Are you able? We've been asking that question this Holy Week. Are you able to drink the cup I am going to drink? asked Jesus as the disciples shuffled for position. Can we walk the road Jesus walked, the Via Delarosa, the way of sorrows? Can we eat the bread of brokenness? Can we take up the cross and follow Jesus?

Sobering questions, serious questions, the kind of questions that crack open a hardened heart and lay bare the tendons of the spiritual life. The kind of questions to be asked on Maundy Thursday.

In a Tom Wilson cartoon, Ziggy is looking unusually sad and deflated. “I went to the school of hard knocks," explains Ziggy, “and right now I'm doing post-graduate work."

Perhaps the statement of Jesus in this story is as telling as the question. Jesus said to them “You will indeed d…