THE NIGHT BEFORE

Today is Maundy Thursday. It is the day and night before Jesus was tortured and crucified. Empire and religion had joined forces to “get rid” of a Voice that threatened their positions of control and power.

On this day Jesus gathered His disciples for one last meal. There, He assumed the posture of a servant, washing His disciples dirty feet. Then He left to be alone in a garden to pray.

Let’s take a moment to focus on that last event of the day, the garden of anguish. I wonder, if you have you ever been waiting for days after your medical tests are complete? The doctors are reviewing their findings, and soon you will hear their final diagnosis? Have your been overcome with fear and anxiety as you wait to get the news? A high risk pregnancy, a pet scan result, news after a loved one’s surgery, a trial verdict…and we wait.

Perhaps, we feel that it is a failing to be overcome with fear and anxiety. We might tell ourselves that we should have more faith.

However, I would assert that we would be less than human if we have not felt this level of anguish at some time in our lives. Underneath our daily routines is the constant hum of knowing that life can turn on a dime bringing with it tragedy and pain. We know life is fragile. All the time it is just freaking fragile.

Jesus did not feel any differently. He knew full well what was coming. The diagnosis was in. Tomorrow he would suffer untold pain and humiliation. He had seen people crucified in Rome. The Romans used this barbaric form of death to intimidate their subjects into total obedience. Dare to come against the empire, and this will be your fate.

So He knew what the next day would bring. He, like us, was filled with fear and anxiety. He begged God to save Him from what tomorrow would bring. He was in such anguish his sweat was like huge drops of blood.

To top is all off, the people He had mentored, and loved, and brought into His inner circle fell asleep, and then took off to save their own lives.

CS Lewis wrote: “some people may feel guilty about their anxieties and regard them as a defect of faith. I don’t agree at all. They are afflictions, not sins.”

At the end of a long night of anguish, an angel came and “comforted Him”. The word for “comfort” here would better be translated to mean “strengthened”.

Jesus was somehow given the courage and the steadfastness to endure and go through His suffering.

We cannot escape the inevitable vicissitudes of life. It’s part of the whole story. But we can carry our fears and anxieties, our dread and sadness to a God who is “a man of sorrows acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:6)

We must remember our God is one who suffered the worst that empire could deliver. In our deep pain, we can ask “the God of all Comfort” for the courage and strength to endure.

Many of us are living through personal trials that threaten to undo us. And we are also living through a time of collective fear, anxiety, and dread as we feel the ground of predictability rumble under our feet. Religion has co-opted itself with the empire state of America. We know the things we value, our lives, our livelihoods and our safety are at huge risk.

It is ok to be anxious, to feel unsteady, to dread what we see coming.

But in our present gardens of anguish, we can and will be met with a ‘angels” who speak love and calm, courage and strength into our troubled souls.

“Oh dearest Jesus, you know how we are feeling. In our personal and collective states we face forces much bigger than we can ever control. Join us in our desolation with your loving and grace-filled courage we pray.”