Wisdom Wednesday: Spy Wednesday

Grace and peace to you. I’m Rev. Joe Cailles, the pastor of Peakland United Methodist Church in Lynchburg Virginia. I’m posting videos each Wednesday sharing devotions and church news. Today is Wednesday April 5, and we are mid-way in Holy Week.

Last Sunday, Palm Sunday, Peakland worshipped as a united congregation. We read and listened to passages from the Gospel of Matthew as Jesus came into the city of Jerusalem while his followers and fans waved palm branches and lined their cloaks on the road to greet him. But we didn’t stop with just the Palm Sunday reading, we kept on reading and listening to Matthew’s accounts of the major events of holy week all the way up to Jesus’ death on the cross and his burial in a borrowed tomb.

Tomorrow on Maundy Thursday Peakland will gather for worship to share communion, and then we’ll worship together again on Good Friday, in which we go with Jesus to the cross. Next Sunday, Easter Sunday, we’ll gather at sunrise and throughout the morning for our Easter worship services. Peakland has a full Holy Week: Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday.

As I said today is Wednesday, and I just learned this week that the church has given this day an official name as well. I don’t believe I ever knew that, but this is the day that the church calls Spy Wednesday. S-P-Y, spy as in secret agent. The spy in Spy Wednesday is Judas.

According to the Gospels Judas Iscariot, a disciple of Jesus, made the decision to betray Jesus and he began to spy out opportunities to turn Jesus over to the religious authorities. None of the Gospels indicate exactly when Judas made that decision, but it happened between Palm Sunday and the Passover on Thursday, so today Wednesday is Spy Wednesday.

Why did Judas do what he did? Why did he make that decision? The scriptures don’t ever tell us what Judas was thinking. In Matthew’s Gospel, Judas approached the religious authorities just after an unnamed woman spent a large amount of money to buy a special oil to anoint Jesus. Perhaps Judas was angry at the extravagant cost of the oil and let his anger consume him. He would not be the first or the last man to let anger lead to violence.

Perhaps Judas’ betrayal had nothing to do with the oil. Perhaps Judas was so convinced that Jesus was the longed-for military messiah that would liberate the Jewish nation from Roman rule that Judas decided to force the issue with Jesus and make Jesus declare himself King rather than submit to the authorities. Judas would not be the first or last man to let his pride lead him to destructive behavior.

We can speculate all we want trying to understand why Judas does what he does, but a better use of our time is to look inward to confess the ways that we betray Christ, to confess the ways that we deny him as Peter did, and to confess the ways that we do not always live in the ways that Jesus teaches us. We don’t love all our neighbors as ourselves. We are not as generous with our time and our God given talents that we know we could be. We hold onto grudges and resentments rather than seek reconciliation. We let our pride and vanity convince us we are better and more deserving than others.

On this Spy Wednesday, let us confess that we are all spies.

And yet, and yet, Jesus, who was fully aware of what Judas was planning, welcomed Judas at his table. Jesus was fully aware that Judas was spying him out, and that Peter would deny him and that all the male disciples would flee. And Jesus broke bread with all of them and offered all of them the cup. John’s Gospel says that Jesus washed the feet of all those who would betray him and deny him and desert him.