Just Sightseeing

Today’s Gospel Passage: John 20: 19-31

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” ²⁰After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. ²¹Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” ²²When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. ²³If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” ²⁴But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. ²⁵So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

²⁶A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” ²⁷Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” ²⁸Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” ²⁹Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” ³⁰Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. ³¹But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

I love Thomas.  The truth is that I find a lot of my self in him.  First of all, I’m one of those that never seems to be at the right place at the right time.  I’m continually thinking, “why didn’t I think of that?”, “why didn’t I ask for that?”, or “why wasn’t I there for that"?”.  Thomas had missed the “first showing of Jesus”, perhaps because he was doing something wonderful but if he was like me, he was off being Martha somewhere!

And then he wanted proof.  I mean, don’t we all?  Perhaps we’re just afraid to ask for it.  But what if he didn’t care about proof?  What if he didn’t need to be certain?  What if he just needed to touch Jesus?  What if he just needed to know Jesus?

The truth is that “seeing” with our eyes is probably not all its cracked up to be.  Perhaps it even gets in the way.  And yet, most of us are really just “sightseers” as far as Jesus is concerned.  We want it to be right.  It’s even better if we can touch it and prove it and then go on with our lives.  But, either way, certainty is what we crave.

And yet, certainty is surely the downfall of our faith.  Why do we have to have proof?  Why do we have to be certain?  I’m thinking a little doubt never hurt anyone.  It makes you search and question and desire the Truth.  It even makes you want to touch the thing that you don’t understand.  And it will never allow you to just “go on with your lives”…in fact, no more sightseeing; you’ve really got to live there to understand.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

 

The Rest

Genesis 2: 1-4a

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.

These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created.

God rested.  Those are the words that we tend to concentrate on in this Scripture, as if God, weary from all the creating just laid down and took a little nap.  The truth is, the point of it all is not that God rested; the point is the rest…

The seventh day is the climax of Creation.  It’s the point where it all comes together, where all of those scenes that have been   painstakingly shot in semi-chronological order but in different places and different lights and different hues are suddenly are spliced together into some semblance of order.  God does not just create rest; God creates it all.  God pieces it into order, into the way it should be and then hallows it, inviting reflection and thanksgiving…and eternity.  The heavens and the earth and all that they contain and all that they are do not rest from Creation but rather are all invited into the rest—the rest of Creation when it continues on.

The truth is that nothing really existed before the seventh day.  Oh sure, there were archetypes and rehearsals and things that carried some semblance of the final product.  But this…this is everything.  The Sabbath, the day of rest, the day of the rest…asks that we stop and look and continue on into eternity.

In this Eastertide, we celebrate the ultimate Sabbath, we celebrate the Holy Rest.  That third day gave us a glimpse of what God is doing.  And God continues to recreate all of Creation until everything has had a third day, until everything has seen the rest of the story.

Holy Shabbat…

Shelli

In The Image of God

Genesis 1: 24-31

And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind.” And it was so. God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”

God said, “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

What does it mean for humankind to be “made in God’s image”?  Most of us mainstreamers are probably more comfortable, whether we choose to admit it or not, with the idea of ourselves as that sinful creature who simply can’t do any better because our brother and sister Adam and Eve screwed it all up for the rest of us.  I mean, that’s easier, right?  It sort of gives us something toward which we can strive.  It means that if we’re really, really good and do it all right, then God will somehow get us out of this mess that we as humanity have gotten ourselves into.

But, then, how does being “made in God’s image” reconcile with that?  Keep in mind that an image is not the actual thing; it’s not necessarily even an ideal, unmistakable replica.  An image is a reflection, something that makes one think of the real thing, something that makes one feel as if the real thing is close.  Without a doubt, we are not God.  Not even on our best days.  Not even on Mother Teresa’s best days.  But we are made in God’s image.  We are made to reflect God to the world around us.  No longer can we dismiss ourselves as hopeless, sinful creatures.  There’s too much work to do!  What we need to do instead is get out the Windex!

You are God’s image.  That does not mean that you are perfect; it doesn’t even mean that you don’t sin or screw up, intentionally or unintentionally.  It just means that there’s more riding on it than God simply pulling you out of the game at the end.  After all, what sort of God are you reflecting right now?

Go and be God’s image in the world!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Sea Monsters & Flying Things

Genesis 1: 20-23

And God said, “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky.” So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.

