Maundy Thursday

Tonight I will not sleep.

Tonight is for cruelty and pain,

Politicians and hypocrites,

The machine of hate at its unfeeling worst.

Tonight a single kiss will mark me as outlaw,

And the man I love will run away.

Tomorrow he will become my mother’s son,

But I will be gone.

I pray tonight with hands that will never be the same,

And when I washed their feet

I knew mine would soon be pierced.

Tonight I watch and wait while they are sleeping,

But I will never sleep again,

Not until I sleep in death and my bed is a tomb.

Tonight holds its breath,

And knows itself my last evening.

The stars burn bright for me,

But the darkness gathers.

Tonight I will give myself over,

And become yours.

Tonight I watch alone.

It’s only for an hour,

And others watch as well,

Thousands tonight,

And thousands of thousands before.

An hour spent in prayer and wonder,

A retelling to enter and know.

Tonight a beautiful man washed my feet,

And I passed that grace to another.

I looked at my hands, still whole,

And thought of hands torn and bleeding.

Tonight we broke bread,

And thought of the broken body to come.

I looked at my own broken life,

And knew him there.

We were all of us broken tonight,

Pierced and wounded beyond healing,

Yet whole.

Abandoned and driven beyond faith,

Yet faithful.

We bore witness to love beyond love,

Becoming for each other redemption incarnate,

And when we kissed our peaceful kisses,

We proved ourselves his.