Maundy Thursday is a beautiful and heavy day. It is a day that we recognize the heaviness of the betrayal in the midst of the promise. 

On this particular Maundy Thursday, I feel its weight a little more. I feel a touch more connected to those that sat around a table; only them, quiet, unsure, glad to be together but curious as to what their futures held. 

And in a way, I feel the betrayal. 
Not the betrayal Jesus felt. But the betrayal that those eleven other men felt around the table. They had their flesh and blood Savior sitting at the head of their table, pulling fishing nets up with them, walking dirt roads with them, speaking to crowds with them. He was their life...and He left them. One of their own snatched Him away from them right out from under their noses. They were betrayed by their normal. 
We were betrayed by our normal. 

We could not comprehend the things like sharing a meal with a friend, going fishing with a friend, taking a drive with a friend, going to church with a friend that we were taking for granted. We may have appreciated them but we had come to trust their consistency so much and the normality of community so much that when it was snatched from us right from under our noses, we reared back in tears of betrayal because these are our constants! These are the little things we don’t think of, we expect to be there every day, we wash rinse and repeat daily and they are just gone. 
Our normal betrayed us and it is dark in this betrayal. 

On this particular Maundy Thursday, I feel a touch more connected to those that sat around that table because they felt the darkness and the scary and the betrayal in the shortest amount of time that felt like a lifetime. This pandemic time we are in now is a betrayal of our normal. It is the darkness and the scary and it feels like a lifetime. 

But it is a season. It is a moment of time between the betrayal and what came next. Easter. 

Easter will come. 
Easter is coming, my friends. 
And it could not come as beautifully without Maundy Thursday.

Ruth Amensen works with youth and young adults at Second Presbyterian Church in Little Rock, AR. Growing up, her mom used to tell her that she would know she'd found their calling in life when she figured out where her deep joy meets the world's deep need. Ruth has found that her deep joy doesn't necessarily have one deep root but wide spread roots in all kinds of different artistic areas (photography, videography, writing, podcasting). Creating is when she feels closest to her Creator, so she spends a lot of her time observing and reflecting on our world and its beautiful inhabitants. And then she celebrates those God-filled people and moments on paper, film, and mic. You can find out more at ruthamensen.com or @ruth.amensen on Instagram.