Thursday

My family has just arrived back from D.C. this afternoon. We had a wonderful, if tiring, time. We've just finished a familiar meal around our familiar table, and everyone knows that the usual food is the best when you get back in from traveling.

Today is also Maundy Thursday, when Jesus and his followers gathered around a familiar passover table and ate familiar Seder food. But something was different this time around. At the conclusion of the meal, Jesus took bread and wine, and using these simple everyday foods, demonstrated to his disciples that the end of his life was near. His flesh would be as broken as the bread, and his blood would be spilt like so much table wine.

And this would all be done, he said, for them.

Some protested. Others worried. Peter boasted with the false bravado of someone deeply shaken. And Judas, whether from greed (not likely), disappointment (meh), or impatience (my suspicion) decided to take matters into his own hands

Jesus left the table, went back to the Mount of Olives, and prayed. What he prayed is, I think, the most understandable thing a human being can pray: he prayed for help. Help out of the thing if possible, but if not, help to overcome it.

Its this prayer of Jesus that gives me peace about my own shortcomings. Even he doubted. Even he worried. Even he asked to be let off the hook.

But in the end, he acknowledged that he would accept whatever God dictated.

Our own problems are so much smaller than what he was dealing with on that Thursday night long ago, but our need to please, to earn God's love, often doesn't allow us to admit what even Jesus felt free pray: We want things to be better, to be easier on us.

I know that's a feeling you've had as you sat at your familial meal in your familiar struggles.

Let's own it.

Let's admit it.

Jesus did.