by Matthew Clark & Friends | One Thousand Words

John 13:3-5,34

Because Jesus knew that the Father had handed all things over to him, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, 4 he got up from the meal, removed his outer clothes, took a towel and tied it around himself. 5 He poured water into the washbasin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to dry them with the towel he had wrapped around himself.

“I give you a new commandment—to love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.”

Matthew 26:26-30 

While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after giving thanks he broke it, gave it to his disciples, and said, “Take, eat, this is my body.” And after taking the cup and giving thanks, he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood, the blood of the covenant, that is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you, from now on I will not drink of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.” After singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.

Song – Son of Laughter (Chris Slaten) – The Meal we could not make

Sit beside me now, there’s so much that we’ve shared,

like the comfort of our doubts and the safety of despair.

So many promises have just been tricks.

So many remedies have made us sick.

Do you even have it in you to savor something new?

Chorus:

Take and eat, all the work is done.

Stretch out your feet in the Sabbath sun.

With this bread, old ambitions break.

As we pour the wine, we feel our hungry hearts awake

to the meal we could not make.

Look around the table, behold your company.

See the needy and unlovable and many enemies.

I know that peace has never worked before,

but this feast satisfies the thirst for war,

for justice has been won, and mercy’s made us new.

(Chorus)

Do you recognize me now? It’s been so many years

since you laid me in the ground and planted me with tears.

We used to joke about the great hereafter.

Now he’s made each of us a son of laughter.

That little hope in you is finally coming true.

(Chorus)

Matthew 26:36-40 

Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to the disciples, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” He took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and became anguished and distressed. Then he said to them, “My soul is deeply grieved, even to the point of death. Remain here and stay awake with me.” Going a little farther, he threw himself down with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if possible, let this cup pass from me! Yet not what I will, but what you will.” Then he came to the disciples and found them sleeping. 

Imagine with me – Amy Baik Lee, thoughts on “Nondum” 

When I read Gerard Manley Hopkins’ “Nondum” earlier this year, I felt a curious sense of relief, the kind that only comes when you hear the details of your bleakest landscape described back to you from someone else familiar with the terrain. No two people travel the same road, but sometimes knowing that another has walked a similar valley is enough to keep hope flickering until the road begins to bend upward.

In the prayers that “[seem] lost in desert ways,” and the disoriented guesses with which “we clothe Thee, unseen King,” Hopkins shows that he understands intimately the pain of waiting in the face of silence, surrounded by seeming “abysses infinite.” The measured cadence of the first five stanzas picks up in the sixth like the sudden beat of a pounding heart — “And hosts confront with flags unfurled / And zeal is flushed and pity bleeds / And truth is heard, with tears impearled” — ebbing, afterward, into the rhythm of a checked sob, and then a prayer such as a weaned child might utter (cf. Ps. 131:2): “And lead me child-like by the hand; / If still in darkness not in fear.”

In two lines, Hopkins encapsulates my greatest request of my Father, coming out of this past year.

“Nondum” means “not yet” in Latin. So much has not yet come to fulfillment — so much that can only come to maturity in the soil of adversity and trial — but what the poem gives me is confidence that God, too, understands.

I’ve said too much already, but I wanted to share this poem this week in hopes it might encourage some of you, friends. The “morn eternal” will break, and He who bled agony in Gethsemane holds us in these long pre-dawn hours with a dearly bought word:

In the world you will have tribulation.

But take heart;

I have overcome the world.

(John 16:33b, ESV)

May peace be yours today,

Amy

Poem – Amy Lee, G.M. Hopkins – “Nondum”

‘Verily Thou art a God that hidest Thyself.’ 

God, though to Thee our psalm we raise

No answering voice comes from the skies;

To Thee the trembling sinner prays

But no forgiving voice replies;

Our prayer seems lost in desert ways,

Our hymn in the vast silence dies.

We see the glories of the earth

But not the hand that wrought them all:

Night to a myriad worlds gives birth,

Yet like a lighted empty hall

Where stands no host or door or hearth

Vacant creation’s lamps appal.

We guess; we clothe Thee, unseen King,

With attributes we deem are meet;

Each in his own imagining

Sets up a shadow in Thy seat;

Yet know not how our gifts to bring,

Where seek thee with unsandalled feet.

And still th’unbroken silence broods

While ages and while aeons run,

As erst upon chaotic floods

The Spirit hovered ere the sun

Had called the seasons’ changeful moods

And life’s first germs from death had won.

And still th’abysses infinite

Surround the peak from which we gaze.

Deep calls to deep and blackest night

Giddies the soul with blinding daze

That dares to cast its searching sight

On being’s dread and vacant maze.

And Thou art silent, whilst Thy world

Contends about its many creeds

And hosts confront with flags unfurled

And zeal is flushed and pity bleeds

And truth is heard, with tears impearled,

A moaning voice among the reeds.

My hand upon my lips I lay;

The breast’s desponding sob I quell;

I move along life’s tomb-decked way

And listen to the passing bell

Summoning men from speechless day

To death’s more silent, darker spell.

Oh! till Thou givest that sense beyond,

To shew Thee that Thou art, and near,

Let patience with her chastening wand

Dispel the doubt and dry the tear;

And lead me child-like by the hand;

If still in darkness not in fear.

Speak! whisper to my watching heart

One word—as when a mother speaks

Soft, when she sees her infant start,

Till dimpled joy steals o’er its cheeks.

Then, to behold Thee as Thou art,

I’ll wait till morn eternal breaks.

Song – Matthew Clark, Gethsemane 

It was a dark night a dark night 

I saw the light of the world trembling on the ground 

Saw the frightened flicker of that flame

And I held my breath and hoped for strength 

Silent to the slaughter he remained 

CHORUS 

And Oh the sorrow I’m fearing for tomorrow 

And though the darkness hide Thee I will drink the cup you give me 

And Oh the sorrow I’m fearing for tomorrow 

And though the darkness hide Thee I will drink the cup you give me

It was a cold night a cold night 

In the garden the Vine, was crushed beneath the weight

I saw the cup he drank was bittersweet 

To the dregs where joy and anguish meet

The poison strikes like a kiss upon his cheek 

CHORUS

Prayer: Brian Brown, The Collect for Maundy Thursday

 Almighty Father, whose dear Son, on the night before he suffered, instituted the Sacrament of his Body and Blood: Mercifully grant that we may receive it thankfully in remembrance of Jesus Christ our Lord, who in these holy mysteries gives us a pledge of eternal life; and who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

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