Wednesday of the Second Week of Lent

Of all the prophets Jeremiah most closely resembles Jesus. Chosen from before they were born, sent to announce God’s word to the same Jerusalem, arrested, mistreated, imprisoned and finally murdered, they are brothers in the Spirit. They are separated only by several hundred years.

In today’s first reading we have heard Jeremiah complaining about the conspiracy around him. As the city is besieged by the Babylonians he finds himself within its walls, but surrounded by enemies who despise him because he speaks the hard truth. He complains to God, “Remember that I stood before you to speak in their behalf….” I hear in those words the prophet’s anxiety about both his former friends and his God. Who is dependable?

Jeremiah and Jesus experienced betrayal. That’s a hard word. Our third Eucharistic Prayer refers to the cruel reality as we plunge into the most sacred mystery:

On the night he was betrayed,

Betrayal, with all its variations, may be the original sin. You put your faith in someone and that person lets you down. We’ve all been betrayed on occasion and, if we’re honest with ourselves, we have done it to others.

It’s as if someone pulled the rug out from under your feet to expose a gaping hole beneath you. You have nothing to stand on and you tumble into darkness, into an abyss of confusion, anger, grief, anxiety and shame. You were caught completely off guard; there was no way to prepare for it. And yet you wonder why you didn’t see it coming. In retrospect all the signs were there.

You swear you’ll never trust that person again. You’ll never trust anyone again! And yet you know you need people and you probably need that person. You must somehow recover your bearings.

Betrayal happens between friends, within a marriage and between siblings. It can be within yourself as you made promises to yourself, or expected outcomes that could not be. Or it might lie deep within your embryonic past, an experience of childhood when you suffered a hurt that seems incurable and you made a decision that seems irreversible.

I knew a fellow once – he would be in his eighties today – who was placed in an incubator moments after he was born and never touched until many months later. They fed him and changed his bedding but ignored his need for touch, as well as their own nurturing instincts. They never fondled the infant. Sixty years later, when I knew him, he could not experience a connection with another human being.

The pain, the scar and the misbegotten decision never to trust again seem incurable until we hear the rest of the story:

He took bread and

gave you thanks and praise.

He broke the bread, gave it to his disciples, and said:

Take this, all of you, and eat it:

This is my body which will be given up for you.

Can there be any worse betrayal than that which Jesus experienced? With the cross they shoved him into the sky and said, “Take him God, we don’t want him on this earth.” And even God seemed to ignore the hanged man. The sky did not open. He remained there, his body drying out in the cold, uncaring wind, exposed to insects and abuse and whatever missiles the passersby might throw at him. The soldiers remained to prevent his escape but they cared not a whit who might abuse him.

But still he prayed with affectionate love, and even made excuses for us. “Forgive them, Father. They know not what they do.”

This perfect love has plumbed the seemingly infinite abyss of betrayal. It now can close the wound, heal the hurt, calm the fears and renew our ability to trust.