Betrayal is a subtle visitor . . . until it isn’t.
On the night that Jesus was betrayed, only Jesus saw the darkness lurking. He had gathered with his disciples to eat Passover. Jesus, always the one to use every moment to open hearts to Truth, took the towel and basin and washed his disciples’ feet. Peter, outspoken as always, protested the inappropriateness of his Master turned servant.
Jesus looked into Peter’s eyes and helped Peter realize this washing was not about dirty feet. It was an invitation to surrender more of Peter’s raw and misguided enthusiasm.
Judas was there with dirty feet and misguided assumptions. Jesus gave Judas the same opportunity for surrender that he gave the other disciples. However, seeds of betrayal had already been growing. We saw them at Mary and Martha’s house when Mary washed Jesus’s feet with expensive perfume and Judas called it waste. It was betrayal hidden behind logic.
I have been asking myself what seeds might be buried in my life? Where do I use logic to identify mission and ministry? Where do my needs or insecurities betray the call of Jesus to follow him without struggle or reticence? Where have I allowed Jesus to wash my feet but not my hopes and dreams?
The important question as we journey toward the cross is whose response will we choose? Peter’s or Judas’?
Is it possible to experience a true resurrection of all that Jesus came to bring if betrayal lurks? Resurrection cannot live with anything that sabotages life in the abundant way Jesus came to share.
We must ask, “Lord, is it I?”
Unlike Judas, we still have time to choose life.
