AN INSIGHTFUL MOMENT IN RELIGIOUS HANDS
MEDITATION: The first hand to strike the Savior was a religious hand.
DEAR GOD,
     Give me insight, I pray, into what went on in those chambers where
Jesus was taken the night he was betrayed. Those very religious chambers.
Where your Son was so shamelessly treated.
     Who would have thought that there, in those sacred walls, lived such
insecurity, such hostility, such treachery?  Who would have thought the
opposition to the one you anointed would come from the very offices you
ordained? From priests and temple officials?
     Their Scriptures, their sacrifices, their holy days, their rituals,
they all prepared the way for his coming. How could such religious people,
so steeped in the Scriptures, so trained in theology, how could they miss
him? How could they miss the truth when the truth stood right before them,
staring them in the face?
     And yet how many times have I failed to see the truth when it was
standing right before me? How many times have I failed to see the eyes of
your Son in the face of the poor? Or failed to hear the voice of the Spirit
in the pages of the Scripture? How many times, Lord, have I been deaf to
the sounds of heaven, blind to the sights of the spiritual things, ignorant
to what you are doing in me and around me?
     Help me, God, never to sit in a judgment  seat where the only purpose
is the destruction of another person's reputation. Help me never to raise a
question that is aimed at putting another human being on trial. Or raise a
hand that is aimed at hurting.
     Help me not to take the role of the high priest, thinking I have to
question everything, judge everything, condemn everything that in some way
is different from my way. Help me not to take the role of the temple
officials, thinking I have some office to defend or some person to protect.
     Who am I to judge, O God?...
     Help me to understand, and if I can't understand, help me at least to
respect the great diversity there is within the Body of Christ...If we love
you, truly love you, with all our hearts and souls and minds, how different
are we really?
     Help me to remember that the people in that chamber read the same
Bible as Jesus did, believed the same theology, worshipped in the same
temple, observed the same rituals.
     Yet, their hands were the first to strike him.
     Grant that I would never have a hand in such a thing, never be a part
of what took place in those chambers. Those very religious chambers. Where
your Son was so shamelessly treated...