And it was night – Wednesday in Holy Week

Today brings us right up to the edge, as if we’re teetering on the brink of the days that are to come: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday. Poised to be drawn fully into the Passion of Jesus and a story of sacrifice, love, pain, and glory.

This day before the plunge is colloquially known in some quarters as “Spy Wednesday” because of the passage from John’s Gospel about the betrayal of Jesus by Judas (John 13:21-32). When Jesus tells his closest friends and community that one of them would betray him, I’m sure it was shocking and troubling. There’s a spy here. When the disciple whom Jesus loved asks “Who is it?”, the answer is not very satisfying. Perhaps it’s a literal signal “Look for the bread hand-off; that’s the one” or it can be read more generally to suggest that all those who share bread with Jesus are counted as betrayers.

Uh oh.

That’s a much bigger problem. And, yet, how else do we contend with Spy Wednesday than to identify our own place in the ways that we have confused our own loyalties to Jesus and the Gospel, to the acts of love and justice in this world? If we are tempted to cast judgement on Judas Iscariot it almost surely is because we wish to avoid our own.

And once the bread is handed over, Judas goes out to ‘do what he has to do,’ as Jesus describes it. As soon as he goes, the evangelist tells us “And it was night.” What Jesus begins talking about immediately, however, is the idea of being glorified. John’s gospel emphasizes Jesus’ work at the cross as the moment of glory, even while the world sees it as utter defeat. The world, however, only knows the stories of betrayal and judgement, the brokenness and grief, and can never conceive of such as being part of God’s glory, success, victory. The foolishness of the cross; the scandal of the cross.

And it was night. Rather than a symbol of fear or sin, night itself is here transformed, becoming the mysterious incubator of God’s glory in the midst of brokenness, of love in the midst of betrayal, of life in the midst of death.

We’re right on the edge of the wild ride. Tomorrow we gather at tables all over the world, sharing in meals of one kind or another, even if unable to gather for the Eucharist, sharing in meals together to recall the love that changes everything. Hang on.

“Now playing” on a video streaming social media site near you .  . .