The Stark Reality of Spy
Wednesday
Holy Week has its way of focusing
us on the deep mystery of Christ’s suffering, in all its aspects, in
all its realistic details. And one of those harsh realities is the
excruciating pain of betrayal.
The Gospel of John offers a
chilling detail of the moment Judas walked out of the Last Supper. He
states simply: “It was dark.” This dovetails with the frightening
assertion about Judas in Matthew’s Gospel that “Satan entered his
heart” the moment he took the morsel of food from Jesus’ sacred hand.
These are the dynamics of betrayal, and Our Lord knew them up close
and personal.
Betrayal has to be one of the most
painful of human experiences. Your enemies don’t betray you; they have
nothing in common with you to betray. Friends betray you – your mutual camaraderie, good will, fellowship,
and your openhanded gift of self to them. Friends are the only ones
who can take your gifts and treacherously throw them back in your
face.
And isn’t it interesting that none
of the other disciples knew who Jesus was talking about when He
pronounced those unsettling words, “One of you will betray me.” Which
means simply that Jesus never betrayed Judas in turn. The Lord didn’t
gossip about the thief in the group. He didn’t talk Judas down behind
his back to the other disciples. He didn’t foment division or betray
trust. Jesus was not a betrayer. Judas was.
But Judas was more. He was an
opportunistic schemer, a spy and informant who went to the hostile
authorities seeking payment for his crime. We call the Wednesday of
Holy Week Spy Wednesday for that reason. It is spying, not in the
James Bond sense, but in the sense of plotting and scheming from the
inside, disingenuously, until the right moment arrives. The Apostles
were unaware that one of their number could be so callous, but there
he was, finally revealed as the traitor in the midst of
them.
When Judas left the gathering, he
must have gone directly to the Sanhedrin to get the guard who, within
a short time that night, would arrest Jesus in the Garden of
Gethsemane. Like all schemers, he wasted no time in implementing his
crime when the time was right.
And as his last act of treachery,
he betrayed Jesus with a kiss. Human sinfulness doesn’t get lower than
that.
And yet, Jesus endured all of this
darkness with equanimity, as if He knew exactly what would happen and
watched it play out before His very eyes. Despite Our Savior’s divine
foreknowledge, He obeyed the Father’s Will in every detail of this
drama – and He suffered.
St. Thomas Aquinas says that “the
Passion of Christ completely suffices to fashion our lives.” He means
that in Christ we find the remedy for every suffering we could
possibly experience. In those few hours of His Passion, Jesus took
upon Himself every possible form of human suffering since the
beginning of time. Our Blessed Lord had them all thrust upon Him, with
their full impact, in less than a day.
When the scriptures describe Him as
the “lamb led to slaughter” and one “bruised for our offenses,” they
are painting a picture of the greatest act of love mankind has ever
known. But of all the bitterness of His agony, the betrayal of a
friend must have been His greatest suffering.
If Holy Week accomplishes anything
in our lives, it should be this: it invites us to acknowledge our part
in the same betrayal. Our sinful betrayals of His love have a
different character than the act of one who sold Him for thirty pieces
of silver, but we too have dipped our hand in the dish with His. We
too have walked in His company and have called Him Lord. Yet, it was
because of our sins that He
suffered and died.
Let us pray this week for the grace
of true repentance, and if we are able to go to Confession, that we do
it with sincerity of heart and experience the life-giving effects of
the sacrament.
To his great loss, Judas didn’t
repent of his betrayal, but later that same night, Peter repented of
his. Only one of the two men became the Rock on which Christ founded
His Church.
Thank you for joining me in this
Lenten reflection. If you would like to read the previous installments
in this series or would like to return at any time, please click
here.
Your friend in Christ,
Thomas J McKenna
http://www.catholicaction.org/
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