Pastor Dan Eddy

Matthew 26:31-75

Night of Betrayals and Denials

4-21-11

Years ago when I was in advertising sales, I worked really hard to get a car dealership to use our radio station for their advertising. I grew up in the same town where the dealership was located, and the owner and I knew many people in common. I developed a good relationship with him.

And I was able to successfully get his dealership to use the radio station I represented. He hadn’t used the medium on this scale in years.

So I designed an ad campaign, came up with a special promotion, and organized a live remote all of which brought in new traffic to this dealership. The client expressed much appreciation to me, and I thought we would have a good relationship for years to come.

Then one day out of the blue he called my boss and asked me off the account. He gave no good reason other than he didn’t want to work with me anymore. He would be willing to work with any other rep but me. I was devastated. All that hard work right down the drain. Thousands of dollars in lost income. And to make matters worse he would periodically bad mouth me to other reps. To this day I don’t know what I did to cause his betrayal, his denial.

By the way he did used radio more and more which just made the hurts go even deeper.

Perhaps you can think of a time or times in your life when you were the victim of betrayals or denials…where you thought you had good relationship with a close friend, family member, and business associate…only to have it trampled upon.

Betrayal and denial are two sides of the same coin. Denial usually comes with words…showing what you thought was…was not. Betrayal is usually shown in acts. Both hurt because they are the elements that ruin a relationship. Who you thought you could rely on…you can’t.

Tonight’s Maundy Thursday readings from Gospel of Matthew all have a thread of betrayal and denial going through them. And if you think that only Peter and Judas are guilty then you missed the point of the texts. And it wasn’t just the other Disciples who were betraying and denying…our fingerprints of sin in these regards are all over these texts.

In the first reading…before the joyous and glorious institution of the Lord’s Supper there’s already an aura of betrayal in the air as Jesus predicted that at least one person would not receive His Sacrament in a worthy way with a promise of forgiveness. Judas’ hardened heart should scare those who approach the Lord’s Supper with no repentance, no remorse, and no humility in their heart.

In the second reading…Peter denies he will deny. He may have had the best intentions, but how many times do people’s best intentions somehow lessen the hurts we feel from being betrayed? They don’t. We say we will never deny the Lord and yet we do every time we sin.

The Disciples, too, were in denial about betraying Jesus, and yet right away in the third reading they can’t even pray with Him. Can you imagine if you asked someone to pray for you, and they said “yes,” and somehow later you found out they didn’t? Jesus is praying before God the Father and yet many times we are not. We don’t have time. We’re too busy. When we don’t pray for others we deny them before God.

In the fourth reading…betrayals escalate into violence. When we see others deny Jesus we can get defensive, not realizing our response to those who have little to no faith is often not the way God wants us to respond to them. We think we need to defend God. Our Father doesn’t want our defense. He certainly doesn’t want our denials. He wants our love generated from the faith He gave us at our baptism and keeps giving us to transform our denials, misguided deeds and good intentions gone bad to His will.

In the fifth reading, the ramifications of Judas’ betrayal led to a kangaroo court proceeding against Jesus. Here betrayals showed ignorance and that led to lies and distortions. The high priest broke the Sanhedrin’s own rules for trying Jesus at night and using trumped-up charges and false witnesses. Sin has a way of getting out of control when it goes unchecked. Jesus was treated as an utter scapegoat.

The ultimate betrayal: “I don’t need you.” The ultimate denial; “I’m not the problem God…you are.”

In the final reading, once the prediction of denying Jesus came true…God put a mirror in front of Peter to show him his sins. Jesus’ love was placed side by side with Peters’ words caused remorse and humility, which ultimately led to his confession of sins. That was far different than Judas. He felt remorse…but it never led to confessing his sins.

Peter would later be forgiven by Jesus for his denials. Judas did not seek forgiveness from God, but came up with his own solution…one that led to death.

Who are we most like…Peter or Judas?

What worse for Jesus is He knew all this betraying and denying was going to happen before it did and yet do you think it made it any less painful? Would it for you?

These narratives help us to understand only a fraction of the pain that Jesus went through on that night. Sin puts us in a position of denying and betraying. Jesus was a victim of sin unlike any that has ever been seen. It’s the invisible wounds that can hurt the most, especially when He was betrayed and denied by His own Father…except God the Father wasn’t doing it for money or to save face…He was doing it so all our denials and betrayals of God and others would be forgiven.

Our Heavenly Father couldn’t deny or betray the human race. He could have. We deserve it, but He didn’t. Instead He denied and betrayed His own Son. And we are the benefactors of that incredible vicarious sacrifice of Jesus.

And because of that Christ heals the wounds of betrayal and denials we inflicted on others as well as the deep wounds that are afflicted on us. That’s the power of the forgiveness you will tangibly receive here in a few moments with Christ’s real body and true blood.

Jesus’ ongoing healing offered in this sacrament has helped me through some incredible hurts I have received in life…many far worse than being betrayed by an advertising client. And I am also glad that His forgiveness takes away the pain I have caused others if they, too, desire His healing restoration.

And God’s grace gives you the foundation to rebuild trust again with those close to you who have hurt you the most.

Sometimes it’s a matter of acceptance that things will never be what they were…but that forgiveness for the hurts is always being renewed. That’s the way I handled this client who rejected me. It was making sure his hurts on me didn’t cause me to hurt myself with my relationship to Christ, to other clients, and even to my own friends and family. God’s love offered through His proclaimed Word in worship and in the Sacrament are preventing hurts from turning to hate, if God’s love is received by faith.

This also means we take God’s forgiveness and we use our renewed faith to rebuild relationships knowing that our faith is in Christ, not in our abilities, but in the sanctifying and transforming power of the Holy Spirit. Look at Peter and how Jesus’ forgiveness was the platform for Peter’s eventual bold confession of faith as he was one of the early leaders of the Church. Rebuilding broken relationships strengthens your faith and can bring new or renewed faith to the ones who hurt you.

Rebuilding broken relationships involves much prayer and meditating of God’s Word to give us the wisdom to know when, where, and how to repair, rebuild, and restore.

God’s blessings as we live a life betraying and denying betrayals and denials to give a bold witness of our Savior in living the forgiveness He suffered so much to give you. Amen.