What a tumultuous time it was for the disciples during that last week of Jesus’ life. It started with Jesus and the disciples approaching Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover.

On the eve of Good Friday, Jesus gave his friends, and onward gives to us, a new commandment to love one another, ok. But there is more, as HE has loved us. Oh…..Not just a thin soup of love, not just a half-effort of love, but the extravagant, caring and yes, willing to die for you love that Jesus gave.

Regardless of how you approached Lent, there never is a wrong way. Even if you threw up your hands on a day 2 and grumbled that this is all too much, God is a patient God. We are loved as someone created in his image and therefore loved through all our shortcomings…Lenten practices included.

The meditations that our Deacon, Deb, has been offering daily in this season of Lent, are based on the life and words of St. Francis of Assisi. These meditations have been a blessing to me, offering bread for my Lenten journey from a saint I, like many, have loved, but are coming to understand better in these offerings.

Careful listeners might have noticed that the final verse of our psalm today, Psalm 19, is the words I pray just before I preach, slightly altered. Psalm 19 is a single voice, an individual speaking to, praying to, singing to God. But as preaching is hopefully a give and take between us, I changed the words slightly to include you all, so that the prayer asks, that as I speak, AND you listen and meditate and wonder and question, God is with you as much as with me.

In fact, it occurs to me this prayer would make more sense alternating:

I would say: Let the words of my mouth

You all would say: and the meditations of all our hearts

Together: be acceptable in your sight,

O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

Jesus is telling his friends the truth, the hardest truth, that he will, as our reading says “ undergo great suffering…” and that he will not be celebrated as the Messiah, but rather he will be arrested, attacked, and crucified.

And Peter, our friend and the reflection of our humanness, Peter pulls Jesus aside and rebukes him.

Peter reprimands Jesus, scolds him, argues with him for telling such a gloomy tale of the future, both, because Peter can only see a Messiah who is a king, and because he cares so much for Jesus.

Surprise. Megan’s computer went ka-put along with the sermon. She delivered a very short and beautiful sermon the old fashioned way using a legal pad and pen but nothing to post to the website.

Jesus and his friends are heading now to Jerusalem, the tension higher, the danger greater, the hopes and fears deeper, but all is paused for a moment away today, on the mountain top.

I love the Gospel of Mark. I love the intensity, the pace. Mark uses the word euthus (u-thoos), roughly translated as “immediately” 41 times in the text which serves to propel us through the narrative with urgency. Mark writes with drama, intentional mystery, power, much energy and more than a little hyperbole. The downside is there are often things left hanging that could use just a smidge more explanation..…as we will see here in a minute. He hurtles us through this shortest of the four gospels and leaves us breathless as we leap from place to place in keeping up with Jesus.