Hurting Relationships? How Holy Thursday Heals: The Secret Mandate that Changes Everything

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It’s okay to say you’ve felt deeply betrayed.

It’s okay to honestly confess: Betrayal doesn’t just leave your heart broken; it leaves your soul jaded.

It changes your heart when you know Christ died for those who’ve hurt your heart.

It’s okay to quietly say it: It’s harder to give forgiveness to a close friend than to someone who never was a friend. Because when trust was deep, the feeling of betrayal cuts deeper.

Your Jesus knows what it’s like to have your own Judas. Jesus wasn’t betrayed by some Tom, Dick, or Harry down the street; Jesus was betrayed by one of His very closest friends—one who kissed Him warm on the cheek and then turn coated on Him, leaving Him out in the cold to be crucified alone.

It was on Thursday of Holy Week, Maundy Thursday, when Jesus sat at the Last Supper. On each side of Jesus sat one of His disciples. One of them was the one “whom Jesus loved”— the way John refers to himself four times in his Gospel, because John was hidden in the love of Jesus.

There is no way to really fully live, apart from being hidden in the passionate love of God.

While on the one side of Jesus sat “John the divine, [on] the other was Judas the devil. One of them was the seer of the Apocalypse, the other was the son of perdition,” writes Charles Spurgeon.

While we were yet struggling to live with the difficult, Christ died even yet for them.

Jesus was flanked by John, who was leaning against the heartbeat of Jesus, and Judas, who was just against Him.

But Jesus’ love presses against those who are against Him: While we were yet sinners, while we hated Him, Jesus loved us to death, so we could really live (Romans 5:8), and He loves to death exactly those we struggle to live with.

While we were yet struggling to live with the difficult, Christ died even yet for them.

It changes your heart when you know Christ died for those who’ve hurt your heart.

The love of God doesn’t become lesser, but grows greater, in the face of great heartbreak.

As God-with-skin-on bent low with a basin of slopping water to wash dirty feet to show us the way of passionate love, He would now hand the dipped sop of bread to Judas. Like Jesus sopped the bread and passed it to Judas, so we drown all evil in an ocean of grace.

If Jesus could dip from the same bowl as Judas and then pass along the bowl with grace, how can we who have been washed in the grace of Christ not find ways to pass on all the grace we’ve known?

If Jesus could dip from the same bowl as Judas and then pass along the bowl with grace, how can we who have been washed in the grace of Christ not find ways to pass on all the grace we’ve known?

How can we not pass on the goodness of the grace we’ve tasted?

Jesus finds your eyes in this moment and whispers the mandate “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Turns out: You only get to be known as a disciple if you’re known for your cruciform love.

It’s possible, with cruciform love: Where there is a relational break, instead of breaking fellowship, you can break open your heart in prayer and ask the Lord if there is maybe, perhaps, a genuinely safe way to somehow still break bread together.

It’s possible, with surrendered, cruciform love: You can live by just eight words: Love one another just as Christ has loved you.

On the night Jesus was betrayed, He gave thanks. If Jesus can give thanks in that kind of heartbreak, how can we not find ways to give thanks even in ours?

This is what happened on Maundy Thursday of Holy Week: On the night Jesus was betrayed, Jesus found ways to still be Love.

Your life, too, has known all kinds of betrayals: the night when the prodigal cut your heart, the night when your boss betrayed your trust and you lost your job, the night when your person said words that can’t be unsaid and stomped out the front door, the night when the toilet stopped flushing and the dog puked all over the back mat, the night when all your hopes and your everyday life seemed to betray you, the night when it looked like dawn would never come again.

Even on those nights, the people of Jesus can still give thanks for the closeness of Jesus, the comfort of Jesus, the compassion of Jesus, the kindness of Jesus, the kinship of Jesus.

When Jesus had to fight through the dark, staring right into the most impossible situation of the Cross, abandoned by His circle of friends, what did Jesus do?

Out of a universe of supernatural options at the tip of His fingers, what did Jesus determine was the most revolutionary way forward?

On the night when Jesus was betrayed, He gave thanks.

If Jesus can give thanks in that, might it be possible to give brave thanks in anything? If Jesus can give thanks in that kind of heartbreak, how can we not find ways to give thanks even in ours?

Because of the night Jesus was betrayed, we can give thanks too. We give thanks that He gives grace to Judases like us too. When we know how much grace we’ve been given to cover our own betrayals of Jesus, how can we not give others grace for theirs?

And when it’s brutally, impossibly hard?

Jesus comes and sits down beside you. He breaks this bit of soft bread, and we can feel it—how our broken hearts soften too.

He reached out with one hand to hand the bread to Judas, and with the other hand — He hands the bread to us.

We are all the Judases who have betrayed Jesus too.

And what can we do but take the bread and murmur our heartfelt thanks, too, and reach out and sacrificially love too?

And this… this is no less true: Because of the night Jesus was betrayed, we can give thanks too. We give thanks that He gives grace to Judases like us too.

When we reflect on how great our own sins are, how can we not have great gratefulness and great grace for every other broken sinner?

When we know how much grace we’ve been given to cover our own betrayals of Jesus, how can we not give others grace for theirs?

After Jesus was marked with scars and left this world, love would be the mark of His people, to leave a mark on the world.

Because of love, life can come.

And Jesus showed us that loving forgiveness is always the most life-giving.

As Judas walked out of the upper room, Jesus turned toward the Cross. He knew what lay ahead—arrest and trial and torture, humiliation and condemnation and crucifixion— and Jesus called this kind of sacrificial love nothing less than glory.

After Jesus was marked with scars and left this world, love would be the mark of His people, to leave a mark on the world.

Heartbreak and hardship are not hindrances to our love for God, but are often the catalysts that make us fall into the arms of His love.

While the world might look and say, “How terribly crucified,” those living in the love of Jesus can trust that miraculous good can come out of even this, and say, “Still beautifully glorified.”

And… The mandate of those who follow Christ is to live the passion of Christ—to love every day we’re on earth, like Jesus loved us to death on His last day on earth.

This is the secret mandate that changes everything, this is the way to rise to new life every day, this is the cadence of our days, just this refrain: “As Jesus has loved me . . .”

As Jesus has loved me, let me take care of that for you.

As Jesus has loved me, let me give you not just the benefit of the doubt but amazing grace. As Jesus has loved me, let me forgive you.

As Jesus has loved me to life, let me love you with my life.

Give thanks for God’s grace, even in your hard places, and you see you actually have more than enough of God’s grace to pass on to others in theirs.

As we love each other as Christ loves us—even those who have broken our hearts—we end up loving others far more than we ever thought possible, because we feel how we are loved by Christ far more than we could ever imagine.

The forgiving love of Jesus gives us a way to keep miraculously giving love, especially when it seems impossible.

Maundy Thursday is a pause, even now in holy week, in the midst of our hard stories… and there it is:

Give thanks for God’s grace, even in your hard places, and you see you actually have more than enough of God’s grace to pass on to others in theirs.

~excerpt from Loved to Life: a 40-Day Pilgrimage with Love Himself to Change Your Life