Holy Eve

The thought occurred to me last night as I sang “Going Home” by Sara Groves, that I love Holy Eve. I give the days before Easter this name because Easter Eve would almost limit me to Saturday night and create a tongue twister all in the same phrase. But Holy Eve(s) of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday remind so much of Christmas Eve. They are days of great anticipation, tremendous mystery and intentional days of reflection.

I’m grateful to have been raised and still attend a church that remembers these specific moments in Jesus’ last days of life. Both Maundy Thursday and Good Friday hold great significance to making the resurrection on Easter as powerful, meaningful and life giving today as it is. Maundy Thursday commemorates the last supper Jesus had with his 12 disciples. As the Gospels tell us, this is the evening when Jesus demonstrated who we should be by taking on the role of the servant and washing feet. He reassured them that they could and should remember him by eating bread and drinking wine. He told them why it was important to give his life for his “friends,” the ultimate gift. And he prayed for them. And he prayed for us. I know Jesus is God, which gives him the powers of all knowing and all-powerful, but to think he spoke words to God on MY behalf is beyond insightful to impactful. Jesus wanted me to be alive with him just as much as he wanted the men whose feet he just washed to be alive. To be a life and light for the world to know Jesus.

But I can just imagine the guys, listening to every word, wondering how many future generations he needed to pray for since they believed him to be the Messiah who would take them out of the chaotic world in which they lived. Likewise, those guys didn’t have hindsight to look back and understand all that Jesus said. So the meal ended and the puzzled look and anxious feeling remained. Anticipation always looms for me because I know what’s coming- EASTER! And I know what that means but I have to live through Thursday and then the Friday of suffering and death.

Christmas Eve at my churches often tells the Christmas story but not quite being the big day, an ambiance of waiting fills the room. We still have to grapple with the mystery of a virgin birth, a king born in a manger, a shepherd guest list, a host of heavenly angles singing all over the country side, and a silent night when a baby sleeps. Good Friday has a similar feel because we see Jesus carrying a cross, enduring the whips and crown of thorns, being mocked, gasping from the nails pounded in his wrists, bearing the weight of his body on the cross while bearing the sins, burdens, prayers and hopes of the world on his body. As human he experienced it all. As God he experienced it all.

Christmas and Easter are glorious and right days of celebration. Christ is Born! Christ is Risen! And yet the Eves give me a chance to realize the true immensity of the following celebration days. Without them, I’m easily led into boundless, energized joy, forgetting the way and reason the party even exists.

The song we sang tonight at the Good Friday service said, “Stay with me. Remain here with me. Watch and pray.” Jesus speaks these words, especially on these Holy Eves. One day they might be my prayer, but for now I will wait, watch and pray for Jesus and all he died for.