Today's Gospel

The Most Surprising Pairing in the Gospels?

Two things I want to talk to you about in this reading this week. The reading is the Last Supper. We've heard it 100 times. But the two things that really struck me as I was reflecting upon it was this: the first thing Jesus says is, "I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you." Earnestly desired. It wasn't a casual thing. It wasn't, "Oh, yeah. We're going to do this because we do this Passover thing every year." No. He earnestly desired to eat this Passover with His disciples. What is it that you earnestly desire? What is it that you earnestly desire? We have lots of shallow, superficial desires, but what are the good things? What are the great things? What is the truth, the beauty, the goodness, the justice, the nobility that you earnestly desire? And how do you get reconnected with that earnest desire for these good things, for these great things, and how do you give them a place in your life so that in the moments throughout the day, you can be aware of, "Oh, I earnestly desire that. And my earnest desire for that is so much more important and greater than my shallow, superficial desires for all these thousands of other little things."

Jesus earnestly desired to be with them for that Passover. And He earnestly desires to be with you and me. And do we understand? Do we believe? Do we accept that Jesus earnestly desires to spend time with us? That was the first thing that struck me in this reading. And when I'm looking at these readings, I'm often trying to think, "Okay. What is the thing here that I've missed before, that I haven't seen before, that I was not aware of, I was unconscious about, especially the readings that are so much a part of our lives and that we have heard or read many, many times?"

The second thing that jumped out at me here was when Jesus said-- so when the section, "This is my body which is given for you," does the same with the cup. And then he says, "But behold, the hand of him who betrays me is with me at this table." What was that like? You think about Jesus and the disciples sitting around the table, and Jesus says, "Oh, and by the way, the guy who's going to betray me unto death is sitting here at the table." What was that like? And when you think about it, it must be an astounding moment. But we read through these lines with little awareness, with little consciousness. We just read straight through that because we don't put ourselves there. We don't consider the circumstances. We don't consider the people as real people, as real human beings.

And we do that in our own lives as well. Things will happen, and we don't really treat people like people because we're in a rush to do something else or rush to think about something else. But Jesus sits there, and he says, "But behold, the hand of him who will betray me is with me at this table." You can just imagine what the disciples thought to start looking at each other, start questioning each other, doubting each other, wondering who it is. All of that's natural. All of that's human. The other thing is that this is line by line. It's so close to each other.

So, in one line, you've got Jesus saying, "This is my body which is given for you." Okay. So the church tells us that the Eucharist is the source and the summit of the Christian life. Okay. So this one line, it's like the source and the summit of the Christian life. "This is my body, which is given for you." And then two lines later, "But behold, the hand of him who betrays me is at this table with me." It's a good lesson for us about life. We have amazing experiences in life. And what we don't realize is that very difficult experiences, some of the hardest experiences of our lives, can be close on the heels of some of the best experiences in our lives. And yet, the other thing we've realized here is that Jesus has given them the solution to the problem. He said, "This is my body. It's given for you. It will nourish you. It will nourish all forever." And then, of course, yes, the betrayer is here, but I've given you the solution. I've given you the food, the nourishment that you need to press on and live the life that you're called to.