It's Maundy Thursday, She Says with a Grin.....

Okay, so this isn't really your typical celebratory, feel-good day like Christmas Eve. We naturally love the human side of Jesus the Tiny Baby Wrapped in Swaddling Clothes. But tonight, tonight I think the humanity and divinity of Jesus are revealed the most starkly. Tonight as He says goodbye to friends who still don't "get it"; tonight as He begs his Father to stop the events that are unfolding, to spare Him from the torture that He is about to face; tonight as He ends His pleas with "not my will, but thine". For some reason, I love the image of Jesus being afraid and sad; it's so human. Nobody wants to be abandoned by friends, ridiculed, beaten, and hung on a cross. Anyone who could face that without a qualm could not be human. Jesus was human - He was sad and scared about what was going to happen - and He was God - because he allowed death to move forward and conquered it.

I also love Maundy Thursday because it blatantly shows that Jesus' disciples were not perfect - the disciples who had traveled with Him, eaten His Last Supper with Him, still did not stick around to be by His side in the last hours. I figure that means He's pretty patient with me, too. There's a Christian song that says something like "I will follow you all the way up that hill", something like that with the idea that 'I will be crucified right next to you, voluntarily'. The song has always scared me...because I'm not sure I would have been any better than Peter. I think, in the moment, protecting my own skin would likely have become my primary objective, despite love for Jesus. It is so encouraging to think that I will be able to teach Miss Mouse that when she gives in to ridicule of her faith (I'd love to think her Daddy and I would be able to teach her so well that she would never feel the need to behave that way, but realistically....), at whatever age she experiences it, and becomes silent rather than lovingly defending her faith in and love for Jesus as Christ, that she is in good company and can be forgiven. I figure if God can forgive Peter for denying Him three times and still use him as the 'rock' on which the church is built, then there's definitely room for the rest of us to serve, mess up, be forgiven, and serve some more.

And so, tonight is one of the most encouraging, if one of the darkest, points in the church year for me and I hope someday for Miss Mouse, as well.