Holy Week – Wednesday <3

Well yes. Yes, I am corn-fused.

Because I seem to have hit a snag in my explorations and found that there are at least two schools of thought about Wednesday of Holy Week.

I say at least two, because when I saw a third option in my google searching, my head began to spin and I decided to stick with trying to puzzle out the two main views.

You see…there is the time frame that we typically go with … Last Supper was Thursday…arrest in the Garden followed…trials and beatings and such continued through Friday…then the Crucifixion and hasty burial in a sealed tomb and of course the Resurrection on Sunday.

Scenario Two accounts for a Wednesday Last Supper and arrest with Thursday being the day of Crucifixion. I have to say, it makes sense in many ways…however…

This entails an in-depth study of the time frame for Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread and how the Jews measured a day as from sundown to sundown and well…for a woman who has been time-challenged from birth…

this is just too much to process.

It would seem that the one thing all can agree on is while Palm Sunday and Monday and Tuesday were clearly designated as days with events recorded; Matthew, Mark, Luke and John cease to record the rest of the story in a bullet point fashion of time and so we are left with some variations in the details.

While I certainly would leave room to learn a new understanding of the actual days of commemoration, I have decided to opt in with the customary ways of remembering the events that matter.

However; I would give a slight nod to the fact that it would do us all good to spend a little more time putting ourselves in Jesus’ story instead of always trying to fit Him into ours…but that is for another day of writing.

For our Wednesday … if you have hung on through all of that corn-fusing chatter above…

I am simply going to reflect on something Jesus did twice in the midst of this week we call Holy.

He expressed deep sorrow.

First, as a crowd of adults and children spread their cloaks and palm branches under the hooves of the animal bearing Him into Jerusalem. The Bible says He looked over the city and wept.

The second time; as He finished a heated litany against self-righteousness, false religion, legalism, hypocrisy, persecution and injustice. The Bible says He expressed the longing to gather these He had just condemned as a hen gathers her chicks.

But they would not have it.

And I have to stop and consider this.

I can relate to a mother hen. Believe me.

I know that many times when my voice has raised in passion and I have appeared to be my most angry, it is because deep in me is a heart that is so in love with my brood that the knowledge of where they are headed drives me with a fire that cannot be quenched.

I picture every mom and dad I have ever known who screams at a child running out into the street or headed in the wrong direction or wanders off in Target and can’t be found.

I see them bending down, making every effort to instill in that child the knowledge that their future well-being depends on the obedient retention and application of the warnings being given.

Because that red-faced parent loves that child more than life itself.

That mother hen is having a melt-down because he or she longs for that little chick to learn to choose wisely every day of that sweet, precious life.

And I think of Jesus.

The Christ.

The Messiah.

The Son of God.

Who set aside heaven to come and walk among the likes of us.

Likening Himself to feathered momma barnyard bird…sweeping her speckled wing out and gathering her little fuzzy yellow checks close to her side.

And I guess it doesn’t matter what day of the week He said that.

I feel loved…

and wanted…

and safe <3