March 24, 2016
This Holy Thursday night, we Christians remember much.
I would gently lift up one aspect of “tonight” as a result of my time as both a jail chaplain and a police chaplain:
“Jesus was taken to…”
Between Holy Thursday night and Sunday Morning, this phrase occurs in scripture a lot these three days.
Jesus was arrested and taken to Caiphas.
Jesus is taken and ‘tried’ before the Sanhedrin.
Jesus is taken to Pilate.
Jesus is taken to Herod.
Jesus is taken to Pilate again.
Jesus is taken to be scourged.
Jesus is taken before the mob.
Jesus is taken to be crucified.
Jesus’ body is taken from the cross.
Jesus’ body is taken to the tomb.
That’s a lot of being taken. That’s also a lot of waiting, time in a cell, time in a cart of some sort, or of being “frog marched.” Not to mention the beat downs in between events.
Spare a prayer tonight and these days for the incarcerated, for those who serve them and for those who may “forget” that these are Persons — many of whom are terrified, confused, lonely, and victims themselves of abuses hard to imagine to many of us. (The fourth Corporal Work of Mercy is “to visit the imprisoned.”)
Lastly (trigger alert: political opinion), we in the United State have in our name places like Guantanamo Bay and other secret / not-so-secret locations where the incarcerated can be kept without accountability to national or international law. I fully appreciate that terrorism must be battled multifacetedly. It seems long past time to update the Geneva Convention rules about prisoners of War, even undeclared ones.
But as the author Robert Bolt puts it, from the mouth of Sir Thomas Moore in “A Man For All Seasons“:
William Roper: So now you’d give the Devil benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper: Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!”
This Holy Thursday night, we Christians remember much. Keep following Christ, as he is taken. In fact, tonight of all nights, hear with new ears His words as he passes around what they/we see and feel as bread: “take, all of you, and eat; This is my Body, given for you!” That’s a lot of being taken, indeed.
Thanks for reading. A blessed Holy Thursday and Triduum!