Stations of the Cross tours south side

SOUTH BEND — Hope and despair. Life and death. Joy and sorrow. The contrasts of inner-city life stick in Pastor Nancy Nichols’ mind, especially on Good Friday when the story of Jesus’ crucifixion reminds her of the pain people in the city feel every day. “Jesus’ death is not something that just happened 2,000 years ago. It happens when people are treated unjustly, when people throw trash on the ground,” she says. “It happens daily, and the resurrection happens daily.” That’s what makes the Stations of the Cross so poignant at Broadway Christian Parish United Methodist Church, where Nichols is pastor. Every year on Good Friday, church members stage Stations at sites throughout the south-side neighborhood. Just as Christians believe the darkness of Good Friday ultimately led to salvation on Easter, facing the neighborhood’s ugly side can lead to healing and transformation. The 14 stations that tell the story of Jesus’ crucifixion are set at places many would want to ignore: a vacant lot, a strip club, a payday loan business. The second station — Jesus takes up his cross — is set in front of a rental house in the 300 block of Haney Avenue. Just as Jesus had no place to rest on his march to Golgotha, some people have no safe place to live because they’ve been denied fair access to housing. The group reads: We pray for those who are denied housing because of race, creed, age or sexual orientation. The fourth station — Jesus meets his afflicted mother — is set in front of a house on Dayton Street where Mary Gerschoffer died alone last month. Nichols says Gerschoffer was the type of woman most people wouldn’t notice — “a bag lady” — but she was loved at church and had recently reconciled with her children. The group reads: Help us create strong, loving and vital families of all descriptions in our churches ... . The 10th station — Jesus is stripped of his clothing — is set next to Life Treatment Centers. The group reads: May we remember that all of us need renewal ... . Auto exhaust mixes with the smell of pizza baking as the group moves along South Michigan Street, following four people carrying a wooden cross. “The juxtaposition of all of this always gets to me,” Nichols says. “The life of the city amid the death we commemorate. The flowers growing through heaps of trash.” For the 11th station — Jesus is nailed to the cross — the group stops in front of an abandoned house in the 200 block of Broadway Street. Gray paint peels from the house’s brick foundation, torn mattresses are piled on the porch next to other garbage, which has spilled into the front yard. A tidy bungalow stands across the street next to a vacant lot. Many houses on the block are nearly new, built in the past 10 years. The group reads: Give us hope in the face of despair, community in the face of abandonment ... . “We are a community of hope and despair,” says Conrad Damian, lay leader at the church and a 40-year resident of the neighborhood. “We have houses that are falling apart, new houses in the neighborhood and older, well-kept houses that show great love.” For the 14th, and final, station — Jesus is placed in the tomb — the group gathers in front of Rick’s Garden at the church. The garden is named in memory of a young man who was shot and killed a few years ago in the neighborhood. The group reads: Give us the courage to look foolish in planting seeds where others see only death and asphalt. Spring flowers are surfacing in the beds built between cinder blocks. A yellow lily is in bloom. One word, sculpted in metal, stands above the garden gate. The word, appropriately, is “hope.”