An incident in life recently left me feeling misunderstood, judged, and betrayed. I thought I had been above-and-beyond in my delivery of kind efforts for the people involved, and felt my actions had been with every good intention. So it was shocking and painful to confront their different perspective on things, and their disappointment and anger with my actions.
I’ve been stewing over the incident for a couple days now, vacillating between wanting to angrily defend myself, and determining to offer a simple, groveling apology.
When I decided on the latter, and our conversation about it didn’t go as I hoped, I felt again at a loss. I think I can say we ended on a better note than we started. But I don’t know that any of us feels completely “clean”, despite everyone’s best efforts to get through the conversation to a pleasant result.
My thoughts and emotions continued aflutter from the situation, and it was all I could do to stop following the same angry thought patterns, and move my brain along to something else.
Then this morning, I picked up my Bible where I left off. I read the last three chapters of Matthew. It begins with Jesus’ last Passover, and ends with the Resurrection and the Great Commission.
And I saw it. He was misunderstood, judged, and betrayed.
He spent three years of his life doing nothing but selfless, kind, well-intentioned acts. And for it, He suffered the judgment of those he served, and the betrayal of his closest friends. His life was ended by the very people He loved and cared for.
Now, I know His story is really nothing in comparison to mine. In mine, I share the blame for a painful situation in which my behavior – well-intentioned or not – resulted in someone being hurt. From my perspective, I was hurt they didn’t seem to also take into account the good I had done, and the kind heart with which I made a wrong choice.
Jesus never screwed up like I did. But my contributing failure didn’t lessen my disappointment in the situation, or my hurt at feeling misunderstood.
Reading Matthew, it hit home that all the times in my life where I’ve felt misunderstood, wrongly judged, or betrayed; He too, experienced that bottomless emotional pit.
Only He did it to the extreme.
To death.
To a horrific death.
While – unlike me – truly having done nothing wrong.
While being as undeserving of the poor treatment He received as anyone ever will.
At the hands of the very ones He had given His whole life to serve.
A common theme in the Christian message is that Jesus understands our pain, because He experienced it. This point is rarely driven home until we walk a yucky road in life, and concurrently read His story of His journey on the same road. Then we GET it.
We see His stories about relational pain (the betrayal by Judas), the death of a close friend (Lazarus), lying accusations (the Pharisees), injustice in the world (the money changers in the Temple), contention among believers (the bickering of the disciples), starvation and temptation near the point of death (forty days in the wilderness), extreme loneliness (abandonment at his trial by all his disciples, and abandonment at His death by His Father), and I could go on.
This is such an excellent reminder to read Scripture. It DOES speak to my daily life, if I let it. If I read it often enough where the stories begin to sound like my own. Then its truth penetrates and I experience insight, hope…..healing.
We can read Scripture, and with an expression of surprise say, “Jesus, You too? … Paul, you too?!” We are NOT ALONE. This yucky road has been suffered before. We are part of the common humanity of our Lord and many great men and women of faith.
After this epiphany, I really couldn’t hem and stew and grumble anymore about the unfortunate situation that had bothered me so much. The truth had set me free.