Tuesday of Holy Week
The night of the history
When he had said this, Jesus was deeply troubled and testified, “Amen, amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me.” The disciples looked at one another, at a loss as to whom he meant. One of his disciples, the one whom Jesus loved, was reclining at Jesus’ side. So Simon Peter nodded to him to find out whom he meant. He leaned back against Jesus’ chest and said to him, “Master, who is it?” Jesus answered, “It is the one to whom I hand the morsel after I have dipped it.” So he dipped the morsel and (took it and) handed it to Judas, son of Simon the Iscariot. After he took the morsel, Satan entered him. So Jesus said to him, “What you are going to do, do quickly.” (Now) none of those reclining at table realized why he said this to him. Some thought that since Judas kept the money bag, Jesus had told him, “Buy what we need for the feast,” or to give something to the poor. So he took the morsel and left at once. And it was night. When he had left, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. Jn 13,21-31
This passage of the gospel makes us to live the dynamics of the conviction which is about to fall on Jesus. The religious power of the sanhedrin and the political one of Rome had already agreed to kill him: the first because Jesus proclaimed himself the Messiah, the second because they believed him to be a social agitator. Subsequently, Judas betrayed him, but the moves to eliminate him have already been carefully prepared. In a human dimension, his conviction was ready since a long time, but Jesus of Nazareth died on the cross for a strategy of the heaven, not because of that of the men. He had to die to liberate and redeem the mankind from the sin and to permit it to happen, his death had to be the result of his free offer, not of the will of the men: “He himself bore our sins in his body pon the cross” (1Pt 2,24). Jesus has always been aware of the sacrifice which awaited him, but it is only at the last supper that he officially accepts the role of Savior of the world, without preconditions: “So he dipped the morsel …..handed it to Judas …… after he took the morsel, Satan entered him. So Jesus said to him: ‘What you are going to do, do quickly‘ “. Also Satan was waiting for that “yes” for his short-lived victory. After these events Judas went out. “And it was night”. It is the beginning of the night of the world and of the history, but it is for that night where Jesus of Nazareth “was pierced for our offenses, crushed for our sins” (Is 53,5) that we, as Isaiah prophesied “have been healed”. In this week of Passion if we spiritually climb with him to the Calvary, in prayer, we will experience in a special way the effects of that healing and we will resurrect on the day of Easter, to a new life. It is a moment of grace, let’s prepare ourselves to live it in depth.