The expression of Love: Holy Thursday

Each day of Holy Week, on the road to Resurrection, we are presented with a question which only you, and you alone, can answer.

During the Last Supper, Jesus speaks openly to his beloved and seated disciples.

As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. (John 15)

Jesus tells his disciples that by love they will be identified as his followers, that is, Christianity is defined by love. Love begins with God and is expressed through sacrifice, the ultimate sacrifice being the offering of life, the greatest of all the gifts of God.

Following the Supper, Jesus prays in the Garden of Gethsemane, “Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me, nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.”

It is there that a mob arrives, led by one of the 12 disciples named Judas Iscariot. Judas kisses the Lord to betray him to the mob. Jesus is captured as a common criminal, then taken before the religious elite to stand trial for conjured-up charges. The passion, that is the suffering of the Lord, continues through the night. From mock trials to the religious leaders, to the government officials, He is humiliated, beaten, mocked, and sentenced to death by crucifixion.

From the point of his arrest to the sentencing, Jesus has been abandoned by all of his friends and followers. One of his friends betrayed him (with a kiss) while another, Peter, denied him three times, when asked if he knew Jesus. Yet all the while, Jesus does not abandon anyone – neither his friends, his followers, nor His accusers, nor any one of us, for that matter. He stands as a testament to the power of Love. He accepts the sentence and makes his way to the Cross. It is here that we understand that the Cross, therefore, is the ultimate expression of Love within Armenian Orthodox theology.

The sixth question on this road to the Resurrection, comes in a form first asked to Judas, “Do you betray the Son of God with a kiss?” and then asked of Peter, “Are you with Jesus?” They are one in the same question: Love is what defines us as Christians according to Jesus and He himself, in a gesture of Love is sacrificing his life. Are you with him? Or have you betrayed him? Certainly a very heavy questions for a very heavy night. The night of the Passion of our Lord.

Tomorrow: The Cross