adelaide place baptist church

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.

Yesterday in church I encouraged everyone to follow the Passion story through the week before we gather again on Sunday to celebrate the ressurection of Easter Day. I thought I’d jot down some reflections of my meditations this week as an aid and as a devotion

Monday: Mark 11: 12-19

Monday was a busy day for Jesus. In the Mark narrative I sense frustration and even righteous anger as Jesus curses a tree and drove people out of the Temple. Perhaps this was release from the fact that yesterday the crowd cheered Him in in triumph but would turn on Him later in the week. Yesterday Jesus visited the Temple only to have a look around, once He slept on it He decided that something had to give.

When Jesus was running amok in the Temple what were the crowds thinking? Was this political revolution? Did they point Him towards the Roman Palaces? Did they feel He was overreacting? After all, money changing was a necessity not a luxury to buy sacrificial animals and to pay the Temple tax. But these people were dishonest with their ridiculous exchange rates and mark up in price, they provided a service but ripped everyone off. I feel on this Monday that Jesus went after false religion dressed up as piety. The fig tree is a symbol of a fruitless faith, the money-lenders a sign of dishonent religious practise.

The people were amazed but the religious authorities were angry, the teachers of the Law were angry. Was it their hypocrisy that Jesus was exposing? Was it too much for them at such a religious time? I think it was. But they did understand one thing that is true throughout time. He who controls the masses or the mob is he who wields power and authority. No wonder they wanted Him dead.

One of the clearest indicators to me that times are changing was attending my first humanist wedding. I’d never heard of such a thing before and assumed that people who didn’t want to do the God thing went to a Registry Office. Indeed in England and Wales a humanist wedding is not legal and attendance at the Registry Office is still required. But here in Scotland a humanist celebrant can legally carry out a wedding so yesterday was a proper wedding. Without any kind of formal liturgy the couple can have as unusual a wedding as they desire or as solemn as any funeral. They called it a celebration of love in front of family and friends and all the elements of any good wedding were there, the beautful bride, the tears, the over-running reception, the drink… Yet for me there was something missing. By taking God completely out of the equation it was empty, it took something that God ordained Himself and sucked all the mystical magic out of the event. How can one have a wedding without God at the centre? To me you can’t as yesterday showed. So for me it was sad, but good on them for not being hypocritical and going for a church wedding they don’t believe in. Times are changing. Oh yes, did I mention that the whole day took place in a church? No sense of irony there then!