Maundy Thursday
Mark 14:32-42
There is so much that can be written about Maundy Thursday. The Last Supper, Jesus talking with His disciples, the betrayal and arrest. The whole Maundy Thursday story is one that deserves and repays close, meditative reading. Reading the text slowly transports you and allows you to look in on that time and imagine the smells, the looks on people’s faces, the noise coming from Jerusalem as the Passover feast begins. It would have been quite a place to be. Try and do that, or watch one of the many movies that has these scenes and see it how it has been done and let fire your imagination and wonder.
I mentioned Jesus Christ Superstar yesterday. I remember when I saw this musical for the first time. The Last Supper is the opening number of the second act and it is followed by Jesus singing a solo in the Garden of Gesthemane. I’ve seen the Passion of the Christ, The Greatest Story Ever Told and others but I think in Jesus Christ Superstar the composer of the music, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and particularly the lyricist, Tim Rice, captured the scene in a most remarkable way. It can’t replace careful meditation on the Gospel text, nothing can or should but if you get the chance have a listen to what is said in Jesus Christ Superstar.
I think it was so remarkable because there was an intentional decision to focus upon the humanity of Jesus. When I read the story in Mark’s Gospel of the Garden of Gesthemane I see a truly remarkable human being in pain and in suffering. I think Jesus showed amazing superhuman strength, maybe it was adrenaline, maybe it was His divinity, but He kept going, He was awake when all others were asleep and were struggling. So compounded with fatigue Jesus cries to the Father to let the cup pass Him by. He pleaded, He prayed but He must have known Himself it would all be for nothing and that He would be faithful to His task.
Jesus knew He had to suffer for our sake, He knew the betrayer was approaching. Did He want Simon Peter and John to be awake so that He might be saved? What would a lesser man have done? Jesus didn’t shirk His responsibilities and give up on His mission. He knew that in the end it would come to this. Betrayed, arrested and tomorrow facing trial in the biggest miscarriage of justice ever recorded.
Ask yourself the question, what would you have done? Then be grateful and give thanks for what Jesus did today and think about what happens tomorrow.