Today’s Scripture Readings

Gospel Reading

NRSV

Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, ‘What will you give me if I betray him to you?’ They paid him thirty pieces of silver. And from that moment he began to look for an opportunity to betray him. On the first day of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying, ‘Where do you want us to make the preparations for you to eat the Passover?’ He said, ‘Go into the city to a certain man, and say to him, “The Teacher says, My time is near; I will keep the Passover at your house with my disciples.” ’ So the disciples did as Jesus had directed them, and they prepared the Passover meal. When it was evening, he took his place with the twelve; and while they were eating, he said, ‘Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me.’ And they became greatly distressed and began to say to him one after another, ‘Surely not I, Lord?’ He answered, ‘The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with me will betray me. The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that one by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that one not to have been born.’ Judas, who betrayed him, said, ‘Surely not I, Rabbi?’ He replied, ‘You have said so.’

The Wednesday of Holy Week has traditionally been known as Spy Wednesday, because of its focus on Judas. But it’s more about broken trust than spying – not that Jesus loses trust in Judas but that Judas loses trust in Jesus. The words of the utterly simple prayer of St Faustina, “Jesus, I trust in you”, go deep. Once we lose trust in him, all we are left with, like Judas, are betrayal and despair. We sell him for a few bucks. Once we no longer trust him, we no longer listen to him; we choose to listen to the chief priests who have never trusted Jesus or listened to his voice.

In the song of the suffering servant, we hear today from the prophet Isaiah, the servant says that morning by morning the Lord God wakens his ear to listen as those who are taught. We listen to the voice of Jesus because we trust that he listens, perfectly and always, to the voice of the Father. Jesus is the only teacher because he is the only one who listens perfectly to the Father.

Because he listens perfectly to the Father, Jesus goes to betrayal and death as the only one who knows exactly what is happening. He is not someone swept along by forces he can neither understand nor control. He knows the house where he will celebrate the Passover and who owns it; and he knows who it is who will betray him. He’s wide awake to the spying of Judas, but he doesn’t condemn him: Judas condemns himself. Judas may think he’s the one who really knows what’s going on, but in fact he is lost in a dark world of ignorance. Jesus is the one who knows, and we seek to see with his eye, not with the eye of Judas, saying “Jesus, I trust in you”.