Stop the World

Stop the world; I want to get off. 

Do you ever feel that way? Like if everything and everyone could just stop for a second, maybe you could catch a breath? Maybe you could blink at least once? Maybe you could hear something other than the noise in your own head? 

I wonder sometimes about what it must have been like to be at the Table with Jesus. I've talked before about how it wasn't a silent, solemn meal. Jesus knew what was coming, but His disciples didn't - they were all just celebrating the Passover together, and the Passover was a feast of remembrance and celebration. I imagine that inside the upper room, there was quite a bit of talk going on. Quite a bit of laughter. Sharing stories. Praying together. Reading the Scriptures. It was a very full, very vibrant, very rich experience. 

But I wonder about Jerusalem, too. I wonder about what the streets were like. About how much of the population at that time were devout Jews, about how many of them would have been having this same moment around similar tables in their own homes with their own families. About how many folks, if any, would have been left on the streets. 

I wonder about looking out the window and seeing that it seems, for just a few minutes, like maybe the world has stopped. 

It's hard to imagine, isn't it? In our 24/7/365 world where, at the very least, we would hear the hum of the refrigerator in the next room, it's hard to imagine the kind of stillness in the world that happens in a place where everyone is doing their own loud, wonderful thing in their own sacred space and the streets...are empty. 

It's an intimate togetherness - a common table that everyone is sharing at just this moment, yet each in a very personal and private sort of way. And the world...just stops for a few minutes. (For the Passover, it would have been hours.) 

And I know that I'm probably over-glamorizing this a bit. Jerusalem was under Rome's authority, and there certainly would have been more than Jews living in the city. We can imagine that there was still some human activity on the streets that night, just as there would have been on any Sabbath, as well. Roman guards would still have had patrols to make - perhaps they would have even stepped them up on a night like this, fearing trouble from a people who, let's face it, once used this very night to walk themselves out of an occupying kingdom's grasp. What's to keep a people who are celebrating leaving Egypt from getting up and walking out of Roman territory? (Except, of course, that there was just so much Roman territory at the time. But I digress.) 

Still, it must have been something to see not a single faithful Jew on the streets. It must have been something to recognize the sparsity of remaining human activity. There would have been a noticeable difference in foot traffic, in noise, in motion. The world would definitely have slowed down, even if it didn't stop...and isn't that what we're all looking for sometimes? You don't have to stop the world. Just slow it down a bit. 

That's what this Table does. That's what it still does. See, God's people come to this Table and that means they step out of the world for a minute. They come to this place that is celebrated by millions of persons, but they do it in the most intimate of ways, and when you look out over the world and wonder if they've noticed...you certainly notice. You sense how much it has slowed, how many have stepped away for a breath. You can't help but feel that kind of stillness in your soul that you're supposed to be looking for...even while James and John are elbowing each other for their turn at the dipping bowl and Peter is making eyebrows at Jesus, wanting to ask a question, and Judas is counting the money in the purse, and... and it matters, but it doesn't matter because there's just a certain stillness about it. 

A stillness that doesn't come from silence or solemnity, but that comes from what God's people have always known of this Table: 

An intimate togetherness. 

With one another and with our Lord.