Broken Jesus

BROKEN JESUS

a prayer to open

Help me experience your presence. Lead me to deeper levels of trust.

Give me the courage to put my hands in yours.

On the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover lamb is sacrificed, Jesus’ disciples asked him, “Where do you want us to go to prepare the Passover meal for you?”

So Jesus sent two of them into Jerusalem with these instructions: “As you go into the city, a man carrying a pitcher of water will meet you. Follow him. At the house he enters, say to the owner, ‘The Teacher asks: Where is the guest room where I can eat the Passover meal with my disciples?’ He will take you upstairs to a large room that is already set up. That is where you should prepare our meal.” So the two disciples went into the city and found everything just as Jesus had said, and they prepared the Passover meal there.

In the evening Jesus arrived with the Twelve. As they were at the table eating, Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, one of you eating with me here will betray me.”

Greatly distressed, each one asked in turn, “Am I the one?”

He replied, “It is one of you twelve who is eating from this bowl with me. For the Son of Man must die, as the Scriptures declared long ago. But how terrible it will be for the one who betrays him. It would be far better for that man if he had never been born!”

As they were eating, Jesus took some bread and blessed it. Then he broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples, saying, “Take it, for this is my body.”

And he took a cup of wine and gave thanks to God for it. He gave it to them, and they all drank from it. And he said to them, “This is my blood, which confirms the covenant between God and his people. It is poured out as a sacrifice for many. I tell you the truth, I will not drink wine again until the day I drink it new in the Kingdom of God.”

Then they sang a hymn and went out to the Mount of Olives.

• Use your imagination to enter into this passage of Scripture. Close your eyes and picture yourself there with Jesus. Where do you find yourself? Are you on the sidelines or at the center of the action? What do you see, hear, smell? What do you notice about Jesus?
• How did you experience Jesus in this imaginative time?
• Read Exodus 12:1-30. What does this story of the original Passover illuminate about Jesus’ mission?

Lord Jesus, your body was broken for my sake

and for the sake of the world.

May your brokenness piece me back together.

May your brokenness heal me.

May your brokenness heal the whole world.