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[04APRIL2012] Lent | Holy Week 2012: Day 43—Reflection and Meditation

“How much will you pay me to betray him?” And they paid him thirty pieces of silver. (Matthew 26:15)

♦ Psalms 8:1-9

♦ Jeremiah 11:19

♦ Matthew 26:14-16, 20-25

Send forth your strength, O God; establish, O God, what you have wrought for us. (Psalm 68:28)

Jesus is betrayed…

My soul has been sick for most of the day, as I have meditated on the betrayal of Christ. I think how easy it is to pass judgment on Judas and the heinous act of committing the treason against God. I think I might get carried away and consider myself gripped by the metaphor of my own treason against God and then I console myself by attempting to convince my soul that I have not really committed treason against Jesus. I know that is not true though. I have committed treason against Jesus. It doesn’t matter that I have not literally handed him over to authorities to be undeservedly tortured and murdered, I’ve still betrayed him… over and over and over again. I wish I could say that my acts of betrayal are all in my past and that since I have served God “faithfully” for the last decade or more my reflection is forced solemnity, but that would be untrue.

Every act I have committed or omitted that are contrary to the nature and person of Christ are acts of betrayal, especially those that I know could have reflected Him in a positive manner. I do believe my soul is secure, but I am driven to the Cross of Christ time after time when I catch glimpses of my traitorous heart. It is here, at his cross, that I find the sustaining grace of God providing my mourning heart with the comfort and love I need.

“I was like a lamb being led to slaughter… ‘Let’s destroy this man and all his words,’ they said.” (Jer. 11:19)

Traitors we are and traitors we may be…but the grace and mercy and love of our Great God surpasses even the most treasonous acts of those who will, with humility, receive the weight of His Cross. O God in Christ Jesus forgive all my act of betrayal and denial, so I might fully embrace and receive your reconciliatory and restoring love. For me living means Christ, and dying is added blessing. I am under compulsion to glory in the Cross of Christ Jesus, my Lord. Now to Him be all the glory, honor, and fame for neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen. …not even our own betrayals against him. Amen. Amen.