Wednesday of Holy Week

We've been looking through John's eyes, watching everything unfold, seeing along with him the connections he did not make until long afterwards. Today is a step away, yesterday's account again but through Matthew's eyes. Judas has a moment of decision not set down in John: he has the chance to weigh those thirty pieces of silver against Christ's warning to him. “He who has dipped his hand into the dish with me is the one who will betray me.” It's the most casual of actions, that of two good friends eating together. If Judas had chosen otherwise it could have stayed that way: in their exchanges, Christ always left that door open. But instead, that act of friendship marks Judas as the betrayer, just as another act of friendship will mark the betrayal itself. He chooses the silver; worse, he chooses to trade on his intimacy with Christ. In so doing he destroys it; there is nothing left for him to call on later in his despair. It was not only Christ he sold; it was himself, and being bought he could not imagine being free.