Straying from God

Wednesday, March 27                        John 13:21-32

Carole Bucy

         One the best-selling books in 2012 was From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail,  by Cheryl Strayed.  With no physical or mental preparation for such a journey, Ms. Strayed embarked on an arduous hike alone up a portion of the Pacific Crest Trail, which spans the length of the United States from Mexico to the Canadian border.  She decided to take this drastic action in large part because two years after the death of her mother, she had not been able to come to terms with her loss.  She had indeed strayed and because of that, felt lost.   During her long days of solitude and physical pain while hiking, over and over, she recounted portions of her life to herself.  She remembered her mother asking her as a small child, “Do you know how much I love you?”  It was a childhood game that Cheryl never tired of playing.  “This much?”  the small girl asked as she stretched out her arms.  “No, more than that.”    “This much? “No even more.”  On and on the game went.  When her mother died, Cheryl strayed so far that it seemed as if she could not ever return to the person she had been before her mother’s death.

Our reading for today recounts another story of one who is straying.   We know nothing of other things that Judas did or said as a disciple, but we know that he strayed from his anchor in Jesus Christ.  “Betrayal” is forever linked to Judas's name.  As a child, I learned a song in which the names of the 12 disciples had been set to the tune of “Jesus Loves Me.”  In the verse, there was nothing about any of the other disciples—only Judas.  It mentioned Judas at the end of the list with the line, “Jesus was by him betrayed.”   

What Judas could not understand was that the love of God was even greater than the magnitude of his betrayal.  Judas must have thought that his actions would end his relationship with Jesus.   He may have imagined the consequences of his actions – possibly the imprisonment of Jesus, possibly even execution, but Judas could not imagine the magnitude of God’s love that would stretch beyond his betrayal. Neither Cheryl nor Judas quite knew what they had until it was gone.  Sometimes, neither do we.  For both them and us, the Good News of the risen Christ is that no matter how far we may stray, God’s love is there for us.  And nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ.

Prayer:  Whether we approach the abyss and the mountaintop, merciful God, help us to always remember that the good news of the Gospel is that “Nothing can separate us from the love of God” and that we have been “marked as Christ’s own forever”.   Thanks be to God.