Tuesday of Holy Week - March 26, 2024

 Isaiah 49:1-6     John 13:21-33, 36-38

The contrast between Isaiah’s beautiful prose about the world’s salvation in the First Reading and Jesus’ calling out of Judas and Peter in the Gospel could not be more stark.

Isaiah uses hopeful rhetoric to describe how God fashioned his servant in his mother’s womb, formed him into a “polished arrow,” and deployed him to be a “light to the nations” and to bring salvation “to the ends of the earth.” Isaiah’s decision both to speak in the first person and then to toss in a reference to “Israel” is a bit confusing to a simpleton like me (I have never been confused with a biblical scholar). But I assume Isaiah was foreshadowing Jesus’ future arrival when he referred to the servant as a “polished arrow,” kept in God’s quiver, only to be deployed when necessary to save the world. The phrase “polished arrow” keeps echoing back to me.

Meanwhile, in reading the Gospel I am overcome by the unwritten phrase “human weakness.” Jesus reprimands his betrayer as well as his most notable disciple. Both were weak. They were human. One betrayed his Lord for greed (or perhaps concern that things had gotten out of hand, for those who get their theology from Andrew Lloyd Webber). The other would ultimately abandon his Lord and would deny any connection to him (three times) out of fear.

History has generally cast Judas as the villain and Peter in a favorable light (other than the denial and that bit about the sword in the garden). Nevertheless, both betrayed the Lord. And the Gospel focuses on the Lord reprimanding them for their human weakness. Ironically, both moments of human weakness ultimately led to our salvation. Did there need to be a Judas for Jesus to die for our sins? If Peter would not have denied the Lord, would he have been hanging next to Jesus on the cross and Christianity would have been stopped before it ever started (without its “rock” and first Pope)? By contrast, my many moments of human weakness seem to do nothing to fulfill the prophecy laid out in the scriptures. They fail to advance humanity in any way.

Q: How can my behavior and structure of my life resemble the “polished arrow” instead of giving into my human weakness and letting down those who love me?

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