A Renewal Of Faith On Friday, Christians In Spokane Will Re-Create The Trial, Crucifixion And Death Of Jesus Christ

Christians will re-create the trial, crucifixion and death of Jesus on Friday afternoon in Riverfront Park.

The event will culminate with Christ’s burial at the base of the park’s clock tower.

“Injustice in the world today is played out the same way it was 2,000 years ago,” said Patrick Copeland-Malone, an organizer of the event.

Commemorating the 14 Stations of the Cross is a Roman Catholic tradition that dates back to the Middle Ages. Throughout Lent, particularly on Good Friday, Catholics commemorate the events beginning with Jesus’ condemnation.

In a devotional procession, they follow their savior as he dragged his cross to Calvary and was crucified. They pray at each of the sites.

The ceremony goes public every Good Friday in many cities, including Chicago, where as many as 3,500 people participate every year.

Several Spokane residents, both Catholic and Protestant, got the idea to move the Stations of the Cross outdoors.

“It gives people an experience of Good Friday in a secular rather than a sacred space,” said the Rev. John Buenz, dean of the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John. “It moves it out of the safe church building.”

The group named itself the Lenten Fridays Remembrance Guild. About 30 members have met each Friday during Lent to observe the Stations of the Cross.

The sites they chose were not exactly holy. They met outside the Spokane County Jail, near Playfair Race Track, where a woman was murdered earlier this year, in the same West Central neighborhood block where an elderly woman was raped in her home and at a homeless shelter.

“We want to highlight the injustice that Christ died for,” said Copeland-Malone, missions director for First Presbyterian Church.

The group decided on fairly short notice to mark Good Friday in Riverfront Park and invite the rest of Spokane to participate or watch.

“We weren’t really sure we could pull this off,” said Tom Westbrook, of St. Ann’s Catholic Church. “We’re still not sure.”

The group will gather at 2:45 p.m. at the clock tower and proceed to the first site, where members of St. John’s Cathedral will dramatize the first two stations, Jesus’ conviction and receiving his cross.

At five other sites, Vietnamese, Hispanics, Native Americans, Secular Franciscans and clients from the Women’s Drop-In Center will continue the dramatization.

In addition to remembering Jesus’ exact steps on his way to crucifixion, leaders will discuss a related, modern-day theme.

The topics include injustice, insult, compassion, burden, lamentation, violence, vulnerability and cruelty.

The entire event should take 90 minutes, Westbrook said.

Spokane attorney Leslie Grove, a member of Inland Empire Brass, will provide music for the procession.

Grove said she normally is very private about her religious beliefs. When organizers asked her to help provide music, she was excited.

“It’s an opportunity to express some of the deeper religious values it’s usually hard for us to share,” she said.

The Stations of the Cross is one of several Catholic traditions that is gaining popularity with Protestants.

“Folks from the pew are saying there’s something about all of those traditions that really speaks to us,” Copeland-Malone said. “God comes to us in a variety of forms.”

Once organizers started planning the event, news spread by word-ofmouth.

“It was like setting a torch to dried summer grass,” Westbrook said. “We’re hoping to make it a yearly thing.”