As a long-time United Methodist, I have always looked forward to the Maundy Thursday service, which takes place the night before Good Friday and commemorates the Last Supper and Jesus’ agony in the Garden of Gethsemane.

I love Easter, but for me to really “get” Easter, I have to think about Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. We say Christ the Lord is Risen! but there is no resurrection without the crucifixion. How can we really appreciate His resurrection without absorbing the reality of the agony in the Garden and the torment of the cross?

Nowhere is His humanity more evident to me than in the Garden, when He prayed:

“Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. Luke 22:42-44

Maundy Thursday inspires me to reflect on the humanity of that anguished plea and His ultimate surrender to His Father’s will as he began His journey to Calvary. He must have dreaded the suffering, but in obedience He prayed more urgently, submitted His own will to that of the Father and willingly accepted His fate on the cross.

Good Friday reminds me of the wounds.

Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.

We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Isaiah 53:4-6

And, finally, Easter reminds me that not even a gruesome, agonizing death could conquer the mind-blowing, awe-inspiring, magnificent love of a God who would sacrifice His Son — for me.