The Wednesday of Holy Week is traditionally known as Spy Wednesday. It is called Spy Wednesday because it is the Wednesday before the fateful Passover that Judas met with the Sanhedren to make a deal to hand Jesus over to them. From that point, he spied on Jesus for the Sanhedren and would later make arrangements for His capture in the Garden of Gethsemane overnight during the Passover. In return, Judas received thirty silver pieces.
As such, we look at Spy Wednesday as a penitential day commemorating Judas’s betrayal of Jesus.
We may wonder what led Judas to betray Jesus. There are a number of theories out there, but there are two I like to reflect on: The first is his zeal for what he expected out of the Messiah. The other is simply his greed.
For the first point, many, including, I think, Judas, were expecting the Messiah to be a great civil King in the order of David. He probably expected Jesus to lead a great revolt against the Roman occupiers and thus liberate the Jews from the Roman empire.
I suspect the frustration Judas likely felt as a result of the many times Jesus seemed to shun away from such opportunities probably eventually wore him down. Maybe he saw handing Jesus over to the Sanhedren as an opportunity to put Jesus in a spot where He would have to take on this expected role out of a sense of self-preservation.
Perhaps behind this frustration was a sense of wrath.
For the other point, we need to go back to our reading on Monday, which takes place six days before the fateful Passover. Mary took a liter of costly perfumed oil made from genuine aromatic nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and dried them with her hair.
Who was the only person to react? Judas. Saint John makes it pretty clear the motivation for his reaction was greed or avarice.
We have talked in other homilies about how capital sins (such as wrath or greed), if left unchecked, can (and often will) lead to more serious sin. In this case, capital sins led to the betrayal of Jesus Christ and ultimately deicide.
As our reading today suggests, Judas was given opportunities to repent. He refused. In fact, he outright denies any wrongdoing: “Surely it is not I, Rabbi?”
His betrayal was made complete after he received the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ in Holy Communion at the Last Supper. In the process, confirming himself in unrepentant sin. Or, as Saint Paul will put it later in his first letter to the Corinthians, “Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord.”
And answer, he did. His demons tormented him to suicide.
Spy Wednesday reminds us that even the smallest indulgence of greed, wrath, betrayal, and the like can lead to profound consequences.
But the remedy, like many things, is to call out to Jesus Christ, surrender those things to Him, repent of them, and allow yourself to be transformed by the grace of the Paschal Mystery.
As we continue to walk with our Lord during this most holy time of the year, may we always call out: “Lord, in your great love, answer me.”
Thanks be to God!
