It's Thursday

Maundy Thursday.  Holy Week. Black Friday.  What's in a name?  The connotation can be positive or negative but the naming of something gives substance and meaning.  We associate good or bad; there is understanding.

What is significant about Thursday?  Historically, this day on the calendar commemorates the Last Supper, the night Jesus shared the Passover meal in the upper room with his disciples on the night before He was to be crucified.

It is a solemn day; a day of reflection.  Events are unfolding and they are sobering.

During the Passover meal that evening, Jesus took the bread and gave thanks and broke it to symbolize His body which was to be broken.  In the same way, He took the wine and gave thanks offering it to the disciples to remember Him.  He gave thanks . . . knowing what was before Him that very night.

Judas would betray Him.  His disciples would fall asleep.  Peter would deny Him.  He would be arrested.

The events of the cosmos since the beginning of time were coming together this very night to begin to bring the world back into relationship with God. 

Jesus knew and gave thanks in the upper room.

And in the knowing, He will walk into the hours ahead - what will become, for Him, humiliating and excruciating, painful and horrific.  He knows he will hang from a cross until the veil of the temple is torn in half by invisible forces and the earth rumbles in response to His pain and agony and death.  Everything will screech to a halt as the universe shutters.  He knows.

He is about to do what I am incapable of doing.  It is shocking and jaw-dropping.  The cross will change everything.

Good news is coming but we are not there yet. 

Today is Thursday.

Jesus bowed His head and gave thanks.  He broke the bread and passed the wine so we would remember . . .