Holy (or Spy) Wednesday

Today is celebrated in the Church calendar as Holy Wednesday, or Great and Holy Wednesday. It commemorates two important points in Holy Week, not as widely celebrated perhaps as Palm Sunday or Good Friday. It is a day of gathering shadows, of repentance, of the start of the muffled drumbeat march to the Crucifixion. The first is the Anointing for His Burial. John says it was six days before Passover, the other Gospels say two days before Passover. All agree it was in Bethany, a little less than two miles from Jerusalem.

John 12

12 Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. ² Here a dinner was given in Jesus’ honor. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him. ³ Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

⁴ But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, ⁵ “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages." ⁶ He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.

⁷ “Leave her alone,” Jesus replied. “It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. ⁸ You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.”

Matthew 26

⁶ While Jesus was in Bethany in the home of Simon the Leper, ⁷ a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, which she poured on his head as he was reclining at the table.

⁸ When the disciples saw this, they were indignant. “Why this waste?” they asked. ⁹ “This perfume could have been sold at a high price and the money given to the poor.”

¹⁰ Aware of this, Jesus said to them, “Why are you bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful thing to me. ¹¹ The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me. ¹² When she poured this perfume on my body, she did it to prepare me for burial. ¹³ Truly I tell you, wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.”

This day is also called Spy Wednesday, in memory of Judas’ actions that led inexorably to Christ’s betrayal and death, when he agreed to act as a spy and find a good time and place to hand him over.

Mark 12

¹⁰ Then Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, went to the chief priests to betray Jesus to them. ¹¹ They were delighted to hear this and promised to give him money. So he watched for an opportunity to hand him over.

 

Matthew 26

¹⁴ Then one of the twelve, named Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests ¹⁵ and said, “What are you willing to give me to betray Him to you?” And they set out for him thirty pieces of silver. ¹⁶ And from then on he looked for a good opportunity to betray Jesus.

 

Luke 22

22 Now the Festival of Unleavened Bread, called the Passover, was approaching, ² and the chief priests and the teachers of the law were looking for some way to get rid of Jesus, for they were afraid of the people. ³ Then Satan entered Judas, called Iscariot, one of the Twelve. ⁴ And Judas went to the chief priests and the officers of the temple guard and discussed with them how he might betray Jesus. ⁵ They were delighted and agreed to give him money. ⁶ He consented, and watched for an opportunity to hand Jesus over to them when no crowd was present.

How much was the thirty pieces worth? The Gospel says a year's wages, modern calculation makes it about five weeks worth of wages, at a denarius a day. In Exodus 21 thirty pieces of silver is set as the price of a slave.

It has always been troublesome to consider how Judas, one of the disciples, an apostle, one of the Twelve, who had known and followed Jesus, could have possibly betrayed him. John blames greed, while Luke simply says Satan entered Judas. Modern writers have tried to find more complex motives. Dorothy L. Sayers postulates that Judas saw his Anointing (as kings are anointed) as a descent into a bid for mere temporal power, a betrayal of his higher purpose. Jesus of Nazareth, the 1977 epic TV series, thinks that Judas was tempted into testing Jesus, to see whether he was the real deal who would usher in the Kingdom or whether he was another false Messiah.  Bishop Fulton J. Sheen has sadly noted that betrayal had to come from within the Church, for only where there has been trust can there be betrayal, the bitter lees of the cup of sorrow and suffering.