Creation is wider and more inclusive than we usually let it be.  If the Resurrection of Jesus is the “new creation”, then where are the sea monsters and the birds?  What happens to them?  The truth is that we probably sort of skip through these verses in the context of the Creation account.  And yet, God thought that those things that were not like us, that did not live the way we live or exist the way we exist were worthy of creating even before us.  What does that say?

I think it reminds us the same thing that Jesus did:  The world was not made in our image.  Creation is not limited to the way we see or the way we think or the way we live.  God is bigger than we can possibly imagine.  God reaches beyond where we go.

The lesson here is simple:  Christ died for you…and him, and her, and the one that you got “pissed off” (sorry, it said it better!) at yesterday, and the one that you don’t understand, and the one that scares you, and the one that doesn’t live the way you do or think the way you do or believe the way you do or sleep with who you think they should or live where you do.  In fact, Christ died for the sea monsters and the flying things, those things that are not us and do not exist where we are.

Remember that on Holy Saturday, tradition tells us that Christ “descended into hell”, sweeping up all those things that are different, all those things that we do not understand, all those things that threaten or defy our being and Christ took them unto himself.  Now if Christ can do that with hell and sea monsters and flying things, why are we so high and mighty about who belongs “in” and who belongs “out”.  After all, that’s not what Jesus did.

Go and welcome them all in!  After all, THAT’S the answer to “What Would Jesus Do”, if you’re keeping track!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Inseparable

Genesis 1: 14-19

And God said, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, ¹⁵and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. ¹⁶God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. ¹⁷God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, ¹⁸to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. ¹⁹And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

The Light has come into the World!  Actually, if you remember the first day of Creation, there was light.  You know…”Let there be light!”  And there was.  The first day God created light in the midst of the darkness. But here…here God creates more light, putting light even in the midst of the darkness.  Notice that the darkness was not extinguished.  Perhaps it is there to make us look toward the light.  God did not snuff out the darkness; God rather gave us a light to navigate through it.

And now…in this Easter season, we are told that Jesus is the light of the world.  Now, notice here that the claim is not that Jesus HAS the light; it is that Jesus IS the light. What does that mean to “be” light? Light means life. Light signifies life-giving power. Think, for a moment, of the everyday miracle we know as photosynthesis. In photosynthesis light means life. In the presence of light, green plants convert water, carbon dioxide, and minerals into carbohydrates and oxygen. If there would be no light, there would be no photosynthesis. If there would be no photosynthesis, there would be no life. Light means life.

So Jesus is not just saying that he has brought light. Jesus is saying that he, God, the great I AM, IS life. But light’s value is not just unto itself. In all honesty, light, alone, is rather useless. Its true worth comes to be in its effect on everything around it. Its true value is in the way that it illumines and clarifies the world in which we live. Jesus’ intention, too, was not to come into the world as a blinding, white light but, rather, as a warm, illuminating presence that shines toward God and enables us to see the world the way we are intended to see it—all the world—the darkness, the light, and the shadows in our lives that constantly play between those two poles.

Edith Wharton said that “there are two ways of spreading light—to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.” God is the candle, the firstborn light of Creation, the light of the world. We are called to go into the world and be light by reflecting God’s light even into the deepest crevices of the earth. Do not fear the darkness. In all truth, the darkness would not be if the light were not so bright. The two are inseparable. Jesus said, “I am the Light of the world…”  With Jesus, God re-created Light not to rid the world of darkness but to show us how to walk through it.

So, go, in the Name of Christ, and be light!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Brought Forth

Genesis 1: 9-13

And God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, “Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.” And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.

And then God created all those things that we think of as “nature”.  So what does that have to do with Eastertide?  What does that have to do with Recreation?  Everything.  You see, God did this wonderful act of recreation that we call Easter for a purpose—to show us eternity, to show us what God intended for us, to show us the way it should be, and to invite us into the act of bringing the Kingdom of God into its fullness.

Recreated, baptized, commission to service, if you will..in the Name of God.  And now, we are called to bring forth, to yield, to bear fruit.  Nature is cyclical .  In essence, nature knows what it is here to do.  Perhaps part of its purpose is to teach us—to teach us unconditional fruit-bearing, unending connection with the rest of Creation, and to show us what holy dependence is.  We cannot exist alone.  God brought us together that we might love one another and so that we might see eternity in one another’s eyes.  Whenever we look into a fellow human’s eyes, whenever we embrace any of God’s Creation not out of what it can do for us but out of love because it is God’s, whenever we treat someone or something with caring and compassion, we get a glimpse of he Holy, a sacred view of how things should be, of how things will be when all the tombs of all the endings are rolled away, when the Kingdom of God in all its fullness and all its glory is finally brought forth.

