This Holy Ground Is Strangely Familiar

John 13:2-14  Luke 22:39-46

It’s not me that’s being crucified and yet when I piece together the events of this night, the ground is strangely familiar to me and the path is a way I have trod.

It all began with the promise of celebration.

An Upper Room laid out with loving care by the Lord and to which Peter, James and John put the finishing touches.

Baskets filled with bread. Jars filled with wine. The room filled with laughter.

The disciples filled with hope. Jesus filled with love.

In my picture which is not biblical, I see pipers playing, disciples dancing round the supper table – everyone fresh faced and with excited eyes.

I hear Jesus finally calling them to recline with him at the table.

Men and women gathering round and just pleased to be with their saviour.

Only Judas did not dance and now he drags himself reluctantly from the shadows.

In this meal I see Jesus taking hold of the Passover Festival and pouring upon it fresh layers of love.

He makes the food and drink speak of new things – of a love never imagined.

All this is no more than those moments in worship when our hearts miss a beat.

When for no apparent reason our praise soars around this place and our prayer catches that still small voice on the Spirit’s breeze.

Worship which makes anything seem possible – even to the likes of you and I.

In John’s Gospel the worship slips effortlessly into service.

Jesus lays aside his garments and begins to wash his disciples’ feet and he tells them that he does this as a sign of his love for them , there and now, but also as an example of the way they need to start being with one another.

And he tells us too.

That when you have sat at table with the Lord – you must go with him to the places where basins and towels are most needed – not just to ritually cleanse feet – but to actually renew lives.

Renew lives through the tenderst of touches mostly.

When the worship is over the service begins.

Joyfully might the supper guests have set about the task

But then a single sentence cuts through the evening like a gunshot.

The party comes to an abrupt end.

“One of you will betray me”

One of you will presume to take from the abundance of this table with no intention whatsoever of making that generosity the byword of your life.

One of you is here for the wrong reason.

One of you might rightly be labelled – hypocrite!

Judas moments come thick and fast for us. One minute we’re sitting obediently at the feet of the master – allowing him to feed us and wash us and then we happily turn to one another to reflect that generosity – and the next minute we’re off into the night – hurrying into the world with our sharp words and strange resentments.

“And it was night” the Gospel writers tell us.

Like a heavy curtain coming down.

The pipes are put back in their cases and dancing shoes are swapped with walking boots. and whispers hush their way round the table.

“Not I Lord, surely”

And there are times when it is I – I who betray.

The mood change in Jesus happens in a trice.

He sweeps himself into his cloak and out into the night.

The disciples with bread still in their mouths and their feet still tingling with his recent touch – scurry after him.

Just imagine the confusion.  

He will not tell them where they are going, he just goes on ahead of them  like he always does.

Back in the Upper Room everything had seemed so strong and secure – so full of inspiration – the serving of one another was making sense even – but in an instant – betrayal is all they hear, darkness is all they see, fear is all they feel.

Judas has ruined everything – just like others trample over our lives with scarcely a thought. He’s barged his way on to this Holy Ground, taken the sacrament and then spat it out into the saviour’s face.

Each of us has a spiritual journey to make beyond the confines of the church building.

Each of us has a wilderness to go to when once we’ve been touched by the Spirit.

And if that journey, and if that wilderness has anything to do with the character of Jesus Christ and the centrality of his cross – the journey will be for us as it was for them on that night.

Puzzling and painful! We must expect to be spat upon too.

Those old steps which Jesus took across the Kidron Valley are still there to this day and its quite a trek to Gethsemane.

In that garden – Jesus withdraws from them all – he goes to a place set apart to pray and to pray with such passion that drops of blood fall to the ground.

Through their partly closed eyes, peeping through the trees – the disciples encounter a God not that easy to stomach.

A God who trembles! A God who cries! A God who does not know what is going to happen to him next! A God who will shortly find himself shunted carelessly from pillar to post

And here’s the truth we fail to see. Here’s a fact you might conclude to be wishful thinking.

 The darker life gets  – the closer God comes – not to stand over us with easy succour and one more miracle cure – but to identify completely with the place in which we find ourselves.

 To find that sort of God is enough to make you cut and run – for it can feel like no God at all.

And Gethsemane was a dangerous place at that time of night – especially for the wanted man Jesus had become.

So in that garden Jesus does something vital with prayer.

He takes it  out of the light filled room of friends and acquaintances and he prays in the cold, hard place of  approaching enemies.

And that inspires us too, to take our prayer into unimagined places, use words we might be ashamed of, express feelings that sound unworthy.

The disciples are ready with swords and spears as the enemy approaches – for they had understood that you meet force with force.

Jesus takes on the darkness of the garden completely disarmed and allows himself to be handed over for them to do what they will

This is too much for the disciples and they turn tail and flee – Jesus is left to take on the forces of darkness in his own way and with no other support.

So when things get impossible to bear – when we can go no further and say nothing more – he goes on into our darkness – now unafraid.

We might think the way forward is to do with flailing swords and angry exchanges.

He reaches into our passion ant these moments and says – I will go for you.

From this moment on the passion story is only about Jesus – the disciples bring no further influence to bear – but believe me as the interrogation begins and the cruelty starts hitting out, it is the hearts of us all, he bears to the cross

We who are intent on making our mark, we who think our salvation still depends on our being good enough, we need to allow destiny to become dissolved into his destiny.

Allow him his place as saviour in our lives – as he is dragged one way and the disciples flee in the other.

Before we go though, let’s do as he did.

Let’s meet each other in the washing of feet.

Let’s share the bread and the wine.

Then, if we will, let’s watch and wait awhile – until that point, when with heavy heart

He’ll go his way and I’ll go mine.

And there is nothing we can do about it, except maybe see what the morning might bring.

RH 9.4.09