The Grove

Thursday, in the narrative of Holy Week, is the busiest day. It ends with Jesus in the upper room with His disciples at, what we know as, the Last Supper. Jesus establishes communion and washes His disciples feet.

What happens in communion is Jesus gives us symbols of His broken body and shed blood, and He tells us to keep practicing these things. When He washes His disciples’ feet, He’s showing that He loves them, and to the very end. And this act of love was received in a variety of ways by the disciples.

Jesus gave the command, to His friends and to all believers to follow, to love one another. That means we’re really supposed to love our fellow Christians—in all places, all the time. Jesus loved without controlling the response, and that’s something we can lean into and live out.

On Wednesday of Holy Week, tensions in the city were high and Jesus knew what was ahead in the coming days. Yet there’s nothing said about what happened on this day. We know from what’s recorded about His years of public ministry that Jesus was intentional to get away for solitude and prayer to connect with God, especially when there was chaos and noise.

Jesus chose presence. You can do the same—take a moment to be where you are. Breathe. Experience quiet. Be in your space without outside input. Notice where the noise is coming from and choose quiet. Connect with God.

We’re spending this Holy Week to help you orient your mind and heart toward our Good Friday service and Easter service.

When the crowd welcomed Jesus, they believed He was the king and had expectations for what that meant: rescue from their suffering and oppression. But Jesus came to rescue the from something even bigger than they understood. What might you personally need rescuing from? What do we all need rescuing from? Lean into the promise that Jesus can do more than we can ask or image—as we saw through the story of Palm Sunday.