Waiting and Watching

As a Protestant I said to myself what the disciples said to themselves on Lazarus Saturday, and it is what I say to myself every Holy Week:  "I will go with Him to Jerusalem and die with Him." 

I will take up the Cross.  I will lay down my life.  I will follow Christ to Golgotha.

Jesus says to His disciples, "Watch."

And I watch.  I watch for the Cross.  I watch for the Bridegroom.  I sit with a dim lamp and I look for signs of Him coming. I stand in the crowd along the Via Dolorosa and believe I will be the one called out to bear His cross the final steps for Him.

My lamp sits beside my computer.  I watch my bank account.  I watch my work schedule.  I watch youTube. I watch comment boxes.  I do not see my lamp sputtering.

I look for the heavy Cross on the Path of Sorrows so I can carry it before the awestruck crowd.  But the  Crosses I have chosen for myself are decorations, those hanging on my walls, around my neck on silver chains, on the end of my prayer rope. 

The crowd will not see me carry the Cross of Christ. They will see me falter and fall under the weight of the dirty dishes left in the sink, a perceived insult, a change in my schedule, a lost set of car keys, a last minute request, a bad waitress, being put on hold, someone being late... 

I am distracted by my life, and I do not see my lamp's flame fading.

And my lamp goes out.

I was watching for the Bridegroom.  I was looking for the Cross. But He had already come to me and offered me the Crosses I could bear to go with Him to Golgotha. 

But I laid them aside and instead, stood in front of my wall, with a silver chain around my neck and a woolen cross between my fingers...  in the dark.