Tuesday of Holy Week
Possibly the worst thing you can do to any lover of movie or television is spoil the ending of a good story. There are movies that are fifteen years old that I don’t know the ending to, because people will say “Well, I won’t spoil the ending” as if now of all times, I’m going to go out and watch that movie. Today, Jesus spoils one of the plot twists for the disciples. He tells them, “the one who I had the morsel after I have dipped it [will betray me],” and then does so and hands it directly to Judas (John 13:26). Jesus builds all this suspense about his betrayal, and then tells us what’s going to happen without giving us time to guess until the big reveal!
But the disciples, true to their nature, have no idea what’s going on. They see Judas take the morsel, then as they watch him leave, they assume he’s going to prepare the feast or give to the poor. It never crosses their minds that Judas would be the one to betray Jesus, because they probably had a hard time believing anyone would.
Holy Week is an important and powerful time for us Catholics – we prepare ourselves to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus at Easter. I think, though, as we prepare for that celebration, it’s easy to forget the process that got us there. We know the end of the story, and we know the big twist ending. No matter how many times we go over it, the story is the same. But like characters in a movie, the disciples don’t know what’s happening, and they have to experience everything in real-time. What we now call Holy Week was certainly a confusing week for the disciples. Jesus came in with excitement and joy, then started immediately giving confusing signals about betrayal and his eventual death. It would not have been an easy time for the disciples. Reading the events of Holy Week with the end in mind is a hopeful exercise – through it, we see God conquering death and redeeming all of humanity from original sin. But we only know that happens because we know the ending. Right now, this hopeful story is about to tip into the deepest and most difficult few days, and that is easy to miss when we already know the ending.
This Holy Week, let us seek to understand the loss the disciples experienced. Let us seek to know the pain they felt – not that we might despair as they did, but that we might also experience their same joy and hope in Jesus’ Resurrection.
-Marty Bagatti