...the storm

Have you ever said something you meant to the bottom or your heart of understanding only to have to eat those words like bitter herbs later?

I have. I am.

Let me go back to the beginning of the day. It was a Thursday morning. A brilliant, sunny morning. It was the day we would eat the Seder, which commemorates and celebrates the Passover of the angel of death passing over the captive Hebrew children in Egypt, later that evening.

We were in a playful mood, though he was not. Not the way he usually was. Though some didn't see it, I never met a more cheerful person.

That evening we had eaten the Seder together, and things turned. He all but accused Judas Iscariot of betraying him. Me? He said I would deny him three times. Me? He talked like we would all give him up, betray him. To whom? We weren't scheduled to meet with anyone the rest of the night. It was late. I told him I would go with him even unto death.

There I said it. I told him there was nothing I wouldn't give up, nothing I wouldn't do for him. I meant every word. I did.

And now.
Now.

There's this garden we go to sometimes, Gethsemane. We went there, and it all broke loose.

The temple guard came. They went to arrest Jesus, and I reacted without thinking, cutting off an ear of one of them. Jesus stared me down to calmness, picked up the ear and healed the guy on the spot. And he left.

The rest of my friends, our friends, scattered like the wind.

I followed as best I could, though I must admit I was scared beyond thinking. And I did not not want to be captured with him. My Lord, I didn't want to go the cross. My Lord...
So as Thursday turned into Friday, my life changed. I wasn't who I thought I was. I wasn't who I think he thought I was.

I was a coward... who says things he doesn't mean, and does things he can't take back, and can't do the one thing he wants most to do in the world.

He's gone. And I failed him.