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Betrayal (1)

“During the meal Jesus said, ‘One of you will betray me’. The disciples were very upset and begun to ask him one after the other, ‘Surely, Lord, you don’t mean me?’”
— Matthew 26:21-22

A Common Experience

To be betrayed, to have our goodwill exploited for another’s advantage, to suffer the treachery of one in whom we have confidence, is a terrible experience. It is a soul-searching experience, indeed. It violates our trust, our sense of justice, and it destroys mutual confidence, which is the basis of all human relations. Yet, it is one of the most persistent problems of our human existence.

In one form or another we all have experienced being betrayed. For instance, when a contract we made was violated, when a covenant was one-sidedly broken, when a man or woman in whom we put our faith turned against us, or when a president who promised to sacrifice not to run for presidency for the sake of the country’s unity ran anyway, we have been betrayed. Betrayal happens to all of us in our daily lives.

What arouses and hurts us is the way in which goodness is constantly betrayed by the turn of events that often denies all justice, and seems to obliterate any evidence of God’s action to conquer or crush evil. Betrayal strikes at our faith. This is where we come closest to the problem. The force of all other betrayals is born of the deep sense of injustice that comes into focus in the crisis of Jesus’ encounter with both in his life and on the cross. If anyone ever felt the force of betrayal, it was Jesus.

Much has been written and spoken about Jesus’ sufferings, and almost without exception we are identifying ourselves with Jesus, his sufferings, spiritual disappointments, and pains. In doing so, we again become aware of the many setbacks, disappointments, and sad experiences we have been exposed to by other people in our own lives.

But we are wrong when we, in compassion and love for Jesus our Lord keep forgetting who we are; that in fact we, too, just like the unfaithful disciples over whom we sit in righteous judgment, are poor, fallible, sinful, and forgetful human beings. Like them, we are also liable to stumble and to fall, to commit errors, mistakes, and deceit, even treachery. #

Continued next week

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