Holy Thursday

I sat in the quiet church as the clock inched closer to midnight. It was Holy Thursday and the tradition of “spending one hour” with the Lord was coming to a close. The Cathedral had been open since seven, with people from every walk of life coming to kneel before the tabernacle and try, like the apostles, to stay awake as a comfort to Jesus. Did He know, more than 2000 years ago in that garden that we would be here tonight? Did He glean some small comfort from knowing it? Surely that is not outside the possibility for the Son of God.

As I sit in my pew I imagine myself in the garden – the exact garden that I visited just this past year with my husband and daughter as we toured the Holy Land. Somehow that reach across space many months before, enabled a stunning reach across time tonight and suddenly I was there. Sitting in the garden, watching, waiting. The wind howling outside my Tulsa church became the sound effects for the dark garden, illuminated only with a large full moon that any other night might look pleasant, but this night looked somehow ominous. The Asian man who was sitting in the pew in front of me, saying his prayers out loud, transformed from being an irritant to a part of the bustling and whispering of the other apostles. Here I am, Lord. More than any time in my life, aware that I would have fallen asleep as the apostles did that night, just as I know now that I, too, would have denied you three times. But tonight, in my Tulsa-Jerusalem, knowing how much you need my presence, I can remain awake and gaze, riveted, upon the image of your agony. Just sit. Be here. Knowing that you know.