this past Maundy Thursday

This past Thursday our church observed Maundy Thursday. My first ever introduction to it was last year when we first did it at our church. It was the first time I'd really given much thought to every particular event in the Passion Week and I was overwhelmed by reflecting upon and really absorbing all the things that took place and led up to the Cross. So, knowing we were going to observe it as a community again this year, I was really looking forward to it. I'm in agreement with another friend that sometimes having an hour of complete uninterruption can be difficult so I really relished the thought of just having some time to reflect, pray, and connect with my Jesus on this evening.

Our pastor mentioned this scripture during our time as a community together and then I reread it during my hour of the prayer vigil.

It was when Christ and his disciples were in the Garden of Gethsemane and he had asked them to keep watch with Him.

Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. "Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?" he asked Peter. "Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak."

I read and I am broken and humbled. How easy it is for me and what joy I take in spending this one hour on Maundy Thursday with my Lord, but how many other times in my life and throughout the rest of the year do I not "keep watch" and find myself asleep, falling into temptation, or choosing something else over my Lord? How many times do I neglect to remember others and their burdens and oppressions or even fail to remember my Christ's own suffering that He endured for me?

There is a bittersweetness in spending this hour with my Lord. I feel honored to symbolically walk through this evening with Him for an hour and "keep watch" with many others as we approach Good Friday and the Cross. There is a renewal of connecting with Christ in His suffering for us and for the will of His Father. Yet there is a reminder deep in my heart that says there are still places in my life I need to be more faithful and vigilant and that the passion and emotion I have at observing this evening can and should go beyond this night. It's not a feeling of condemnation, but of loving reminding and correcting.

I left my hour on Thursday incredibly humbled, sorrowful for what the disciples experienced, for what Christ had to endure, and yet somehow renewed and refreshed from spending one honest, vulnerable hour in the presence of my Lord.