And there was evening and there was morning the Third Day…

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

 

The Second Day

Genesis 1: 6-8

And God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

The second day…no grand processionals, no Hallelujah Chorus, no drama of a massive rock being rolled away to reveal an empty tomb.  What kind of follow-up can you expect after (Re) Creation?  What in the world could God have up the Divine sleeve, so to speak?  How in the world can you do better than Easter?

I think that’s our problem.  We celebrate the Easter as the pinnacle of our faith, as that thing that God DID for us.  The truth is, though, that God is always DOING for us.  In the second tier of Creation, once the relationship between heaven and earth was established, God separated the waters from the waters.  God made “Sky”.  When I was little, I was told that the universe was “infinite”.  Now to a child’s mind (and probably to most adult minds, although we don’t usually admit it), “infinite” is hard to grasp.  I used to look up at the sky and imagine it going on and on and on.  And then I knew it got beyond the cumulus clouds that I saw to the dark vastness of the solar system.  And then I knew it got beyond the solar system to the darker and more incredible vastness of the galaxy…then the universe…then….then….SURELY it had to stop somewhere.  Everything does.  But then what is beyond where it stops?  And then what is beyond that “whatever” when it stops?

On the second day, God made vastness; God made infinity; God made forever.  We Christians seem to think of eternity, of forever, as a Christian theological point (or a really bad theological point that claims its some sort of Divine reward for being good boys and girls).  No, it’s really a God-thing.  In fact, God IS eternity.  But God knew that we would never grasp that, no matter how hard we tried.

So God separated the waters into things that we could get.  And yet, they were all connected.  The smallest of waters leads to the vastness of eternity.  And so, to remember, God gave us water—just a tiny bit.  “I baptize you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.”…”Remember your baptism and be thankful.”  And with that little bit of water in which you are immersed, or that is poured on you, or even that tiny bit that is sprinkled into your life, God reminds you that you have entered the vastness and infinity of eternity, whether or not you understand it.

Now THAT was a pretty good follow-up to Easter.  God is full of surprises—unlimited and eternal ones!

Remember your baptism and be thankful!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

 

 

 

A New Creation

Genesis:  1: 1-5
In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

This is normally not a passage for Easter Day.  What happened to the empty tomb?  What happened to the dawn of the Eastern morn?  What happened to the Resurrected Christ?  I actually think it's all there:  A formless void--nothingness, chaos, injustice, persecution, evil, death--is recreated into order while God's Spirit sweeps across its being.  A light appears...a first light...a light that has never been before...a light separated from the darkness of death and despair and hell.  It is the dawn of the Light.  It is the first day of the New Creation.  Christ the Lord has Risen!  ALLELUIA!  ALLELUIA!  ALLELUIA!...

This thing that God has done...this turning despair into hope and death into life...is surely the greatest act of Creation!  God again took a formless void, an instrument of hopelessness and death, a manifestation of denial and betrayal, of injustice and evil, and there...there in the first light of this morning...we see glorious Light...we see hope...we see life as we've never seen it before.  There...there in the light of the dawn is our eternity!

Welcome, happy morning!  Age to age shall say: 
"Hell today is vanquished, Heaven is won today."

Lo! the dead is living, God forevermore! 

Him, their true creator, All his works adore.

Earth with joy confesses, Clothing her for spring, 

All good gifts returned with her returning King,

Bloom in every meadow, leaves on every bough,

speak his sorrows ended; Hail his triumph now.

Thou, of life the author, Death didst undergo, 

Tread the path of darkness, saving strength to show;

Come then, true and faithful, now fulfill thy word; 

Tis thine own third morning, Rise, O buried Lord!

Welcome, happy morning!  Age to age shall say: 

"Hell today is vanquished, Heaven is won today!

Lo! the dead is living, God forevermore! 

Him, their true creator, All his works adore.

                                          ("Welcome Happy Morning", hymn by Fortunatus (ca. 535-600), trans. by John Ellerton)   

Christ the Lord is Risen!  ALLELUIA!...And there was evening and there was morning the first day...

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Looking for a Miracle

Scripture Passage:  Matthew 12: 38-42
Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to him, ‘Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.’ But he answered them, ‘An evil and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was for three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so for three days and three nights the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth. The people of Nineveh will rise up at the judgement with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the proclamation of Jonah, and see, something greater than Jonah is here! The queen of the South will rise up at the judgement with this generation and condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon, and see, something greater than Solomon is here!

