Last night Brad and I went to a Maundy Thursday service, and it was nice and all. Being in a place to try to focus all my thoughts and prayers on what happened the night that Jesus knelt down before His closest followers and washed their feet. And then sat with them and shared His heart and prepared them for the future. All amazing and beautiful things to think about.

As usual (for me) it was hard to stay focused in the church atmosphere. Marching in a line to get the little bread pieces and grape juice always feels wrong somehow. My Bible's translation says that Jesus said this:

"You've no idea how much I have looked forward to eating this Passover meal with you before I enter my time of suffering. It's the last one I'll eat until we all eat it together in the kingdom of God."

I like that.

Donald Miller wrote this (it is how I feel but he says it way better):

I confess that at times I have thought of Communion as a religious pill a person takes in order to check it off his list, and that the pill is best taken under the sedation of heavy mood music, or silence.

How odd it would seem to have been one of the members of the early church, shepherded by Paul or Peter, and to come forward a thousand years to see people standing in a line or sitting quietly in a large building that looked like a schoolroom or movie theater, to take Communion. How different it would seem from the way they did it, sitting around somebody's living room table, grabbing a hunk of bread and holding their own glass of wine, exchanging stories about Christ, perhaps laughing, perhaps crying, consoling each other, telling one another that the person who had exploded into their hearts was indeed the Son of God, their bridegroom, come to tell them who they were, come to mend the broken relationship, come to marry them in a spiritual union more beautiful, more intimate than anything they could know on earth.

And so there I was last night. The oppressive music, the audience-like structure, the struggle to be there... and yet. It always happens. When I face whomever it is that is standing there in front of me, balancing a little silver tray of bread pieces, and then the person clutching a big glass of grape juice floating with crumbs, and I hear them say the words: "This is the cup of His blood, poured out for you..." something happens. There is a clutch in my throat, and a leap in my gut, and somehow Jesus has made it through all the stiffness, and the ceremony, and it is just He and I.

And I shuffle back to my seat, and I hold the moment in my heart. And then I thank Him. For once again He has met me there, in the most unlikely of places.