Wednesday in Holy Week

Wednesday in Holy Week always seems to mark a turning-point for me in the journey toward the cross. The readings get more difficult because they speak of the core issues that undergird the passion — abandonment, betrayal, suffering and death — all which are contrasted with God’s abiding love. No matter how hard I try to listen to these readings with an intellectual ear, they strike at the core of my heart.

Tomorrow night we will hear the account of the institution of the holy eucharist from First Corinthians. Tonight, we hear John’s description of the last supper. The accounts differ quite a bit. John’s portrayal of any form of eucharist comes much earlier on in the gospel with the multiplication of the loaves and fishes. By the time John’s Jesus reaches the last supper, he has done the signs he was meant to do. What is left for him to do is use ‘the tongue of a teacher, to sustain the weary with a word.’ Unlike the Jesus of the other three gospels, John’s Jesus seems to know what is going on and what will happen. Consequently, he almost orchestrates his last hours. Part of this preparation comes in what is known as the ‘Last Supper Discourse’ which follows Jesus washing the disciples’ feet.

So much of the Last Supper Discourse focuses on the great commandment: ‘If I, your Lord and teacher have washed your feet, you must wash one another’s feet. I give you a new commandment: Love one another as I have loved you. Everyone will know you are my disciples if you have love for one another.’

Central to the theology of the Fourth Gospel and its companion, the First Letter of John, is the theme of God abiding in us and we in God. Loving one another as God loves us becomes our way of manifesting God in the world. The First Letter of John reiterates this idea in its words, ‘God is love, and those who abide in love, abide in God, and God in them.’ Abiding in and remaining in God’s love becomes the central mark of discipleship in John’s thought. Serving one another as disciples, washing one another’s feet, defines us as people of the Way, of Christ.

How can it be, then, that in Jesus’ glorious statement of love, two sharp and dissonant notes strike?

First, Jesus knows — even before instructing the disciples to love one another — that one of them will betray him. Even in the midst of this intimate, intense moment of communion, someone is out of place. Judas’ betrayal is so discordant that the writer of John has to add that Satan enters into Judas at the time of his receiving the morsel of bread as if to say, the action is so heinous, that it cannot come from a human’s soul but from the devil.

The other discordant note sounds in Jesus’ statement, ‘Little children, I am with you only a little while longer. You will look for me… and where I am going, you cannot come.’ Jesus softens this announcement with the term of endearment, ‘Little children,’ but it cannot soften the underlying sense of total abandonment.

So, just before instructing his disciples to love one another, Jesus raises the questions of betrayal and abandonment.

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But aren’t love, betrayal, and abandonment all mixed up together?

Given that life is not black or white, either/or, neither are we — utterly pure, utterly loving or utterly diabolical and hateful. And isn’t the people we love the most the ones we most often abandon and betray?

Jean Vanier describes betrayal as, ‘more than separation or rejection. To betray is to use the secrets of a person’s personal life, thoughts confided to a “friend,” and to turn against that person, to use their confided thoughts or words in order to hurt and defile them, to destroy a reputation.’ (1)

Facing that aspect of our hearts is always difficult, but as part of our preparation for Easter Sunday we must. We must confront those times in our relationships with our beloved family members and friends that we have abandoned them in time of need or, worse, betrayed them. Scratching a little deeper, we also must admit those times when we have betrayed God in thought, word or deed.

I often think the human heart and soul are a great mystery, why we do what we do sometimes doesn’t make sense. What does make sense is when we realise we have abandoned or betrayed the Other, and ourselves, that we seek forgiveness.

To be fair, sometimes we feel God has abandoned and betrayed us. Haven’t we all felt the need to cry out the opening lines of Psalm 22, as did Jesus: ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from the cries of my distress?’ The difference is that though we may feel God has abandoned us, God is still there for us, it is we, in the words of Simone Weil, who have turned away. God is still there and always will be.

As night falls in the Passion story, let us take some quiet time to consider those places in our lives where love, betrayal and abandonment are all mixed up and remember that God is there, too in the confusion.

END NOTE
(1) Jean Vanier, Drawn into the Mystery of Jesus through the Gospel of John (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2004), 241.