It is interesting that there are really no "Holy Saturday" Scriptures, per se.  The Lectionary readings jump to the passages that will be used this evening for the Easter Vigil as we hear again the covenants, God's promises of a world made new.  But what about this morning?  There are no words for the way we feel.  There are no Scriptural or theological platitudes that we can toss around this day to feel better.  There are not even any pictures.  The sun came up just like it normally does and everything looks the same.  Everything, that is, except the empty chair at the table, the missing voice of a teacher, and the closed tomb waiting for the Sabbath to pass so that we can do our work.  The world is still waiting for a sign, waiting for a miracle. But there will be no calming of waves of grief this time; there will be no healing of our pain; and a quick peak shows only tepid water in the jars.  There is no wine this time.  There will be no sign.  The miracle this time is that there will be no miracle.  God, it seems, has finally left us to ourselves.

Perhaps the reason that there was no miracle is that the world itself had changed.  The New Creation had begun.  We were just too wrapped up in our grief and our despair and some of us in our guilt and shame to see what God had begun to do.  The traditional Apostles' Creed says that Jesus "descended into hell" after the Crucifixion and before the Resurrection.  Most mainline churches (at least of the ones that still choose to even say the universal creeds!) respectfully or regretfully or embarrassingly leave that part out. After all, what does that mean?  Hell is for those who have no hope; hell is the finality of being so bad that you cannot be redeemed, right?  How can Jesus go to hell?  How can the Son of God, the Messiah, wander around and be seen in a neighborhood like that.  It's just not right. 


Maybe the miracle is that hell and heaven, just as humanity and the Divine, were somehow poured together for all eternity.  Maybe the miracle is that God has now come so close to us that there is no longer a place that we can go without God being there with us, whether or not we can sense that.  Maybe the miracle is that hell, itself, like death, is no more. Maybe the miracle is that we no longer need a miracle.  Because, my friends, we have been promised life.


Jesus laid out what would happen earlier this week.  In the Lectionary Passage from Holy Tuesday (John 12: 20-36), Jesus depicted the events of this week-end as the Christ being "lifted up" and then "gathering all in".   Now everyone knows that when you begin gathering something, the first sweep starts at the bottom.  You extravagantly dig deep, trying to get everything you can on the first pass.  Maybe on this morning as we grieve and regret and wonder what life will be, God through Christ is digging deep into the bowels of hell and extravagantly gathering them in.  Jesus descended to earth that we might be shown the Way, that we might know what Life means, that we might be redeemed, renewed, and recreated and then be poured over with Light.  Jesus descended to earth that we might be "gathered in".  Why, then, couldn't the Lord of Life, descend further, descend beyond where we even thought God could go, and do the same thing?  After all, who are we to say how big or how loving or how extravagantly welcoming God is?


Are you looking for a sign?  There is no need for one.  There is no more need for miracles, no more need for one-time, unique "fixes" to Creation.  It's ALL being recreated.  Even God can begin again.  But THIS time, God desires not to do it alone.  THAT is the miracle.


In the silence of this day, feel your grief and mark your shame, knowing that the dawn of life is there even for you.  And once the Sabbath passes, we, too, can begin our work.

For thine is the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory forever.  Amen.

Grace and Peace on this Holiest of Gathering Days,

Shelli

Friday

Today's Gospel Passage:  John 19:  16-18, 28-30
Then he handed him over to them to be crucified.  So they took Jesus; and carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called The Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew* is called Golgotha. There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus between them...After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfil the scripture), ‘I am thirsty.’ A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the wine, he said, ‘It is finished.’ Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

This is the day when Christianity is at its lowest point.  Most of us 21st-century believers like to err on the side of hope, running quickly through these hours, knowing that the Easter dawn is soon appearing.  But I think we do ourselves, not to mention Jesus, a disservice by not looking at this day even without the promise of the Easter feast.

Tradition holds that after the debacle in the garden, Jesus was taken to the House of Caiphas.  It was a fine house right on the edge of the city walls.  There he was thrown into a lower room, a dungeon, if you will, where he spent the night.  This Jesus of Nazareth, the Incarnate Word, who had drawn wise kings and lowly shepherds, who had impressed the high priests of the Temple, who had taught and healed, who had welcomed the outcast and debunked the presumed "in" crowd, who had calmed the storms and raised the dead, who had committed body and blood and had washed the feet of his friends...this was the man who sat alone knowing this night would be his last.

