Wednesday of Holy Week

Lectionary: 259

He said,
“Go into the city to a certain man and tell him,
‘The teacher says, My appointed time draws near; in your house I shall celebrate the Passover with my disciples.”
The disciples then did as Jesus had ordered,
and prepared the Passover.

 

Comedians tells us the key to great humor is timing; the words, gestures, expressions, and especially the pauses must be timed just right. Comic masters can make you laugh at a telephone book. Stan Laurel studied movie audiences as they reacted to his short films. A century later, he slays me, and I don’t even know why I am laughing.

From its first phrase – “In the beginning” -- Saint John’s gospel is acutely aware of God’s timing. John the Baptist precedes and announces the appearance of the Lord, which is made on the first of seven days. On the seventh day, Jesus changes water to wine, an inaugural event of his ministry, after telling his mother, “…my hour has not yet come.”

In today’s reading from Saint Matthew’s gospel, we hear the Lord announce, “My appointed time draws near.” Despite the three predictions he has made on the way to Jerusalem, his disciples are aware only of the Passover and its season. It falls every year during the first full moon after the vernal equinox. They would eventually realize the meaning, weight, and dimensions of his word after the shock of that weekend passed.

The Holy Spirit gives us a sense of what to say, when to say it, to whom, and whether it should be said at all. Regardless of its truthfulness, a mistimed word may do more harm than good. But a right-timed word might save a soul, a family, or the entire universe.

Disciples of Jesus accept his discipline as they learn to live in, and abide by, the Spirit's timing. The discipline begins in the silence of prayer. We close our mouths and seal our lips and let the noises within our minds -- the opinions and emotions and impulses -- settle into quiet. If vague thoughts traipse through the mind they go, as my mother used to say, in one ear and out the other. We pay no attention to thoughts because we're paying attention to the silence. Let it be; let it govern us. 

In that silence we learn to restrain our lips and to let impulses to speak pass without expression. Often, when listening to someone we have to let them finish their sentence and their stories. Interrupting them only aborts what may be an important revelation. More importantly, during difficult conversations and arguments, as one furious thought after another rushes into the head and heads for the mouth, we prefer to listen to what others are saying. If something must be said, we can be silent and wait for the right words appear and the right expressions to form. 

We wait for the moment when the Holy Spirit commands us what to say and what to do, and when to be silent again. 

In this way we find ourselves swept into that moment in which Jesus says, "My appointed time draws near." Then, it is he who speaks through us.