A 2nd Sunday of Advent Thought about the Real Traitor in the Room

After the recent Presidential election we started reading and hearing the word "traitor" being spouted more and more vociferously. If you adamantly defended the fairness of the results, refusing to consider any evidence or even possibility that something was askew, you were a traitor. On the other hand, if you insisted that the results of the election were due to of voter fraud, that the election had been systematically, nefariously stolen, you became the traitor.

Don't worry, we won't dredge all that up today. Maybe it's still a topic that deserves attention. Whether it gets that deserved attention remains an open question. But let's see if all this traitor talk can spur all of us who today enter the 2nd week of Lent to find the real traitor in the room.

Any initial guesses? Gotta be Judas, right? He betrayed Our Lord. The Gospels tell us this even before the deed is done. Long before Judas approaches the Sanhedrin, we're told he's a traitor. At the Last Supper, when Our Lord tells His Apostles that one of them will betray Him, we already know who it will be. We need not wait to find out who dipped bread into wine with Jesus.

And as the story of the Passion and Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ progresses, we find that Judas eventually sees that he has betrayed someone who considered him a friend. And rather than deny his treachery, he despairs as the full weight of his betrayal descends upon him. After throwing the thirty pieces of silver back in the faces of the Sanhedrin who bribed him to kiss his Master in the Garden, his despair led to his suicide He hung himself on a tree outside Jerusalem, without ever expressing contrition to Our Lord.

Our initial guess was right. But there's another traitor in the room. And I suspect you already know who that might be. To paraphrase the comic character, Pogo, "We have met the traitor, and he is us."

Indeed, some of us may have leaped to this answer right away, jumping right over Judas. But whether you guessed Judas or us first, it's us who especially concern us during Lent. What other reason would there be to be pursuing a Lenten discipline that includes prayer, penance, and fasting?

Recognizing our sins, and our tendency to sinfulness may have motivated us to create a penitential plan for Lent. Not a bad reason. But on this 2nd Sunday of Lent, let's dig deeper. Uncovering and confessing our sins, horrible enough in themselves, won't necessarily yield that most terrible truth that all of us creatures of a loving God share: In our sins, we have betrayed and continue to betray Jesus Christ. 

As we work our way through Lent and approach closer and closer to His Passion, we may want to prepare ourselves to face that betrayal even as we read of the traitor Judas. When we recall Judas swinging at the end of a rope, hanging from that tree, we might thank God. Thank Him not for sparing us the ignominious title of "Traitor." That we can never eschew of deny. But we can thank Him that we have not despaired as the horror of our betrayal becomes ever clearer to us as the story of the Passion unfolds. 

If we've never confronted our personal betrayal of Jesus Christ before, this Lent may be our opportunity to finally do so. It's unlikely anyone will point a finger at us and call us "Traitor!". But being sparred the public humiliation and condemnation neither excuses us, nor does it in any way lessen the enormous guilt that, if not for the Mercy and Love of God, might crush us.

With His grace, Lent could then be, if not our first, perhaps our most heartfelt and profoundly contrite admission of just who is the real traitor in the room.

We adore Thee O Christ and we bless Thee. Because by Thy Holy Cross Thou hast redeemed the world.