“Love is inaudible—until you hear it. And once you do, you’ll never forget the sound”

'What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing. It also depends on what sort of person you are.' - C.S. Lewis (1898 – 1963: Novelist & Lay Theologian)

Gospel Text: (JN 13:21-33, 36-38)
Reclining at table with his disciples, 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 Judas 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 Judas 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.
If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself,
and he will glorify him at once.
My children, I will be with you only a little while longer.
You will look for me, and as I told the Jews,
‘Where I go you cannot come,’ so now I say it to you.”
Simon Peter said to him, “Master, where are you going?”
Jesus answered him,
“Where I am going, you cannot follow me now,
though you will follow later.”
Peter said to him,
“Master, why can I not follow you now?
I will lay down my life for you.”
Jesus answered, “Will you lay down your life for me?
Amen, amen, I say to you, the cock will not crow
before you deny me three times.”

Jesus Himself invited Judas into his select inner circle, and surely he saw the rich potential for who Judas might have been. Perhaps, then, Jesus is deeply troubled because the Judas he sees before him is but a shadow of the man he might have been.

Perhaps Jesus is deeply troubled largely because Judas is so frustratingly blind and deaf to everything Jesus has been trying to tell and show him. Judas has the privilege of intimate friendship with the very best friend on earth, and yet he doesn’t seem to recognize that at all and is willing to sell Jesus out for almost nothing and to men who are not his friends.

Perhaps Jesus is deeply troubled because Judas can only think in terms of power and authority and does not understand that the very best things in life are often the most common and ordinary and there are alternative ways to be greater than anything Judas has yet known.

Perhaps Jesus is deeply troubled because he knows Judas so well and he could easily guess how hard Judas would take his misjudgment when he realizes his mistake.

All great leaders know that it doesn’t matter what you say; it only matters what people hear, and for Judas the message fell on deaf ears.

How about for you?