Reading of the holy gospel according to John. This is the scene, of course, at the last supper. And Jesus was troubled in spirit and testified, truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me. At this, the disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom Jesus spoke. One of his disciples, the one whom Jesus loved, of course, that's John, was lying close to the breast of Jesus.
So Simon Peter beckoned to him and said, tell us who it is of whom he's speaking. So lying there close to the breast of Jesus, he said to him, that is to to our lord, lord, who is it? And Jesus answered, it is he to whom I shall give this morsel when I have dipped it. So when he had dipped the morsel, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. Then after the morsel, Satan entered in to Judas.
And Jews and Jesus said to Judas, what you are going to do, do quickly. Now no one at the table knew why Jesus said this to Judas. Some thought that because Judas had the money box, Jesus was telling Judas, go out and buy what we need for the feast or that he should give something to the poor. So after receiving the morsel, Judas immediately went out, and it was night. When Judas had gone out, Jesus said, now is the son of man glorified, And in him, god is glorified.
If god is glorified in him, god will also glorify him in himself and glorify him at once. Little children, yet a little while, I am with you. You will seek me. And as I said to the Jews, so now I say to you, where I am going, you cannot come. Well, at that, Simon Peter said to Jesus, Lord, where are you going?
And Jesus answered, where I am going, you cannot follow me now, but you will follow me afterwards. Then Peter said to Jesus, Lord, why can't I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you. And Jesus answered, will you lay down your life for me? Truly, truly, I say to you, Peter, the cock will not crow till you have denied me three times.
And this is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. Palm Sunday reminded us vividly and dramatically of the fickleness of the crowd and, of course, there is where we are. We're one of them. Here on a Sunday, they join in loud hosannas to our lord, and in a few days, they will be crying out for his blood.
Let his blood be upon us and upon our children. That's what they said to Pilate. Now in this reading today from John's excerpt from from an excerpt from John's biography of Jesus at the last supper, here we have Simon Peter. He's one of the crowd too. We also have Judas here.
Now the comparison between Judas and Peter is almost irresistible. And I've said many times, it'll astonish you to know I'm going to say it again this morning, that when you calmly analyze Judas and Peter, Judas comes out on top. He never denied Christ. It's it's it's more than just a guess. With that, when Judas agreed to hand over Christ to the to his enemies for some money, he fully expected that it wouldn't work out that way, that it would wind up with him having the money and our lord's enemies having nothing because on other occasions, Jesus had slipped away from his enemies.
Now this is not far fetched. The the whole story or the information that we have shows this. If Judas expected our lord to be condemned to death, why did he have remorse? So here and notice that we are told that one of the most famous sentences in the New Testament is, at the tomb of Lazarus, our lord wept. Christ wept.
Well, I agree. I don't think that's a hard one to match because it shows the utter sympathy of Christ with human suffering. But there's another line that strikes me with great force, and that's this one. It was night. It was night.
When Judas went out, John says, it was night. There's nothing like that said about Peter. Peter denies Christ three times. He says, Lord, I'll go with you. I'll lay down my life.
Judas never made that Judas had more sense than to do things like that. But Peter, in his enthusiastic, exuberant way, is all for Christ, just as we're all for Christ at times, at times. And lo and behold you, without any great provocation, there was no great threat to Peter in admitting he knew Jesus. Everybody knew Jesus. There were plenty of people from Galilee and Jerusalem at this time of the year who knew Jesus.
There wouldn't have been anything awful about Peter admitting he knew Jesus, but he denied that he even knew the man. Notice it wasn't a question of being a friend or a disciple. He denied three separate times on a slight provocation that he even knew Jesus. That is a rejection. And yet there is no such sentence after Peter that it was night.
As a matter of fact, it was day. Because Peter's very fault, the very fact that he did reject and deny his lord, that became the foundation of his remorse and later on of his allegiance and his perseverance. Whereas with Judas, whose crime was not as great, I I submit this, went out and it was night, hopeless. He hanged himself, despaired. Well, now look, folks.
The the point I'm making is is this. At this time of the year, when people come to confession and you hear a lot of confessions, you're very much impressed with this fact. People get discouraged. They're trying to follow Christ, and they're discouraged because they don't succeed perfectly. And they're downcast.
They lose they lose hope. They're weakened because they're not succeeding the way they'd like to succeed. Now this can be a terrible fallacy. It can be a frightful trap. Who says we're to supposed to get attain perfection?
Who attained perfection? Our blessed lord, when he's dying on the cross, he utters this cry to his heavenly father, my god, my god, why have you abandoned me? Abandoned Christ felt deserted by his father on the cross. We know you we don't think about this. Christ suffered despair on the cross as a human being.
Remember, Christ is a god. There's only one person, but he had all the emotions of a human being. And on that cross, he suffered despair. He felt abandoned by his father. And yet, from a human point of view, in all of his life, when was Christ closer to his father than on that cross?
And so it is with us when we feel sometimes Saint Teresa of Avila, Saint Teresa of Jesus, that's her real name, she made a big point of this. That at times when we feel that we're farthest away from god, we may be the closest because there's less of self in it. So, you see, this comes back to this very contemporary view that religion is feeling. Religion is having a honeymoon. Religion is having the enthusiasm of the newly wed, of the newly ordained, of the new convert.
It is none of those things. These feelings of joy, of courage, of enthusiasm, of light, of happiness, of confidence in god, of feeling close to god, they're wonderful. And thank god when you have them. But my friends, they're not religion. They come and go with your indigestion, and that's not an exaggeration.
What counts is your commitment. What counts is the is is your frame of mind and your steady perseverance with god. It isn't what he gives that you give him, it's what he gives you. And you don't go to god to get, you go to god to give, this is religion. And you'll say this is pretty severe stuff.
My friends, to follow Jesus Christ is no picnic. Look at the cross and make up your own mind. Jesus said, if you wanna follow me, pick up my cross. That's his one and only condition, his cross. Never forget it and never feel weak about it.
You're no better than Jesus Christ. In the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit. Amen.