Vigil

Our church held a Maundy Thursday overnight prayer vigil this year.  This is an ancient Christian custom of sitting up with the consecrated Host through the night hours between Maundy Thursday and the morning of Good Friday.

Since my response to our priest when he mentioned we'd be doing this this year was something like "Wicked cool!" and since I'd never really done anything like this before, I figured I probably better sign up for a time slot.

So after the Maundy Thursday service, I signed up for midnight to 1 am. Perfect.  I can go home, get the kids settled, sleep for an hour or so, come back at midnight, and be back in my bed, sleeping by 1:15.  No problem.


Went home...got the kids settled...set my alarm....rested for a couple of hours and got back up at 11:30.  

I debated what to wear.  Although pajamas are apparently perfectly acceptable attire to wear when shopping at Wal Mart in broad daylight, they seemed a little bit casual for hanging out with Jesus the night before he's crucified on the cross to save humanity.  I decided on sweats and hoped that was a little bit more appropriate.

I stumbled into the kitchen, dispensed two  Newman's Own, Fair-Trade Certified, Organic, Extra-Bold K-Cups into my thermos travel mug   I briefly wondered if it was Kosher to take my coffee into the sanctuary at church.

I grabbed my Bible, a book called In the Sanctuary of Women that our DOK group is reading, my phone, and a novel (written by a Christian author...so hopefully an okay thing to have), and headed out the door.


When I got there, I prayed.  

I apologized to Jesus for not really knowing how I was supposed to do this.  I thanked Him for the sacrifice He made on my behalf.  I prayed to be more worthy of it.  I asked Him to please help me keep from spilling my cup of coffee all over the pew and/or the carpet in the sanctuary.  I apologized if I wasn't supposed to have my coffee there in the first place.  I asked Him what I should do next.

I turned on my phone and checked the outcome of the Shockers game. (Just being totally honest here.)

I checked the time.  12:10.

I looked around the sanctuary.  I was struck again...as I always am...by how very beautiful it is.  Simple and unassuming.  I love it.

I started to get sleepy.

I took a sip of coffee.  I burned my tongue.  I have a Really. Good. travel mug.  It keeps things hot for a Really. Long. time.

I thought about Jesus on that night so long ago.  And I thought about his disciples--specifically Peter, James, and John; whom he took with him into the Garden of Gethsemane to keep vigil while He prayed.  I thought about His disappointment when he found them sleeping that they couldn't stay awake with him for just one hour.  I thought about how I've always been disappointed in them for that as well.  

I immediately cut them some slack.  I thought about the huge meal they had just eaten...the four cups of wine they had consumed...the fact that it would've been really cold outside.  They would have been up for a really long time.  And they didn't really know what was coming next.  They couldn't have truly understood that Jesus was spending his last few hours on Earth.

When we know that's what we're doing...staying awake isn't even an issue.  You can't go to sleep.  I watched my husband and his siblings sit vigil with his mother during her last days and hours. My mother and her sister did it for my grandmother. My dear friends, Anna and Patrick, with their tiny infant son.  There is something hauntingly holy about being with someone when they leave this world for the next.  And you want to hang on to every moment that you have together on this side.

I wondered if the reason Jesus was so disappointed was because in that hour, Jesus was so humanly vulnerable.  He really needed the love and support of his human friends to lean on.  He needed their prayers. 

And I wondered why He didn't just specifically spell it out to them:  "Guys.  It's like this.  In a couple of hours, they're gonna come for me.  They're going to arrest me, torture me, humiliate me, kill me.  It's going to be slow and unbelievably painful. And you're not going to believe that you will every see Me again. And I'm scared to death.  I really need your support here."

But it's not really Jesus' style to specifically spell out stuff.  And maybe he was afraid that if they really understood what was going on, they'd convince Him not to go through with it, go all vigilante...etc.  Maybe he just wanted to spare them.


I decided to read the account of that night in each of the Gospels.

I got through Matthew's account okay.  I started to get really sleepy while reading Mark's.

I wondered again for probably the two-millionth time why it is that I can stay up all night reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows without getting the slightest bit sleepy, but I can't read two chapters of the Bible without drifting off to sleep.

I briefly suggested to God that if he has any more stuff he wants added to his Holy Word, he might ask J.K. Rowling to pen  it for him.  :o)

I decided to read the rest of Mark's and Luke's accounts out loud so that I wouldn't fall asleep.  And I was embarrassed to be reading out loud in a completely empty building, save myself and the consecrated Host.  

It occurred to me that having the Scriptures in print isn't a luxury that's always been afforded believers.  At the time all of this was recorded, much of it would have been told and re-told orally.  So maybe it's better understood out loud anyway.  Maybe it's not a huge character defect in me that I better understand it if I read it out loud.  (Aside--I mentioned this thought to Better Half last night, and he said he has to do the exact same thing...read it out loud so he doesn't fall asleep.  That makes me feel better).

I looked at the time again.  12:55.

I pondered my dilemma.  

I signed up to sit from midnight to 1 am.  No one else was signed up until 4 am.  Our priest had already told me it was okay for me to leave.  I didn't have to stay the entire time.

