As kids, we were only allowed to watch an hour of television a day between 5.00 and 6.00. By the time my sister, brother and I had settled on a show, we’d already missed the first five minutes of it. In any event, my recollections of shows are few but one Superman adventure has always stuck in my mind — for whatever reason, don’t ask me why.
All I can remember of it and my memories are a bit foggy (from having seen it probably at age 5 or 6) is that Lois Lane and another man have been put into a cellar by the evildoers. All of a sudden the walls begin to move inward and it is clear that they are going to be crushed by this horrible vice. The walls get closer and closer and they try to keep them from advancing by holding the walls apart with their feet on one side and back on the other but the walls are stronger than they are. The walls keep moving and moving… until Superman swoops down and holds them apart long enough for the two of them to climb out (somehow). As I said, I don’t remember the details too well.
This is how my heart feels when we reach this point of the week and hear Jesus’ words to the disciples, ‘Little children, I am with you only a little longer.’ And the difference between the Superman show and the gospel is that no magical person is going to swoop down out of the sky and pull Jesus off the cross. Jesus, fully knowing what will happen to him, walks into his death foretold and does so gently and graciously.
Here he is, at his last meal with his disciples, who are his friends. His best friend, perhaps John, always called the ‘beloved disciple,’ rests next to him. They share a meal but unlike the meal that Jesus has had with his friends Lazarus, Martha and Mary, there is nothing gentle or sweet. Jesus’ spirit is troubled and he reveals to the disciples what it is with the shocking words: ‘Very truly, I tell you, one of you will betray me.’
Those words are as much a vice around the heart as the knowledge that he is going to die. The disciples are clueless about what is going on and they certainly do not want to be the one who will betray their master and friend.
Jesus makes clear who it will be to betray him by dipping his piece of bread in the dish and giving it to Judas. It seems strange that bread should be the indicator of betrayal for shortly Jesus will take bread again and give it to his disciples, telling them it is his body given for them.
Even as his heart breaks, Jesus speaks to the disciples about loving one another. His giving them the new commandment will result in his washing their feet, the ultimate act of humility and service.
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How does Jesus do it? How does he remain so calm, so present, so with it in the face of not only his impending death but also the reality of Judas’ betrayal?
Betrayal—literally, to hand over, to deceive, to lead astray, to fail to meet the hopes of someone—elicits powerful emotions. At some point or another in life, we betray someone or are betrayed by someone or an institution, like the church. Betrayal happens on many levels and though it can be around something inconsequential, the nature and results of betrayal are never inconsequential.
Whether one is the betrayer or the betrayed, when the situation comes to light, one’s life can be turned upside-down, shattered and seemingly destroyed. The vice-like walls of anger, sadness, despair, hopelessness and all the other negative emotions threaten to crush one. Depending on the severity of the betrayal, one can’t function or even think straight. One’s feeling and sense of well-being in the world have been undermined and it seems as though one will never emerge from the weight of it all. Forgiveness can seem so alien in the early stages of revelation of the betrayal that one feels that the walls have already crushed one’s heart and there is no way out, no one to pry the walls apart.
Psalm 41.9 states poignantly the results of betrayal: Even my best friend, whom I trusted, who broke bread with me, has lifted up his heel and turned against me.
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John’s Jesus does not allow those walls of anger and hatred, the result of his being betrayed by Judas, close in on him. He surmounts the agony of betrayal and, instead, in his last hours, teaches the disciples how they ought to live, no matter what, despite the weakness that is so much a part of human nature. He tells them, ‘I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.’
This commandment is perhaps one of the hardest ones to follow if one’s heart is mired in anger, unable to forgive. Forgiveness is not simply a one-time act; it is a gradual process of reducing resentment. It is also, when it involves a person (rather than an institution, though institutions are always made up of individuals), gaining empathy for the other. It comes at the end of a journey of letting go. It is a gift one gives to oneself; it is a choice; it is a process; it is letting go of bitterness and resentment; and it is letting go of the pain. It gives life, it removes whatever obstacle there has been to communion. It is, finally, arriving at the commandment that Jesus gave us, to love one another as he loved us.
Parenthetically, forgiveness does not always lead to reconciliation; reconciliation, a gift from God, may be the ultimate end of the journey but sometimes in life, one only arrives at the point of forgiveness, of letting what ever anger and resentments there are no longer have power over our lives.
Jesus does not desire us to live within the vice-like walls of anger, even when it is justified by being the recipient of an act of betrayal. Instead he beckons us to new life, freed from this negativity. Perhaps understanding how hard it is for humanity to forgive, he gave us not only the example of washing one another's feet but himself.
Jean Vanier says in The Scandal of Service: Jesus Washes Our Feet, ‘These two symbolic acts [washing the disciples’ feet and giving himself up in bread and wine] around the body, his own body and the body of each one of his disciples are gestures of communion and love.… Without the eucharist we cannot live out such a deep presence and communion of the heart with others.’ (1)
Whatever untied, loose ends there are in your life — current or past — offer them up with the bread and the wine, and know that they are transformed and you are made new.
Let Jesus dwell within in you, abide with you, that you might become an instrument of pardon and peace, too… so that one by one, through us, the world might all be reconciled.
END NOTE
(1) New York, NY: Continuum, 1998, 36.
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