Wednesday April 20, 2011

Matthew 26:20-22

"When it was evening, Jesus reclined at table with the Twelve. And while they were eating, he said, 'Amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me.' Deeply distressed at this, they began to say to him one after another, 'Surely it is not I, Lord?'"

I seem to have a talent for picking the parts out of the full gospel that the Little Black Book is going to highlight later. Unfortunately, this means that I have less to talk about during the week. As a side note, the Little Black Book has also designated Wednesday of Holy Week "Spy Wednesday" for reasons that pass my understanding - but apparently they didn't make it up? It's a thing?

The gospel talks about how they were all eating - so perhaps they had finished the full rite of Passover? And were not relaxing to socialize, and then Jesus hits them with this. But I think He wanted them to be prepared - to start preparing themselves for what was going to happen. And if He told them, they wouldn't understand. So He started the slow process of warning them.

Like cat-on-the-roofing someone, which is a phrase I appear determined to make happen (like the word mensiversary, but that's just so people will stop making me have a small aneurysm when they claim to celebrate their three-month-anniversary). It's an old joke I'll tell you if you don't know what I mean, but it's about preparing someone for bad news by breaking it to them little by little, so they have time to prepare themselves before you lower the boom.

It's a kindness, and here I think it's an act of love. It also gives Jesus the opportunity to try to tell Judas that he always has a choice, that he will always be loved by God.

And it is still so sad that their response is, "Surely it is not I, Lord?" Fear that they will be the one to fall. So close amongst each other that there's no one that everybody immediately suspects. It's not like Judas was the ostracized apostle then. They were the beloved, and they were close amongst themselves, and there was no division. Until there was. Because you are never "safe" from the choice between good and evil. You can only be given more and more tools to help you persevere in choosing good. But it's a choice you make all the time.

One of you will betray Me, He said. One of you will deny Me three times, He said. Most of you will not stand with Me in my hour of need. These were His closest friends, and their first thought was fear that He was right. Fear that they would be the one who fell.

There's so much love in that, for Jesus, in their first thought being utter terror at letting Him down. There's a great testament to the apostles as a group - they were, after all, able to split up the world amongst them and organize the early church without internally imploding in factious squabbling. There's a sadness of not being able to be sure that you won't fall.

I was in a play today, a ten-minute play, where I played a six-year-old boy dying of consumption who just wants his big sister, who doesn't know, to assure him that he won't go to hell when he dies. That's he's not too stupid and horrible to go to heaven. And here the apostles are asking the same thing - to be told that they are not so worthless as to betray Jesus.

But no one is worthless, and we are all God's children. It doesn't mean that the choice isn't important, but it's not the foundation of God's love for us. There is nothing we can do that upsets that.

Dear Lord, thank You for Your unthinkable love of us, for all the myriad ways You have shown it to us and continue to do so in our lives. Bless everyone who died today.