The Deep Pain of Betrayal

Last night as I listened to the story again, I heard the same words over and over again, “the Jews.” I suppose I can understand how that part of the story has been used to fuel antisemitism for millennia, but I don’t think that was the intent - I hear something else.

I hear the deep pain of betrayal.

I hear it everyday in the podcasts and writers that I follow when they talk about “the evangelicals” or “the Republicans.”

It’s never meant to castigate all of the people who bear those labels, most of them know not what they do. It’s coming from those who were once members, or even leaders, within those tribes until they witnessed or experienced something deeply wrong.

When they came forward to speak the truth they were dismissed, villainized, and forced out.

That is what happened to the early Christians when they went into the synagogues to tell the people about Jesus. Today, it’s not the Jews who are betraying Jesus, it’s the Christians.

What we read is truth telling from deeply wounded people, trying desperately to communicate to their peers that their leaders are not telling them the whole truth, that they have betrayed the cause, and that some of them are capable of great evil.

It is also the call to repentance.

If we listen, we can hear the Gospel writers (and our contemporaries) saying: “Your silence made you complicit but it’s not too late. It is time to acknowledge the harm that was done in your name and turn to go in a new direction.”

As I write this on Holy Saturday, Jesus is dead and we remember the two disciples who turned their backs on him. Both felt remorse, but only one chose repentance. It wasn’t too late for Peter. It isn’t too late now.