Presby-Musings

It's Tuesday of Holy Week, and my daily readings are filled with the stories of Jesus' Passion, most notably his struggle in the Garden of Gethsemane right before Judas betrayed him and he was taken.  When he went to Gethsemane to pray that night, Jesus brought three of his disciples with him:  Peter, James and John.   These same three were with Jesus on top of a mountain when the glory of God shone through him and he was transfigured in front of them.   The disciples were astonished to see a transformed Jesus talking with Moses and Elijah, and hear God's voice exhorting them to listen to His Beloved Son.  At Gethsemane, when Jesus commanded the three to stand watch and pray, they failed to listen to him.  Whatever zeal they experienced because of Jesus revealed glory gave way to weariness and frailty.  "Couldn't you keep watch with me for a single hour?" Jesus asks them when he found them asleep.   In that moment we get...

In these waning days of the season of Lent, I've started to turn my thoughts toward what Jesus must have been thinking as he began journeying toward Jerusalem, and ultimately to the Cross.   When you read the Gospel accounts, Jesus seems so resolute in the stories leading up to the Passion.  In the words of the prophet Isaiah, his face was "set like flint," meaning he didn't look left, or right---he just kept moving forward toward his destiny.  But yet, when we read of his agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, sweating drops of blood, praying fervently to the Father to find another way to save the world, we see a different picture.   In that moment of struggle and doubt, Jesus' humanity is unashamedly on display.  It's one of those moments when we are once again assured that (in the words of the Apostle Paul) is in every way like us, and in every way tempted  and tested  like us.  I can't tell you how it makes me feel to know that Jesus st...