Betrayal

To be holy can be summed up in these words "to be like Christ." Jesus covered every aspect of suffering from the torturous, physical pain - beatings, scourging, thorns stuck into His head, nails driven into his body. Pain of humiliation - the hideous trial of false accusation, the shouts of "crucify Him, crucify Him," the cruel and malicious mocking, even the thief hanging alongside ridiculed Him. The pain of watching his beloved Mother as she witnessed the entire ordeal and suffered with Him. In meditating on His pain and suffering one might forget even yet another pain He endured - the betrayal of one of His own. Leaving the theology of Judas and his role behind, lets not forget that first, Jesus selected him, and that he spent three years with him. Betrayal is the most painful sting in a human relationship. It is a shattering of a bond of trust, a proverbial punch in the stomach, it is a void when and where somebody was expected to be there. It is a spouse who ran off with someone else, a father who never came home, a partner who cheated you, its being left at the train station alone. It always happens when you least expect it and the pain reverberates for a long time. Jesus included this in His suffering, He choose to have it happen, to remind us of what a lover he is. He does not want you to ever suffer a betrayal without knowing that He too was betrayed.