Sacrificial Love: God's Answer to Evil
Fr. Tim Nunez
Today’s Gospel presents a moment that is at once extremely encouraging and most somber.
Not long ago I received a call from a young woman who is getting started in life, early 20’s. She was in tears because she had been reading about terrible suffering that some children endure, especially in human trafficking and especially in developing nations. That got her thinking about other awful things. She wanted to know why God allows such evil in the world.
When Judas leaves Jesus and the other disciples that night of the Last Supper, it is one of the most awful moments in human history. We spend a lot of time and energy trying to figure out the best ways to help people learn about Jesus. That includes introducing his story and him for the first time, helping people to grow in their knowledge and love of him, and helping people who have drifted away from him or been wounded by life or even the Church in some way. We view all of that in terms of progress; if only they knew, or if only we knew better.
But here, Judas knows Jesus very well. He has been up close. He has seen the miracles, heard the teaching and watched his example, day by day for years. Yet, somehow he has soured. Maybe it is resentment. Maybe he’s jealous. For whatever reasons, he has grown callous toward Jesus. He doesn’t see. He doesn’t believe. Even after the Last Supper, this is my body, this is my blood, he doesn’t believe. Even after Jesus demonstrated extraordinary servant leadership in washing Judas’ feet along with the rest, he still leaves. Judas goes out into the night, and into utter darkness.
Last week we looked a bit at the type of messiah Jesus wasn’t. He wasn’t what most expected, the type who would lead an insurrection against the occupying Romans. This week we look a bit more closely at the type of messiah Jesus is.
Jesus responds to Judas departing to betray him – he knows exactly where Judas is going – by saying, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him.” Jesus is the kind of messiah that must suffer, must go to the cross, must remain faithful to his Father’s will. All of that will proceed on schedule, at once. But how does that conquer evil?
Kim Howes Zabbia wrote a book called Painted Diaries about her journey with her mother through Alzheimer’s disease. She approached it in a unique way. Kim would get her mother to talk, to tell stories from her past or relate as best she could how she felt in the moment.
Sometimes the memories were joyful, sometimes they were sad, sometimes they were funny and sometimes they were descriptions of people and places. Sometimes she felt pretty good, other times she was down or afraid when she was aware that things were not quite right in her own mind.
Kim is a professional artist and would then paint pictures based on what her mother told her. In all of that, Kim learned an important lesson that helped her cope with her mother’s decline. She focused on what remained of her mother’s mind, not what was lost or more specifically mourning each step of her decline.
Caregiving is difficult. It is often frustrating, at times because the patient is suffering and relief is hard to obtain, and at times because the patient is difficult, maybe even ornery. The patient may be in pain or weak or depressed or afraid or all of the above. After all, the patient needs caregiving for a reason, or lots of reasons, which is a burden to the patient in significant ways. And such burdens that shift in part to their caregivers.
And so the caregiver must be strong, dedicated, resourceful and perseverant among many other attributes. But having an eye on the positive aspects of the patient, what can be embraced and encouraging is important, all the way down to their basic humanity, because that is what the caregiver is ultimately caring for. I mean, if someone is totally non-responsive, they still deserve to be cleaned and cared for in the best ways possible all the way to the end. What if there is no one to help? That’s hell.
In other words, a caregiver must show exactly the sort of sacrificial nature of real love that Jesus is demonstrating to his disciples and commanding them to show to each other. The caregiver’s sacrifices help make the patient’s life less hellish. When that fails, when we hear about a caregiver adding to the patient’s hell, we are horrified.
And so what of the caregiver’s heart? Taking on all of that stress and strain is hard and sometimes overwhelming, physically, emotionally and spiritually. Certainly you’ve got your own troubles, too, while you are bearing others.
That is why taking time with The Lord is so very important. If you must wring out every drop of compassion you have, then you’d better refresh and restore yourself physically, emotionally and spiritually. So that which is being worked out in your life is being worked out inside of you. Don’t ever just think of evil being out there. It’s inside each of us, and that is where Jesus means to do his work. That is where he is glorified, when we succeed in following his commandment to love one another, when He gains ground inside our hearts and that gain is manifested in mitigating the evil in the world. There is where the Kingdom of God is unfolding in and through each of us who listen to and follow him seriously.
Now let’s expand that mode of caregiving to parents. Parents are supposed to love their children sacrificially. If you’re doing it right, you make a lot of sacrifices no matter who you are. That is caregiving with an eye toward launching young adults into the world who do care about suffering generally and develop some ways to both join that fight while continuing to grow in Him.
How does this work out in friendships? In neighborhoods?
And now that Judas has left, far from showing dread or foreboding, Jesus is able to share precious and intense time with the eleven. He’s going to teach them a lot that night, perhaps summarizing all he’s been teaching them as the moment of extreme trial is fast approaching and now here. He knows what God is initiating through his own suffering, his own sacrifice, to be with us in our pain and defeat evil, or as we pray in the Great Litany at the start of Lent, “to finally beat Satan down under our feet.” (BCP 152)
That is how love saves. That is how love wins. That is God’s answer to the evil in the world, won through Jesus’ sacrifice and in following him, planted inside each of us. It’s why we speak constantly of salvation by grace through faith.
Hang in there with the people God has given you to love, especially when it is really hard. And remember that Jesus is hanging in there with you. Always.
AMEN!