The World Upside Down - Day 1

It's Holy Week and it's time for me to focus on what's really important - not plants, not horses, not even family. It's time for me to reflect on and share what Christ did for me as this week comes to a close.

Jesus has already made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem where he was acclaimed as the Messiah. It's amazing to me how much can change in just a matter of days.

I love the Bible and I love good movies like 'The Passion' that give a realistic look at what Christ went through. But the Bible and movies still can't give us the final feeling of 'being there.'

We miss out on the smells and the feel of being in the presence of great events.

On this day of the week, Jesus and his disciples met together in the Upper Room to celebrate Passover with the Seder dinner. The room was probably small with a low ceiling and few, if any windows. What light there was at the evening celebration would have been provided by a few, small oil lamps whose smoky glow was very limited.

There would be several smells that we would have noticed right away, but they accepted because it was part of their lives. These were men who walked every where they went and probably didn't bathe that often. We would have noticed a musky smell of sweat and dust. The oil lamps would put out a sweet, cloying smell of partially burning oil with a black smoke filling the room. Finally, we would have noticed the smell of cooked lamb shank and the herbs, fruits and mints of the Passover dinner.

The disciples were expecting the traditional Seder dinner they had experienced since they were young boys - the dinner they had probably celebrated with Jesus in the previous two years they had been together. But, Jesus gave them two surprises.

The first was he changed the traditional words of the bread and wine. When he broke the bread he said that it was his body. The breaking of the bread signified the death he was about to endure. Bread was sustenance to the Hebrews and he was about to give the bread of his life for our sustenance.

When he drank the wine he said it was his blood. To the Hebrews, blood was the essence of life. They were prohibited by Jewish law to drink blood or to eat flesh with blood still in it because the blood represented the life, the spirit of the animal. For Jesus to say that the wine was his blood and ask them to drink it was surprising to say the least. It represents the blood he was about to shed that would give us a new life in his Spirit.

The second surprising thing was when he washed the disciples' feet. By this time they suspected he was something special. Peter had called him the Son of God. They wouldn't realize who he really was until his resurrection and their receiving of the Holy Spirit. But, at this point he was at least the master rabbi in their eyes - someone of prestige, stature and respect.

For him to wash their feet, to take the job of a common servant, was breath-taking in their eyes. It was so disturbing to them that Peter indignantly refused at first. It would be like us going to the White House for a dinner with the president and having him serve us dinner instead of eating with us.

The world is about to be turned upside down in the next few days and Holy Thursday is a foreshadowing of that disruption as Jesus began to turn the disciples' world upside down.

God's blessings as you enter these blessed, disturbing days.