from Art in the Christian Tradition a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN
21 Jesus was becoming visibly distressed.
Jesus: I tell you the truth: one of you will betray Me.John 13:21, The Voice Bible
I’m sure by now we are ready for the feasting. Enough with sacrifice, visions of death, and endings! We get it, we are ready, let’s go to resurrection!
Then as we gather we recognize that it is not so simple. That there is still much work ahead, still decisions to make, and stories to tell. We must face some realities before we are truly ready to experience new life. Among the toughest of those realities is our tendency to betray.
We betray ourselves, each other, and God often. We, with our own agendas, we with our figured out religion, we with our righteous indignation, we betray. We do it out of our own brokenness, our own insecurities and our own fears. Our of our sinful tendency to want to make God’s kingdom in our own image, where we get to choose who is in and who is out, where we get to place ourselves in the forefront, at the right hand.
On this Holy Wednesday we are asked to wait a bit longer. To examine our hearts and life and see how we are agents of betrayal for ourselves, others, and God. How time and time again we fail to love like God loves, to serve like Christ serves, to sacrifice like Christ sacrificed, to die to self like Christ did . . . we must get ready, for a last meal is around the corner, death imminent, despair around the corner, the ingredients of hope, of new life, coming together!
“Move us from the grip of that deathly squeeze,
move by your innocence,
move by your weakness,
move by your passion.”Walter Brueggemann
in Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth (156)