Tuesday of Holy Week
In the scenes from the Book of John that are before us today, the disciples are confused—and for good reason. Jesus is saying that one of them will betray him. They are wondering what betrayal he is talking about and who he could possibly mean. He’s also saying something about being glorified and about God being glorified in him. Given the betrayal he has just predicted, what does he mean about being glorified? And he’s saying that he will soon be gone but he won’t say where he’s going. When Peter asks Jesus directly about this, Jesus says that Peter can’t follow him—at least not now. And when Peter presses him, Jesus says this strange thing about how Peter (who has just promised to lay down his life for Jesus) will deny him not once but three times.
The disciples are confused for good reason because they don’t know about Easter. And, as followers of Jesus who don’t know yet anything about Easter, they have things to teach us.
One thing they have to teach us is that to experience the fullness of this day—this Tuesday of Holy Week—we need to put Sunday out of our minds. Yes, of course, we need to think about that Easter dinner menu or whether our favorite skirt or pair of slacks is back from the cleaners or when we’re going to dye the eggs. But from the perspective of our faith, we need to remember that it’s only Tuesday. Today, we are not on our way to Easter. We are on our way to Good Friday.
Another thing the disciples have to teach us is humility. We want so very much to believe that we would never betray Jesus. Surely, we would never deny him. But do we know that for sure? If we had witnessed Jesus’ crucifixion, wouldn’t we have run for our lives?
And, finally, we need to remember that we actually do deny Jesus all the time. Whenever we do not love our neighbors as ourselves, whenever we do not love our enemy, whenever we do not love our brothers and sisters in the church, we deny Jesus.
Like the disciples, we are often confused and regularly come up short in ways that really matter. May we, on this Tuesday of Holy Week, confess that. And may we thank God that He loves us anyway.
Amen.
- Sue Trollinger