Beloved Betrayer (Apr 6, Maundy Thursday)

Readings

  • John 13:1–30

  • Matthew 5:43–48

Silent Reflection

Remarks

After he had said this, Jesus was troubled in spirit and testified, “Very truly I tell you, one of you is going to betray me.”

John 13:21 (NIV)

When I remember the Last Supper, what comes first to mind is Jesus washing the disciples’ feet. And then I remember how he instituted what we now call the Eucharist. And I also remember his command (“mandatum” in the Latin, which gives us the name Maundy Thursday) to love one another. In other words, on Maundy Thursday I remember how Jesus looked ahead to his own death and initiated his disciples into the way of his love, that they also should love the world through their own descending and dying.

And then there are times I remember that betrayal was also a significant topic of conversation at the Last Supper table, and that it’s here at the table where Judas began his betrayal of Jesus.

But I don’t usually think about how these two aspects—sacrificial love on the one hand, betrayal on the other—are woven together. It usually escapes me that when Jesus washed the disciples’ feet, he washed Judas’s feet too.

And when he gives the command to love one another, it is after he names his betrayer.

Dante (yes, that Dante) gave us a guided tour of hell in The Inferno, in which he mapped out the nine levels of hell and which kinds of people go where. The deeper the level, the worse the sin. And do you know which sin the deepest and most torturous level was reserved for? 

1: Virtuous Non-Christians
2: Lust
3: Gluttony
4: Greed
5: Wrath
6: Heresy
7: Violence
8: Fraud

And the deepest circle of hell goes to…

9: Betrayers (featuring Judas himself at the bottom of the deepest circle!)

Dante says the worst thing anyone can do is to betray someone else, and those of us who have experienced betrayal might well agree. If Dante is right, it makes me ask: If these ones are furthest from the love of God, then why should I keep them any nearer to mine?

It turns out, though, that in the Gospels the betrayer is not in the deepest circle of hell, but there in the upper room with Jesus, sharing the table, getting his feet washed. As far as I can tell from the scenes of the Last Supper on Maundy Thursday, betrayers are not excluded from the love of God or from the company of those Jesus calls us to love. (Note well that Judas casts himself into the outer darkness.)

We have to grapple with this question: Does Jesus love Judas?

This is understandably difficult for us, even those who already have a wide-reaching, open-arms love for the world around us. Love for the stranger? Yes. For the widow and orphan? Of course. For the addict? Yes, yes. But for my betrayer? The one whose deception or greed or lust or anger have ruined my own life? From pretty much every angle, it makes no sense. It is anti-sense.

Does the love of God make sense?

And so the mandate of this Thursday has a real sting to it. The call to love as Jesus loves is not always pleasant or warm or gentle; sometimes it is great and terrible. Maundy Thursday tends to hit like a ton of bricks in this light, and it makes me say along with the disciples, “Lord, I do not know the way to where you are going.” I don’t know how to do that. I don’t want to do that. I don’t know if I can do that.

He knows. He knows. He really does. And he is out in front of us, giving us a way to follow.

Maybe we have to reframe what it means for Jesus to wash the disciples’ (and our) feet. We see it as a symbol of cleansing, of salvation, of forgiveness. I wonder if we should also see it as a commissioning into a way of life. It’s not just something he does to us; it’s an example he sets for us.

“Unless I wash you, you have no part with me,” he said.

Do you remember that this isn’t the first time someone’s feet have been washed in the Gospels? Do you remember how in John 12, just one chapter before this famous foot-washing scene, Mary took an expensive jar of perfume and broke it open and washed the feet of Jesus with it? That’s right—Jesus had his feet washed before he washed the feet of his disciples. And do you remember why Jesus said that Mary had done this?

To prepare him for his burial. His love was going to take him to his death, and she was getting him ready.

What if Jesus washed his disciples’ feet to prepare them for the same? Maybe we can see it as a sort of baptism, of baptizing them into his death. A baptism into his love. Maybe we have to understand that when Jesus washes us, he’s not just making us clean for the sake of cleanliness, but he’s preparing us to follow after him in his love, no matter who it might be for or how much it will cost us.

Maybe he washes us so we too can wash the feet of our betrayers.

I think he knows it is hard. In fact, I know he does. It happened to him. “I am sending you a helper,” Jesus said. “I am sending you a helper.”

Silent Reflection

Response

  • What are some of the different definitions we give to the word “love”?

  • What is the love of Jesus like, and how is it different from those other senses? What does it mean to love as he loved us?

  • Why is it so difficult to love those who have betrayed us?

  • What is one small thing you can do this week as an act of Jesus-like love for an enemy or betrayer of yours?