to it, I don’t get Good Friday. Each year, I’m moved by the stark sorrow of the liturgy; the Passion story can still make my hair stand on end, as if hearing it for the first time. But my own, personal sufferings have not been that extensive through about 25 years of life. I know I’m blessed in this regard, and that there comes a time for everything. It’s just that I think the power of Good Friday — our encounter with Jesus’ pain, his loneliness, his forsakenness — can only make ultimate sense all these centuries later if a Christian can find his or her own life story in the Passion text.

I spent a few hours today in a city that has experienced far more than its share of suffering. Each Good Friday, a handful of parish communities take to the streets of Camden, NJ, and put on their own living stations of the cross. I participated with the group from St. Joe’s Pro-Cathedral in East Camden, a few hundred strong. We started off in the church parking lot, gathering near a pickup truck with wireless speakers as a man portraying Jesus was led to his condemnation by Roman soldiers in period costume.

Each station — alternating between English (odd-numbered stations) and Spanish (even) — included a dramatic re-creation, but what was most stirring was a series of intercessions at each stop that connected the moment in the Passion story to the life of the community. When Jesus met his mother, we prayed for the mothers of Camden, especially those battling drug and alcohol addictions. When Simon helps Jesus carry the cross, we prayed for the people and agencies throughout the city who serve those who are most in need. The Passion story felt more real today than it ever has in my own reading, life experience, or suburban liturgical participation. Almost too real.

As we processed from station to station, filling the street and pausing traffic at each intersection, we prayed a rosary and sang. One refrain that was repeated over and over again, in Spanish, loosely translates to “Pardon your people, Lord.”

As we passed homes that did not look livable, and children clustered with their noses pressed at second-floor windows…Pardon your people, Lord.

As we walked by abandoned houses that quickly attract all sorts of crime and can threaten an entire block…Pardon your people, Lord.

As we crossed sidewalks and grassy places, littered with glass and television sets and everything else…Pardon your people, Lord.

As other neighbors and I watch a watch a proud city suffer so much, and turn our backs, cynically…Pardon your people, Lord.

Throughout the afternoon, I was reminded of the poem “When Jesus Came to Birmingham,” by Sean Wright. I plugged in “Camden” in place of “Birmingham,” as you could sadly do with so many of our American cities.

When Jesus came to Golgotha, they hanged Him on a tree,
They drove great nails through hands and feet, and made a Calvary;
They crowned Him with a crown of thorns, red were His wounds and deep,
For those were crude and cruel days, and human flesh was cheap.

When Jesus came to Birmingham, they simply passed Him by.
They would not hurt a hair of Him, they only let Him die;
For men had grown more tender, and they would not give Him pain,
They only just passed down the street, and left Him in the rain.

Still Jesus cried, ‘Forgive them, for they know not what they do, ‘
And still it rained the winter rain that drenched Him through and through;
The crowds went home and left the streets without a soul to see,
And Jesus crouched against a wall, and cried for Calvary.

My prayer for us — especially those of us who have the time and luxury to write and read blogs like this one —  is that the “life over death” story of Easter will set us into action for justice with renewed hope and purpose. The love shown on the cross demands nothing less.