A Communion Meditation for your Consideration

Laura led us in the following meditation before the Eucharist this past Sunday:

He began to be distressed and agitated. And he said to them, "I am deeply grieved, even to death."

Distress, agitation, grief. These are not the typical emotions we associate with Jesus yet these are what the bible says he was experiencing the week leading up to his death.

And these are emotions that I have become all too familiar with this past year. During the last three months in the Pediatric ICU there have only been two families that Joe and I have connected with. Most kids don't stay in the PICU for long and so there really isn't time to get to know anyone. But these two children were in for several weeks so we saw their parents around and eventually got to know them. Both children passed away. Grief. Deep distress.

Death is a natural part of life. But it only seems natural when its your 100 year old grandmother after she's lived a full and vibrant life. And even then it is not easy to say goodbye. But when life is cut short for someone for whatever reason, we find ourselves asking, "Why?"

Jesus's life was cut short. He asked, begged actually, for God to spare him his life. To let him live. But God kept silent. And so Jesus worked through his agitation, his deep distress, his grief, all the way to the cross. For you. For me.

And again we ask "Why?" Why must his life have been cut short? There is really only one answer to this question. Because he loves you. And not only you but the person sitting to your right and your left. The person working at the desk downstairs. The one behind the counter at Walgreens across the street. The one who served you coffee this morning. He died for us so that we might live.

I wonder how we might live our week if we knew, like Jesus did, that this week would be our last. If we knew this time next week we would not be sitting in this circle. That our chair would be empty. Would we do things we wouldn't normally have the time to do? Would we say things we wouldn't normally have the guts to say? Would we share the love of this Christ in new ways and with new people?

Let's walk to the cross with Jesus this week and feel his anguish and grief. We are guaranteed no tomorrows. But we are promised life forever.

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