My Musings on a Maundy Thursday Morning
It is a bright, beautiful, clear, sunny morning.
Was it a morning like this when You awoke, Jesus?
Did You sleep well last night knowing it would be Your last in a mortal body, knowing there would be no sleep for You tonight, or were You up into the wee hours of the morning in one last earnest conversation with those You loved—one for only their ears and not the record of Scripture, as You sought to fortify them for what was to come?
Did You stretch and flex Your hands as You greeted the dawn and perhaps, as the beams of sunlight fell on Your tough, callused palm, did You contemplate its surface, still unmarred by a piercing wound?
It is amazing, Lord, how You suffered for me at Calvary, but Your love was also shown by how You walked to Your cross, with a steady, unswerving step.
You alone knew that by the moon’s rising You would be abandoned by those who are now waking up around You.
You knew that the usual early morning greetings and frivolity of a group that had spent many a night and morning together, would cease after this last morning.
As you made Your way into Jerusalem on the roads so crowded with pilgrims bringing their sheep for the Passover celebration, did You read their thoughts and find their minds filled with inconsequential plans for the day, and hardly a thought of the God for Whom they were observing this tradition?
Did You see their hearts filled with pride and sin and insecurities and confusion?
As You walked among them, did they know that their lambs would no longer be necessary since the Lamb of God was taking Himself to be bound to the altar and that His blood would initiate and seal a new covenant between them and all people to come and their God?
Here now comes John to ask about preparations for the meal. The events of Sunday with the triumphal entry and adoring crowds have faded beneath the daily responsibilities and activities.
Today’s agenda is simply to prepare the required feast as they have in years before.
They do not realize that thousands of years later we too will be preparing this day to remember You.
Was it a morning like this when You awoke, Jesus?
Did You sleep well last night knowing it would be Your last in a mortal body, knowing there would be no sleep for You tonight, or were You up into the wee hours of the morning in one last earnest conversation with those You loved—one for only their ears and not the record of Scripture, as You sought to fortify them for what was to come?
Did You stretch and flex Your hands as You greeted the dawn and perhaps, as the beams of sunlight fell on Your tough, callused palm, did You contemplate its surface, still unmarred by a piercing wound?
It is amazing, Lord, how You suffered for me at Calvary, but Your love was also shown by how You walked to Your cross, with a steady, unswerving step.
You alone knew that by the moon’s rising You would be abandoned by those who are now waking up around You.
You knew that the usual early morning greetings and frivolity of a group that had spent many a night and morning together, would cease after this last morning.
As you made Your way into Jerusalem on the roads so crowded with pilgrims bringing their sheep for the Passover celebration, did You read their thoughts and find their minds filled with inconsequential plans for the day, and hardly a thought of the God for Whom they were observing this tradition?
Did You see their hearts filled with pride and sin and insecurities and confusion?
As You walked among them, did they know that their lambs would no longer be necessary since the Lamb of God was taking Himself to be bound to the altar and that His blood would initiate and seal a new covenant between them and all people to come and their God?
Here now comes John to ask about preparations for the meal. The events of Sunday with the triumphal entry and adoring crowds have faded beneath the daily responsibilities and activities.
Today’s agenda is simply to prepare the required feast as they have in years before.
They do not realize that thousands of years later we too will be preparing this day to remember You.
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