XOXOXO

I was recently thinking (pondering really) about how people sometimes can convey a certain message while the reality of the heart is quite different. I was struggling with the fact that someone could profess great love while at the same time commit terrible acts of un-love. It seems totally incongruous to us and it is. But it happens. I’m not thinking of the many little slip-ups we all make in our relationships with those we truly love. I’m talking about treachery. How can people say that they love, or convey it in all kinds of typical manners, and yet at the same time, knowingly, cause immeasurable hurt and suffering to those they are claiming to care about?  

As difficult as it is for us to understand this, we can draw some comfort from knowing that Jesus Himself experienced precisely that. We often think, and rightly so, about the suffering that Christ endured on our behalf. We typically think of the Cross of course, but one of the things experienced by Christ that caused Him immense pain was in fact the betrayal of one He considered to be among His closest friends.

This is not an obscure truth. It is very much a part of the atonement. The prophetic forerunners of the Old Testament introduce us to it. King David, speaking from a great deal of personal experience, but also speaking prophetically of the sufferings of Christ, cried out in great pain:

“Even my close friend, whom I trusted, he who shared my bread, has lifted up his heel against me.”

Psa 41:9

And Jesus, the night He was betrayed refers to this very passage:

“I am not referring to all of you; I know those I have chosen. But this is to fulfill the scripture: ‘He who shares my bread has lifted up his heel against me.’”

Jn 13:18

Then, in a poignant moment dripping with irony, Jesus used the prophetic symbol to identify the one who would betray Him…

“Jesus answered, “It is the one to whom I will give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.” Then, dipping the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, son of Simon.”

Jn 13:26

A shared meal is one of the strongest biblical symbols for goodwill and relational harmony (communion). Another is the kiss. The kiss is perhaps even the greatest and most common symbol of affection there is. As near as I can figure, both of these acts are considered as such in every culture on earth. So is it not significant that Jesus used the sop to identify the one who would betray Him and that Judas used a kiss, the most common and cherished means of conveying affection, to commit the most preposterous act of betrayal the world has ever seen? 

It gives a whole new appreciation for the words spoken by the prophet Isaiah:

“The Lord says: ‘These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.’”  Isa 29:13a

It should also give us a whole new appreciation for the incredible significance of the substitutionary nature of the sufferings of Christ. Once again drawing from the writings of Isaiah the Prophet, in the fifty third chapter, Jesus was not only One ‘familiar with suffering’ but He was a ‘man of sorrows’. He not only ‘took our infirmities’ but He also ‘carried our sorrows’. Jesus died for our sins. We know that, but we need to know it more. He also died for our sorrows. Maybe that deserves some more thought too.