Kenny was one of the “special” people in the world.  Born with many limitations, he had a limitless capacity to find joy, to love people, and to sing songs about Jesus.  His simplicity filled his mother’s careworn heart with a secret abiding strength.  But Kenny outlived the usual life expectancy of “special” people like himself.  And in his young, old age, he faced new complications.  Cancer and pain intruded into Kenny’s remarkable life.  But Kenny could not describe his increasing pain.  All he could say was “my toe hurts.”

The source of pain can be hard to diagnose.  Parents and doctors often begin with “tell me where it hurts.”  But pain travels the 45 miles of nerves in our bodies, radiating, spreading, complicating, debilitating.  We can’t always pin it down.  We don’t always know its source.   And not all pain has physical causes.  Our music and poetry give ample evidence that often the deepest, most undiagnosable, unmanageable pain comes from emotional and spiritual trauma.  Deep pain that radiates from our own sinful brokenness and that of others.  Pain that is hard to reach.  And even harder to treat.

Of all the pain we will experience, however, none is more devastating than the pain of betrayal.  Betrayal sinks deep into the heart, mind, soul, and strength.  It can embitter, destroy future trust, make us callous, vindictive, numb.  It often denies us any opportunity to clarify or restore. 

Betrayal and abandonment give stark and crushing weight to God’s declaration, “it is not good for man to be alone.”  The unfaithful spouse, the ungrateful, rebellious child, the traitorous citizen, the slanderous patient, employee, or customer.  And the friend who disappears only to reemerge as our accuser and enemy. 

The pain of betrayal is inversely and exponentially proportional to the relational distance to our betrayer.  The more intimate the relationship the more intense the pain.  If you are older than three years old, you have experienced betrayal.  How are you doing?  Are you coping? Are you healing, forgiving?  Has your betrayal done irreparable damage to your ability to love, trust, and care?

In Mark 14, the inspired author begins one, long continuous narrative of the final earthly days of the Lord Jesus Christ.  The entire chapter has a dominant theme, the beating drums of betrayal and abandonment.  Christ must shoulder the crushing load of our judgement alone.  No one can help.  Only he can bear our griefs and carry our sorrows.  Though supported by his divine nature, his human nature must “bear our sins in his body on the tree.”  In his sufferings he has no human comfort.  His enemies taunt, his friends abandon, his disciples flee, Peter and Judas deny and betray.  And in a way that is hard to understand, even His Heavenly Father forsakes him as he bears the judgment of sin.

It is any wonder then that in Handel’s Messiah, the composer puts the words of Lamentations 1:12 prophetically on the lips of the Lord Jesus.

“Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?
    Look and see
if there is any sorrow like my sorrow,
    which was brought upon me,
which the Lord inflicted
    on the day of his fierce anger.”

But what was Jesus’ response to the sorrow of betrayal and abandonment?  Sandwiched between the explosive revelation of an inside betrayer and an ancient prophecy that all his beloved disciples would abandon him, Jesus institutes the Lord’s Supper.   This shocking juxtaposition forms a powerful picture of God’s grace and kindness toward our blackest, sinful betrayal.  And gives you hope, my sin-worn friend that there is grace for you in Jesus’ invitation to “come to me when you are weary and heavy laden.”

Join us as we examine Mark 14:12-31 and consider the scandalous grace God offers us in response to our sinful betrayal. We meet Sundays at 10:30 am on the square in Pottsville, Arkansas right next to historic Potts’ Inn for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join our livestream on YouTube.