Thursday With Jesus

 Thursday before Good Friday. 

The upper room was secured for the Passover meal.  Jesus was teaching in Jerusalem.  The Passover meal was prepared.  There is a sense of heaviness and anticipation, and he talks of betrayal.  At sundown, when it was time for the Passover meal, Jesus washed the disciples' feet.  The betrayal was announced, and Judas left. The Lord's Supper is initiated: Take, eat, this is my body, this is the cup of the new covenant." 

Then Jesus embarked on some of His most intimate teachings for the disciples and for us as well.  It is a farewell discourse, with a new commandment, that we are to love one another, with a promise of the Holy Spirit, with vine and the branches teaching, with warnings of persecution, and His prayer for the disciples and all future believers.

Then they sang a hymn and walked to the Mount of Olives.  He then takes Peter, James, and John deeper into the garden and prays three times, "If it be possible, let this cup pass from me-  yet, not my will but yours be done."  

Around midnight, Judas arrives with soldiers, and Judas betrays Jesus with a kiss. Jesus is arrested.

So much happened in these short hours of Thursday, some of which I didn't mention, but so much was left for us to appreciate, to be grateful for, and to take inside to live the life Christ would have us to lead, the life for us He faced agony, disgrace, and death for.  Praise the Lord.




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