Wednesday of Holy Week

Lectionary: 259

When it was evening,
he reclined at table with the Twelve.
And while they were eating, he said,
“Amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me.”

As I listen to patients in the Veterans Affairs Hospital I sometimes struggle with them to make sense of their stories. Occasionally they are confused by medicine or dementia; their sentences, words and phrases tumble out of their mouths but fail to tell a story. But sometimes the confusion is spiritual; the truth is so hard to bear that we fear what may appear when it all comes together.

When I consider the story of Jesus I am amazed at what the four Evangelists – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – accomplished. Many people in those first two centuries attempted to write gospels, only four succeeded.

The challenge was to tell the story of Jesus and include his life, mission, death and resurrection. Among its many elements not least was Judas’ betrayal. The documents would not be true without it, and yet how does it happen that the blessing of the earth is affected through such a crime?

Judas’ betrayal remains to this day like a knife embedded in the body of the Mass. Reading the Second Eucharistic Prayer, the priest says, “On the night he was betrayed….”

We insist on remembering Judas because we are plagued by our own fears and temptations. There is always that impulse to cut and run. The Evangelists forgave Peter and Thomas and the Twelve but they did not forget how “They all deserted him and fled.” (Mark 14:50) We remember because we dare not suppress this story. It would certainly come back to haunt us if we tried. Rather, we need light to shine in that very same dark place in our heart.

More importantly, we remember Judas because the brilliant light of God’s mercy shines all the more brightly in the hellish darkness of betrayal:

God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)