Gethsemane Reflection 25 March 2016

Today has been a dreadful day. More dreadful than I thought I could ever imagine.

For today, the one we had followed is dead.

We’d had him as a guest in our home, where Marta had run around doing the cooking and the serving, while I’d sat at his feet and listened.

Listened and learned so, so much.

He talked about God in a way none of us had heard before, calling him Abba. Dad.

He treated people with dignity and grace, irrespective of whether they were Jews or Gentiles, men or women, children or adults. All were welcome to come to him, to be blessed or healed or to learn.

That’s one of the many, many reasons I love him. Love – I mean loved. He is after all dead.

Sorry, it’s hard to get used to him not being here any more.

Not being here for us to talk to, to learn from.

As a woman, being allowed to sit at a Rabbi’s feet, to learn from the Rabbi as an equal with the men.

That just doesn’t happen. Yes, it may have been in our house, the home I shared with Martha, and our brother Lazarus, but he would say that’s where I should be.

At his feet, learning from him.

But what’s the point of that knowledge now?

The knowledge that he was bringing in the kingdom of God

Some kingdom.

On Sunday, Lord, I can hardly believe it’s only 5 days ago, he came triumphant into the city.

The people loved him. Shouting Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, waving palm branches and laying their cloaks in the road in front of him.

They were welcoming their king, their Messiah into the city.

The same king, the same Messiah, that yesterday was in the Mount of Olives with the men.

I shouldn’t have known about it, but you know what these small communities are like, word gets round really quick.

He’d gone there to pray, and was struggling.

Praying to God that this cup would be taken from him

What cup? What on earth was he taking about.

But the men – we’ll they were useless, weren’t they?

The one thing he’d asked them to do while he went off to pray was for them to stay awake.

But could they? No

I mean, just how hard is it to stay awake? Surely they could have been praying too.

And then, it happened, one came with the Chief priests and temple guard to arrest him.

Judas, Judas. What were you thinking?

Did you think that he’d fight them, or get you and the other 11 to fight them and then start a violent rebellion?

Judas, you just didn’t get it, did you.

He was never going to fight. That was not what he taught.

But right now, as I am home with Martha and Lazarus, I so wish once, just this once, he’d fought back.

Then, he might not be dead and buried.

In another garden. This time, filled with tears.