Tonight I will attend the Maundy Thursday service at our church, Presbyterian Community Church of the Rockies where I will help my husband (the awesome pastor) se
rve communion to our congregation. I usually embrace Holy Week services. I usually look forward to celebrating communion on the night we remember Jesus serving his disciples the Passover meal. Usually…but not this year. This year I feel empty. This year I don’t want to think about Jesus dying and I don’t want to remember his last meal with his peeps.
To feast with Jesus tonight means that tomorrow he must die. And to be honest, I am just not ready for another death. I’ve had enough! It all began in August when we had two dearly loved members of our congregation die on the same day…followed by one after another after another the following months. I know as a Christian we celebrate the life and resurrection of our loved ones but it’s still hard.
Then in November I lost my lovely mother-in-law Shirley to a subdural hematoma and only two weeks ago I said goodbye to my own sweet mom. Too much death!! Too much!!
So this afternoon I feel empty as if I am going through the motions of Holy Week. Tonight I will go to “celebrate” communion when I just don’t feel like celebrating. I wonder if that is how Jesus felt that night as he washed the feet of the ones he loved (even the one who would betray him with a kiss a few hours later).
The Passover meal begins with the blessing of the wine, the Kiddush Blessing which includes the words In Your love, Our God, You have given us feasts of gladness and seasons of joy…You have chosen us from all peoples, consecrating us to your service, giving us the Festivals, a time of gladness and joy. Was this what Jesus said as he took the wine and blessed it? Feasts of gladness and seasons of joy? On the night of his arrest? Did he mean it with every bit of his heart or was it a struggle that required him to reach deep within? Could he really embrace this Passover Feast with joy and gladness?
But then I remember the week I spent in the hospital with my mom in mid-February and the night I snuggled with her the last night she was responsive. I look back on that time as a feast of gladness and a season of joy. That time together, even though it was hard, was a precious gift to me. Perhaps Jesus cherished this meal as a beautiful gift.
So tonight I will go to church and try to do more than go through the motions. I will feast on the Body and Blood of my Savior with gladness under the dark umbrella of death. I guess this is probably what Christ did as well. It couldn’t have been easy for him.
While I was in Alabama with my family prior to my mom’s passing I went to church…my church…the one that taught me that I am God’s beloved. As I sat through worship I found myself (like always) drawn to the stained glass window behind the pulpit. In that window Jesus kneels in the garden and prays. Scripture tells me that he asks if any way possible for the cup to be taken from him. Then he prays for me and for you. I have never been able to look at that window without my heart breaking for him, trying to imagine how he must feel, and being overwhelmed with his love for me. He knows that death is imminent but not until the betray and suffering come. Still…he loves.
To be honest, I am not ready for Good Friday to come either. There has been to much death and I can’t make myself imagine the One who is Love on the cross even though I know that Easter is coming…even though I know that my loved ones are in the arms of Jesus. Even though…I am just not ready. And I am pretty sure Jesus wasn’t either!
lovetrumps 