Grace: To possess a personal intimacy with Christ just as the disciples did in the Upper Room on the night of the Last Supper.
Reading: John 15: 1-17
Reflection:
Where you there when they crucified my Lord?
Where you there when they crucified my Lord?
O, sometimes, it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Where you there when they crucified my Lord?
It takes a lot to cause a grown man to tremble. A Man trembles in an earthquake. He trembles from a heart attack or a stroke. He trembles after a good blow to the jaw or stomach.
So how many people will be physically trembling on Friday afternoon when we remember Christ’s Crucifixion?
Few, I imagine.
But the trembling of our hearts is something entirely different. No doubt, come Friday, Christians all across the globe will enter into their daily prayers with their hearts trembling, nervous and uncertain.
Why will our hearts tremble?
Because we have come to love the very man who we abandoned to die a traitor’s death on a Roman cross. Moreover, because he hangs on that cross loving us all the more, his body pouring out the only things he had left to give: love and mercy.
Personally, my sisters and brothers, that causes me to tremble.
Despite my betrayal of Jesus, I still must say that I love him. I feel that love in my heart, in my bones. And, like it did for Peter on the night of the Last Supper, that love causes me to weep, to tremble. I think we come love Christ because we have gotten to know him. The more we know him through the Sacraments, life experience, service, and contemplation, the harder it is to ignore that love.
This Lent, we have had a lot of chances to come to know Jesus a bit better. We have contemplated his birth and baptism, his parables and miracles. Now (and in the days to come) we contemplate his Last Supper:
We know his voice when we hear his command, “Love one another.”
We know his body and blood through eating the bread and the wine.
We know his humility in allowing him to wash our feet.
We know Christ and, in knowing him, we cannot help but love him. In loving him, we are moved to tremble. Really, I mean it, weep and tremble. We can hardly take it in when we taste, or hear, or see Jesus’ love for what it really is. All we can do is let is wash over us, tremble in its waves, and pray that we may not act contrary to that love, but bear it faithfully to the rest of the world.
Friends, the time for the Kingdom is at hand. Taste his body and blood. Let your feet be washed. Listen to his final commands of humble service. Remember that you are a branch to the vine that is Jesus Christ. Open your heart and allow his love to enter.
Oh, and beware that in giving of yourself to his love, you just might tremble.