A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint John. Jesus, reclining with his disciples, this is the scene of the upper room, the last supper, grew deeply troubled. And then our lord went on to give this testimony. I tell you solemnly, one of you is going to betray me. The disciples looked at one another puzzled as to whom Christ could possibly mean.
One of them, the disciple whom Jesus loved, reclined close to Jesus as they ate. Simon Peter signaled him to ask Jesus whom he meant. John leaned back against our lord's chest and said to him, lord, who is he? Jesus answered, the one to whom I give the bit of food I dip in the dish. He dipped the morsel and then took it and gave it to Judas, son of Simon Iscariot.
Immediately afterwards, Satan entered his heart. And Jesus addressed himself to Judas. Be quick about what you are going to do. Naturally, none of those reclining at table understood why Jesus said this to Judas. Few of them had the idea that since Judas held the common purse, Jesus was telling him to go out and buy what was needed for the feast or to give something to the poor.
No sooner had Judas eaten the morsel than he went out, and it was night. Once Judas had left, Jesus said to the remaining ones, now is the son of God glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will in turn glorify him in himself and will glorify him soon. My children, I am not to be with you much longer. You will look for me, but I tell you now what I once said to the Jews, where I am going, you cannot come.
Lord, Simon Peter said to Jesus, where do you mean to go? Jesus answered, I am going where you cannot follow me now. Later on, you shall come after me. Lord, Peter said to Jesus, why can't I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.
Jesus replied, you will indeed lay down your life for me. I tell you truly, Peter, the cock will not crow before you have three times denied that you even know me. And this is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. There are parts of this that I can't make much sense out of this.
This business of the the morsel and Judas, how they didn't recognize him, but it it really isn't important, that part of it. There's one little word here that is striking. When Peter, out of the exuberance of his heart, because he was an exuberant man whatever else he was, He says, I'll follow you any place at all, telling our blessed Lord. I'll even lay down my life for you. Well, we all feel like that occasionally about a lot of causes.
But our Lord replies, where I am going, you cannot follow me now. And the Greek word there, arti, means just now, at this moment, immediately. And I the thought struck me that here is where some of us at times get hung up. We try to follow Jesus, not that we succeed all the time, but we try. And sometimes what seems to be the most obvious road to follow Christ, we're impeded from doing it.
You say, well, this doesn't make sense. Well, there are a lot of things, believe me, that make little sense as far as we can see at the moment. Now, now, Here we stand at a certain moment in time, whatever time is, and we survey the future and we survey the past. And, of course, we think we understand the present or think we have a right to understand understand it. We have we think we can put all of this together and make a nice system out of it and see the beginning and the end and the ways and the means.
It's all as smooth as a as a an SO road map. It is not that clear now. The emphasis is on that little word now because all of us, when we look back, and it doesn't take many years for this to become a fact, what was a very much of a puzzle at the time, when we look back makes a lot of sense. I know this sounds like a terrible cliche, but it is absolutely true. That some of the what seems to be at the moment an absolute unmitigated tragedy.
Twenty five years later, when we look back, we say it was the best thing that ever happened to me. This is commonplace. But somehow we have an idea that in this present little moment that I can survey the past, the future, the present, and have it all in the palm of my hand. Well, it's that's not the way things are. If we believe in god, if we believe in his providence, then there's one thing sure, we don't know as much as he does.
We don't have the vision that god almighty has. And above all, we don't love ourselves as god loves us. We don't. I question how much people love themselves. Here's a person goes out and buys a pack of cigarettes, and on the very pack of cigarettes it says smoking is dangerous or harmful to your health, and we smoke them.
That's just one tiny little instance. A man goes to see his doctor and the doctor says, Your blood pressure is high, you'll have to stop. Are you drinking? Said, oh, yeah. I drink, but I'm I'm not I don't drink to excess.
The doctor says, well, you'll just have to stop it. He won't. He doesn't. Anyway, I say that god loves us more than we love ourselves. God sent his son to be our savior.
Now this is a point we do not think about enough that we have a savior. And, you know, we think about it in the terms of, well, he came to save us from our sins. He came us to save us totally totally. We're not we're not spending our days and nights in mortal sin all the time. We've been baptized.
We've been lifted out of of that state. An act of contrition puts us we we trust in god's god's grace, puts us in the state of his grace. But the thing is we have a savior for now. RT, now, this moment. Not for yesterday and tomorrow.
We can't live yesterday again, and we can't live tomorrow. We're living today, now. Sometimes we it's very difficult to do what we think we ought to do in following Christ now. Because what what seems to be the way, clearly the way, somehow or other is impeded for a lot of reasons, a lot of reasons. I have certain ambitions to to do a to lead a life dedicated to some good cause.
First thing you know, lose my health. What sense does this make? Here's a man and a woman trying to raise their family, give them the necessaries of life, give them a decent education and the things they need, and he loses his job. What sense does this make? He's he's been a faithful worker.
It's through no fault of his own. No one blames him at all. Everybody is sorry, but we just can't keep you. He didn't bring that on himself. So we say, how can I follow you, God, when you're putting these obstructions in my way?
I try to do my best, and my golly, you're the one who comes and slays me. You'll find this in the in many of the psalms. The point is we are not God, and we do not love ourselves as God loves us. He truly loves us because he wants us to be the best kind of a person I can be. He truly loves us.
Most of the time when we love people, it's a divided thing or there's a lot of self in it. God isn't loving me for himself. He's loving me for myself. We forget this. And so I think that this one here's Peter, you know, all enthusiastic.
They've had a good meal. Everything has gone fine. And you know what they're they're expecting? They're expecting Christ to restore the kingdom of Israel. And I guess Peter had already bought his clothes, the the good suit he was going to wear when he would be inaugurated as the first vice president of the cabinet.
So everything was there was great enthusiasm. And Christ said, You can't go where I'm going, Peter. And Peter said, oh, yes. I can, god. I know more than you do.
Of course, I'll go where you I'll even die for you. And three times, he denies that he even knows Christ. Judas never did that. So I say, remember, god loves you. He loves you here and now.
He and he wants the best for you, not the middle, not the mediocre, not the not the in between, not the norm, not the mean, not the average. He wants the best for you because he loves you individually, not collectively, individually. You have a savior, Jesus Christ, You personally. What joy should fill your heart and confidence? And sometimes the way is not visible, and in many times it is not clear, and sometimes it's downright obstructed, and sometimes it tries our patience, and sometimes we're close to despair.
Christ from the cross said, my god, my god, why have you abandoned me? Christ felt that his father had abandoned him on the cross, and we're no better than Jesus Christ. And as at that at those moments, remember what our lord said. At this moment, you can't follow me, but that doesn't mean he has abandoned us. In the name of the father, of the son, and of the spirit.
Amen.