And then in the morning, he was rushed through a facade of a trial and a paltry sentencing, paraded through the streets of the holiest of cities, as he was forced to carry the cross on his back.  But lest we think this was some big deal, life continued to go on.  It was just another Roman execution in a city wrought with polarization and distrust.  The vendors were out that morning selling their wares.  The politicians were out making sure that everyone knew that they had something to do with ridding the community of one who spoke against normalcy and reason, against those who knew best, one who was touted as the Messiah.  And there were others there that felt helpless--a woman who Jesus had healed, the crying women that knew him, his own mother.  No one could do anything.  There was a simple man from Cyrene that carried his cross for a few yards.  After all, it was the least he could do.

And then, we are told, he was lifted up and tacked on to the cross like a haphazardly-strewn note that we tack on to our door.  There was no remorse; there was really no pompous display; there wasn't really even a show.  Jesus was nailed to the cross as a common and everyday criminal, a bother, really, to sophisticated and proper society.

He breathed his last breath and willingly and intentionally gave up his spirit to the One who created him.  He was gone forever, laid in a Holy Sepulchre, a permanent tomb.  The world would go back to the way it was.  All was quiet.

But then the thunder roared and the clouds covered the light even though it was in the middle of the day.  The earth shook as if Creation's very core was breaking.  And the temple curtain, the only thing that had for so long separated the holiest of holies from the boundaries of humanity and the earth on which it walked, was torn in two with a violence that no one could imagine, as if in that moment, the Divine had somehow spilled into the earth even as the Son of Man had poured himself into the Divine.

Nothing would ever be the same again.  And when the light finally dawns, we will realize that the earth, that all of humanity, that even God has forever changed.  God took death away and in its place put life and since life can only exist with God, God is here forever.

Easter will dawn, but the light will only serve to illumine what has happened this day, for on this day, Creation has happened again.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Gethsemane

Today's Gospel Passage:  John 13: 1-17, 31b-35
Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” Jesus said to him, “One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you.” For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, “Not all of you are clean.” After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them...“Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” 

The meal was one of those moments that we wish we could freeze in time.  Everyone was happy, enjoying each other.  Jesus washed the feet of the disciples, the most intimate of acts.  It proved to be the beautiful epitaph of his servant's heart, the gift of all gifts on a night that probably only he knew would be his last.  They ate and drank together, honoring the tradition of the Passover, remembering how God had delivered them from bondage, from those things that were not part of them, those things that did not fit with their identity as the people of God.  And at the meal, Jesus broke the bread and gave each one a piece, inviting them to share it with him.  And then he raised the cup...This is my body...This is my blood...Eat...Drink...Do this in remembrance of me.  Do this in remembrance of how God delivers you from bondage to those things that are not part of you.  There were others there...the clattering of dishes...the clanking of cups...the voices raised above the heat of the room.  And yet, somehow they thought it was just them.

And then Jesus gets up to leave and asks them to come.  Let's take a walk...let's stroll through the cool night air.  It was one of those moments that we wish we could freeze in time...They walked toward the olive grove...Gethsemane, which means "oil press", at the foot of the Mt. of Olives.  Jesus went to pray.  Well, we'll just close our eyes and relax...He will be back in a moment.

I don't think Jesus took them there because they were ready to hear what would happen.  I don't think he took them there for support.  I don't even think he took them there because he thought they would pray with him or something.  I think he took them there so that they would be part of the story, so that these moments that would become part of Jesus would also be part of them.  This was a holy place.  It probably didn't look like it.  It really was just a bunch of dirt and grass with some olive trees stuck in them.  And it was cold as the damp night air settled in.  But it was here, in a moment frozen in time, that Jesus turned himself over to God.  "Take this cup from me"...not "get me out of this", but "Take this cup from me"...the cup that he had shared with his friends...the cup that represented his body and his blood and the very essence of his being that he was willing to surrender, to pour out into the world.  "Take this cup from me"...it is time...a moment frozen in time...there is nothing more to do but for Jesus to pour his life into the world, whether or not they are ready, whether or not they even know it.  Father...forgive them...and "take this cup from me now".

He returned to the sleeping disciples, the bumblers and the doubters, the deniers and the social climbers, the ones who were slow to get it and the one who would betray him.  He loved them all.  And now...they, too, must take the cup.

And in a flash, the frozen moment melts with a kiss of betrayal.  The cup spills into the crowd and Jesus is taken away.  The disciples are stunned.  What now?  What happened?  The world has moved on, but there was that moment...forever frozen in time.

On this holiest of nights, whether you are the sleeper, or the denier, or the betrayer, know that you are also the beloved...a daughter or son of God.  "Take this cup from me now".

Grace and Peace,

Shelli