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This is Maundy Thursday. It is the first act in a three-part liturgy we call the Triduum, from the Latin meaning “three days.” It is one continuous movement: tonight, then Good Friday, and finally, the Great Vigil of Easter. These are not three separate services, but one unfolding mystery. One story told in three movements.
Tonight begins that story. We have gathered for an Agape meal in the Great Hall. Agape meaning divine love, the self-giving love of God. We break bread as the disciples did with Jesus, remembering that at the center of our worship is a meal, because at the center of our faith is love. And everyone loves a good meal.
In a few moments, we will wash feet. We will watch as the altar is stripped bare. Everything familiar – candles, linens, vessels – will be removed. The sanctuary will be undone. And then the reserved Sacrament will be carried by me and Kelli into the Chapel, into what we call the Garden of Repose.
Because tonight, we go to the garden. It is the tradition of this Church to transform the Chapel into the Garden of Gethsemane, the place where Jesus went after the Last Supper to pray. The place where he waited in the night. The place where Judas would come with soldiers. The place where the passion truly begins.
I have been to the Garden of Gethsemane many times. It is a place of striking beauty. Ancient olive trees, twisted and gnarled, some of them centuries old, standing in quiet repose. From that garden, you can see the Temple Mount. It sits along the path between Bethany and Jerusalem, a place Jesus would have passed by again and again.
Gethsemane – the name matters. It means “olive oil press.” And that is not incidental. It is interpretive. Because in the time of Jesus, in the midst of those trees, there would have been an olive press. A stone basin. A heavy wheel. Olives gathered and poured in, whole olives, skin, flesh, pit. Nothing removed.
And then the crushing begins. A massive stone is rolled over them again and again. The fruit breaks and yields. Everything is pressed down into a thick paste. And then that paste is gathered, placed into woven mats, stacked, and set under a beam weighted with stones.
Pressure is applied. Not once. Not lightly. But steadily, increasingly, until the liquid begins to run. Oil and water flow out together. And then, over time, they separate. The oil rises. The water and sediment sink.
What is pure is revealed. So when Jesus enters Gethsemane, the oil press, he is not simply entering a garden of beauty. He is entering a place defined by crushing and pressing. A place where what is hidden is brought forth. And what we see in that garden is Jesus under pressure.
The Gospels tell us he is anguished. That he prays. He asks, if it is possible, take this cup from me. Sweat falls like drops of blood.
This is not a calm moment. This is the moment of compression. Everything is pressing in. The machinery of empire. The anxiety of his disciples. The betrayal of a friend. The inevitability of what is to come.
And yet, what flows out of Jesus is not resistance. It is not violence. It is not escape. It is obedience. It is obedience. And we must be clear about what that obedience is. It is not submission to force. It is not capitulation to power.
Because Jesus is powerful, so powerful.
Later, in the Gospel of John this is made unmistakably clear, this power. When the soldiers come into the garden and ask for Jesus of Nazareth, he steps forward and says, “I am he.” And at those words, “I am,” they fall to the ground (Jn 18:5-6). “I am.” The very name of God revealed to Moses at the burning bush.
In that moment, the text is telling us: Jesus is no victim being overtaken. He is the Word made flesh; the one who spoke the cosmos into being; the one before whom the devil ran.
Jesus could have stopped them in the garden of Gethsemane. He could have walked away. He could have summoned legions of angels, if not men. He could have undone the entire moment with a word.
But he does not. Because he is not obedient to power. He is obedient to love. And love he will not forsake, for he cannot forsake it, for he is love, and he cannot be anything other than himself.
And so he honors the freedom of the mob to drag him out of the garden of Gethsemane, for if there is love then there must be freedom through which love can be chosen and known, and also forsaken. For while Jesus can never forsake love, we can… He loves us that much to allow it to be.
And what is pressed upon Jesus? What is being drawn out of him? Under the weight of fear, what emerges is his trust. Under the weight of betrayal, what emerges is his forgiveness. Under the weight of violence, what emerges is his love. The oil flows. Not despite the pressure, but because of it.
And tonight, we are invited into that same garden. Not as spectators. But as participants. The Chapel becomes the Garden of Repose. The Sacrament rests there, the presence of Christ among us. And we are invited to go, to sit, to watch, to pray.
To be in the garden, and to consider the pressing. Because we know something about this.
We know what it is to feel pressed. By expectations. By systems. By betrayals. By the quiet weight of our own choices.
We know what it is to feel that pressure build.
And the question the garden asks is not: can I avoid the pressure? The question is: what comes out of me when I am pressed?
Because something always does. Bitterness or grace. Fear or trust. Control or surrender. Resentment or love. Because the garden reveals.
And here is the promise held: That within you, there is something pure. Beneath the noise. Beneath the stuff. Beneath the passions and promises that weighs you down. The oil runs clear, separated from the sediment is your soul. And sometimes it is only under pressure that the soul rises above the water and the dirt.
Tonight is not about seeking suffering. It is about recognizing that in the places where life has already pressed you, God is at work. Drawing something forth, pure and beautiful.
So I invite you – Go into the garden sometime tonight. Sit in the quiet. Stay awake, if you can. And as you sit there, ask not only what has been done to you, crushed and pressed, but what is being drawn out of you. What is God revealing? What is rising up in your soul? What is being separated, oil from water, clarity from confusion?
Because this is where the Triduum begins. Not with triumph. Not yet with resurrection. But with love under pressure. With a God who chooses not to control, but to love. Not to dominate, but to give himself away.
Tonight is the first act. And it leads us to Good Friday. Where the pressing does not stop. Where it intensifies. Where the full weight of a broken body, crushes down upon its self, forcing the air out of its own lungs… in one final exhale
Jesus dies on the cross – under the weight of his own broken body.
And we go there, but we do so knowing this: that what flows from Christ under pressure is love. and love will have the last word.