I wrestled with that.  I fulfilled my obligation and my commitment.  I could go home and still get a very decent about of sleep.  

I asked myself why I was doing this in the first place.  Was it because I felt obligated?  Something I could cross of the list?  Certainly Jesus did not need me to do this. Spiritual disciplines like praying, fasting and the like--God doesn't NEED us to do them.  They're for our benefit.

I decided to stay.

I drank more coffee (still hot).  :o)

I wondered if it would be okay to take off my shoes and sit on the floor (my body really feels its age at 1 in the morning!) or sit cross-legged in the pew.  (I did both at various points throughout the evening.)

I decided to get our DOK reading for next week done.  

And I was struck deeply by passages like this:

"All should trust in Me to feed them in all their needs," 

And this...

"There is not a guarantee in the world.  Oh, your needs are guaranteed...in the plainest, truest words:  knock; seek; ask.  But you must read the fine print.  'Not as the world giveth, give I unto you.' "

And this...

 "I am searching for the mercy of a maniac who seems to delight in outrageous possibilities and maddening timing and in opening the ground beneath our feet, carving a fissure, breaking open a gap from which we will not exit the same way we entered."


Truer words.

I thought about the ladies in our DOK group and how much I love them.  I thought about how many of them have been connected to my life in some way without me even knowing it outside of this group or before I joined this group.  One woman is the wife of one of the nurses I worked with for years at the hospital.  One woman's husband knows Better Half.  They worked for the same company several years ago.  One of the women was Oldest Son's 7th grade science teacher.  One woman lived until recently, in my very favorite house in our community.  Every time I'd happen to drive by it, and see the beautiful stained glass hanging in the front window I'd be reminded of the book,  At Home in Mitford by Jan Karon. And I'd think about the people who lived there that I didn't even know. How cool to find out that the occupants of that home actually were an Episcopal priest and his deacon wife. :o)

I thought about Better Half.  And I missed him dreadfully.  If he had been in town this week, my evening would have gone something like this:

Me: I signed up to sit vigil with the Host at church tonight from midnight to 1.
Him: By yourself?
Me. Yep. It'll be fine.  It's just for an hour. Then I'll be home.
Him: I'll come with you.
(Please understand.  This isn't something that Better Half would sign up for himself.  This isn't even where he goes to church.  But he would've come with me because he would have known that it was important to me and he wouldn't have wanted me to do it alone.  And when I decided to stay until 4 instead of until 1, he would have graciously and without complaint stayed with me.  And no disrespect toward Peter, James, and John, but Jesus needed Better Half in the garden with him that night.  Just saying.)

I sat quietly and drank more coffee.

I continued my Gospel reading with John.  I was reminded as I always am whenever I read sentences like "Now before the festival of the Passover..." that Jesus was a Jewish Rabbi living in Israel. He was brought to the Temple as an infant.  Doves were sacrificed in his place as the firstborn son.  He was circumcised. Likely Bar Mitzvah-ed.  Recorded in the scriptures as being in the Temple during Hanukkah.  And I was filled with respect for the Jewish faith, my Jewish friends, and Christianity's Jewish roots.  And I was saddened...as I always am...that our Christian calendar has distanced itself so much from the Jewish one of our Messiah.  That our Easter doesn't always coincide with the Feast of First Fruits.  That we don't celebrate Christmas during the Feast of Tabernacles (when Jesus was very likely born).  That we don't observe a 7th day Sabbath, or celebrate Hanukkah, or the Day of Atonement or any of those feasts and festivals that Jesus surely would have. And I was convicted (again) that certainly there are blessings I'm missing by not doing those things.

I wondered who decided what was still applicable under the "new" covenant and what wasn't. And why it seems like we mandate a continuation of the "easy" things...or the things that most people would do anyway...but file the more complicated things under "the old law."  I wondered what God wants us to do.  

And in that vein, I just asked Jesus, out loud, what he thought about this whole "gay marriage" thing.  Sorry.  At this point, it was about 3:30 in the morning.  Little sleep + lots of coffee = no filter.  

And he answered me in the exact same way that he addressed the issue as far as we know by the Scriptures.  He said Absolutely. Nothing.  

I wasn't at all surprised by this.  As I stated before...Jesus rarely out-and-out answered people's questions.  He'd answer questions with a question..."Who do YOU say that I am?" (emphasis mine) or with a story..."The kingdom of Heaven is like..." or he would just draw in the dirt with a stick.

So I sighed and picked up my Bible and continued reading.

"I give you a new commandment.  That you love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another."

Seriously?  This is what Jesus left the disciples with right before he was arrested?  A new commandment to love?  Had that really never been commanded before?

I have to tell you. That hit me like a ton of bricks.  I'm still pondering it.  I hope I'm pondering it for a long time.

And at 4 am...when our priest came in with his stack of books and mug of hot, steaming...wait for it...coffee (I guess it was okay for me to bring mine into the sanctuary after all :o)) to take his shift, and we talked about it a little bit, his suggestion to me was

"Start there."

And so I will.  Not just in pondering the gay marriage thing.  But hopefully in everything.

"No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends." ~John 15:13

Thank you, Jesus, for laying down your life for me.