Holy Wednesday is also known as “Spy Wednesday”—it’s the day we see Judas in the process of betraying Jesus. Devastating pieces of the story unfold here. And yet, that all happens in the background. While the story takes its dark turn—of dear friend betraying God-with-him—Jesus continues in Holy Week as if it is his only to live into his final days as his full, human self. It’s not that he’s unaware of what Judas is setting up behind the scenes (we see at the Last Supper that he is *quite* aware of it); it’s that it doesn’t change who he is or why he has come. Jesus is fully himself today, too. Whatever emotional response he must be having, in his awareness of all that is happening, he continues to live and love and be loved. Not that he ignores those feelings that must be arising: betrayal, grief at losing this friend, perhaps even dread of what is coming (when he would soon be sweating in the Garden, pleading for the cup to pass without his drinking it!). He continues to pray, to be with his friends, to speak the truths he longs for them to “get” about himself and the way the world is, the way God is. What is your experience of Holy Wednesday, today, *this* week? What are the emotions you are carrying in your body, in your experience of your story right now? And how might Jesus be inviting you to continue to be yourself, loving and being loved, in the midst of it all? What settles in you when you name your emotions, and at the same time remember who you are and who God is? Perhaps you even experience the emotion more deeply, since you don’t have to hold that at bay anymore; you only have to be present with the reality of what-is, this particular Wednesday of Holy Week. What does this day hold, in your own journey into Holy Week?

Posted by Jamie Bonilla at 2023-04-05 15:01:01 UTC