I wrote a poem for our Maundy Thursday service at Christ Church Clifton.

Do you see them there?
A single church, in a single town on a single night
Gathered, assembled, congregated.

Do you see their lives?
Their gathered, assembled and congregated lives
That sometimes feel anything but.

Do you see their hearts?
Some beating paths to summits of joy
Others simply beating, unable to find the rhythm.

Do you see their thoughts?
Trying to focus while their worries, their memories, their plans and their mobiles
Tug at them like chirping toddlers.

Do you see their fears?
The woman with the ageing parent who’s forgotten her daughter’s name
The couple with the sandcastle marriage, terrified of the next spring tide
The man with a guilty secret, he can neither share nor hide.

I see them all
From this Gethsemane night

Stretched ahead of me, a canvas of hopes and dreams and fears and tears and peace and joy and hate and grief and life and death and love and loss and greed and gift and rage and rest.

The rest is history. A tapestry of mysteries
Waiting for the truth to come.
Waiting for the chosen one.

Waiting for the choosing one.

Did you know, that night, I had a choice?
Did you hear it in my fragile voice?

Did you see it as I clawed the earth
In labour for salvation’s birth?

Did you smell it in my blood-sweat spheres
As angels wings soaked up my tears?

Did you hear it in my anguished prayer
That scoured a gash through heaven’s air?

Abba: please, don’t raise me up
Can I be spared this poisoned cup?

I asked once more, then asked again
God save me from this salving pain.

The Father speaks: “this is the time
This is the way”; the choice is mine.

I see them there
A single church, in a single town on a single night.

As Abba’s love comes welling up
There is no choice; I’ll drain the cup.