Can We Forgive Betrayal?
Maundy Thursday is a roller coaster of a ride as we sit with Jesus and his disciples at the Last Supper, then watch him agonize in the garden of Gethsemane, and finally see Judas betray him. We don’t tend to spend much time thinking about betrayal and how often Jesus as betrayed during this last week of his life.
Judas was an obvious betrayer who sort his own advancement and was disillusioned by what Jesus offered. But before that there were his disciples who could not stay awake while Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane. I suspect that Jesus felt their inattention like a betrayal of his agony. Then there was Peter, afraid, bewildered, anxious for his own life, unable to understand what Jesus arrest meant. He too betrayed Jesus. Then the crowds turned on him. From Hosanna to “Crucify him” was a horrific step of betrayal. Finally Jesus himself felt betrayed. As he hung on the Cross he cried out to God “Why have you abandoned me?”
Betrayal did not begin with the story of Jesus and Holy Week however. It goes right back to that first garden, the Garden of Eden where Adam and Eve betrayed God’s trust in them and ate the forbidden fruit.
We have all suffered betrayal at some point in our lives and we have all betrayed others and also Jesus. Some of us carry guilt for the rest of our lives because of those betrayals, unable to reach out and accept the forgiveness that is offered. We hide. We make excuses. We cover our guilt.
It seems to me that betrayal doesn’t matter as much as our response to it. Adam and Eve hid from God because of their guilt. I have often wondered how different our story would be if instead they had come before God in their shame and guilt and sort forgiveness. Judas committed suicide because of his guilt. Could he too have found forgiveness I wonder if he had not run away from Jesus but towards him?
Peter on the other hand runs towards Jesus. I love the scene on the beach after Jesus resurrection as described in John 21. When Peter sees Jesus he doesn’t hold back. He doesn’t hide. In spite of his guilt, he immediately plunges into the sea and hurries towards his beloved Master. There are no words of confession and forgiveness recorded but we know they are there. Jesus meets Peter with the bread and the fish of fellowship and forgiveness. He affirms his love for Peter and Peter’s important role in the coming story of his followers. It is one of the most beautiful scenes in the gospels.
As I contemplated this today, it occurred to me that the Last Supper and this first supper in the new creation that Jesus brought into being are the bookends for the Easter story. At the Last Supper the seeds of betrayal are planted in Judas, and maybe in the other disciples already grappling to understand the incomprehensible future that Jesus is hinting at. Then in the First Supper of the new creation forgiveness and fellowship, love and harmony embrace once more. The fractured community that scattered at the cross is brought together again as a cohesive and caring community that will in the days to come change the world.
All of us are familiar with betrayal. We betray ourselves, others, and God but we too have the potential to respond in two ways. We can hide from the one we have betrayed and run away from the consequences of our betrayal or like Peter we can run towards the one we betrayed and willingly break bread together and seek forgiveness. How powerfully different the results of these actions are. One path leads to death, the other to life.
In today’s world many of us feel betrayed and hurt by the events that are chaotically swirling around us. How do we respond to betrayal? Are we like Peter willing to sit down and break bread with those we feel have betrayed us, or that we have betrayed? I think that Holy Week is the perfect time to think about this and ask ourselves who we need to seek out, eat with and seek forgiveness.
Betrayal shakes the bones
Of our confidence,
And leaves us hurt and bewildered,
Angry and lost.
Did the disciples feel lost,
When Judas turned his hand
Against their leader?
They too were betrayed.
Their small but courageous band,
Now ripped apart,
A gaping hole in their midst.
Did they too turn their backs,
Not just on Jesus but on Judas,
Did they compound his guilt
And drive him to take his own life?
Betrayal demands response.
We can hide or we can welcome.
We can run away or run towards.
We can sit at table,
And break bread together
Or refuse to offer hospitality
And extend forgiveness.
One path leads to death,
The other leads to life.
Thanks for this Christine, there is a quiet fire beneath this reflection—a smoldering ache that burns gently through the surface of Holy Week, where the betrayer is not always the villain in the corner, but the trembling one within. In Desert and Fire, I’ve often tried to name this mystery: that our spiritual journey is marked not merely by the high notes of fidelity, but by the long shadows of faltering love. Betrayal, in this telling, is not only Judas’s kiss—it is the sleep in Gethsemane, the turning of the crowd, the subtle avoidance of the cross when it demands too much.
And yet, the glory of Christ is not that He surrounded Himself with the loyal, but that He endured the wound of their weakness and loved them still. The thread that binds the Upper Room to the beach at daybreak is not moral superiority, but the refusal of Christ to let betrayal be the final word. In the desert, God asked, “Where are you?”—not to shame, but to call Adam and Eve out of hiding. On the shore, He does the same with Peter—not asking for explanations, but for love.
The Cloud of Unknowing taught me that true return does not come through perfect knowledge or crafted apologies, but through surrender into the nameless mercy of God. So too with Peter. He leaps into the water not because he has figured it out, but because love drew him. That is all Christ ever asks.
So thanks again for this. You remind us that in a world haunted by betrayal, the holiest act may be to break bread once more—with those we’ve wounded, those who’ve wounded us, and the God whose hands never withdrew, even from the one who fled.
So well said...Both Judas and Peter (and all of us) as betrayers. It was "at the foot of the cross" a few years ago that I finally forgave my betrayers--and found healing from the anger that I was only punishing myself with. More recently, I was given the opportunity in a retreat setting to "exchange" the shame of my own betrayal for the loving embrace of Jesus.