God is our reward and recompense - holy tuesday

In our gospel today when John the beloved disciple asked Jesus for the identity of his betrayer, Jesus answered by saying, "It is the one to whom I hand the morsel after I have dipped it."  Breaking the bread and handing it to another person is a sign of friendship and this highlights all the more the betrayal by Judas. Jesus knew that Judas will betray him and yet he handed him the morsel, he handed him a piece of bread to eat, he offered him his friendship.  

There is this story narrated by St. Thomas More.  King Henry VIII of England and King Francis I of France were bitter rivals.  So one day King Henry asked St. Thomas More to deliver a letter to the King of France. It was a scathing letter, a letter full of anger and insults on the person of the King of France.  And so Thomas More protested to King Henry saying that should he deliver this angry letter he would surely earn the ire of the king of France who would have him beheaded that instance. King Henry assured his trusted servant saying, Do not worry.  If he does that to you I will surely gather all the Frenchmen in England and behead all of them.  And St. Thomas  More replied, that’s very kind of you, your majesty, but I don’t think any of the heads you cut will fit my shoulders.

Bitterness breeds bitterness.  Anger breeds anger.  Revenge only widens the wound.  Jesus knew that.  The violence, the anger, the hatred had to stop on him.  He died and he died forgiving.

Our first reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah redirects our focus when we begin entertaining the anger and hatred that wells in our hearts. It asks us to direct our focus on God who is our reward, and our recompense.  It says, Though I thought I had toiled in vain,and for nothing, uselessly, spent my strength,Yet my reward is with the LORD,my recompense is with my God.

Any eye for an eye and the whole world will become blind. Hatred is a never ending cycle. It has to be stopped and it can only be done when like Jesus we offer the bread of friendship to those who mean us harm.  In Jesus the betrayal of Judas was no longer perpetuated.  It stopped and it stopped because Jesus instead of matching betrayal with betrayal matched it instead with loyalty and friendship.