Reading for Wednesday of Holy Week

John 13:21-35

“Then after he had taken the morsel, Satan entered into him." (John 13:27)

And so begins the final battle between the forces of good and evil, a battle not just on Earth, but in Heaven as well. One of the most striking aspects of the Mel Gibson film, “The Passion of the Christ,” was its eerie, almost attractive portrayal of Satan, who walked unseen, except to those who had made contact with him, Jesus and Judas.

Sadly, Satan has been sensationalized through the centuries as a tormenting demon, the stuff of horror movies and nightmares. Read the beginning of Job, and you see Satan as just one of the “sons of God.” But this son is not happy with the human beings that God has created. Yes, Job may be righteous, but only because God has blessed him. Take away the blessings, and he will curse God. At heart, Satan is, in the original meaning of the Hebrew word, the Accuser – the one who accuses humanity as not worthy of God’s love, and God as overly indulgent.

Not all accusation is wrong. In 1898, the French author Emile Zola published J’Accuse (“I Accuse) in a French newspaper. He accused the French government of railroading the French Captain Alfred Dreyfuss into prison on the false charge of espionage, based solely on the fact that he was a Jew. Sometimes, accusation is based on a genuine moral outrage that is not tainted by self-interest.

But more often, I suspect, accusation is based in the anxiety of the person doing the accusing. Indeed, there was much anxiety in French society in the 1890s about their German enemy. Dreyfuss became a convenient outlet for that national anxiety. The basis for the accusation against Jesus was national anxiety on the part of the Jewish leaders: “If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation” (John 11:48).

As we move closer to the Cross, let us examine ourselves, our anxieties, and be careful not to dump those anxieties on someone else. Accusation will not relieve us of those burdens. There is only one person who will bear all those anxieties, and our accusations, all the way to Calvary.