Many have just experienced family gatherings these past weeks of the Holiday Season centered around a table, a shared meal. Some have enjoyed the blessing of family. Others have tolerated the presence of family. Regardless, the shared meal during a celebration can bring either great joy or tragic suffering. We continue in our exegesis of Matthew’s gospel through the final few days of Jesus’s life and earthly ministry. He is in Jerusalem and directs the gathering of his twelve in an upper room of a house to honor the Passover tradition with the prescribed meal. It is here that all the twelve are called out as denyers, but one is specifically called out as a betrayer. The harsh pain of a betrayal often follows a shared meal because the betrayer fawns loyalty to the one he or she despises. You and I may not see the betrayal coming. But Jesus carries his divine trait of omniscience even in his human essence. Our Lord’s insights are powerful as he navigates the Passover evening with his twelve. I believe we can all see ourselves in this passage about the twelve who will all deny our Lord. Yet one of these twelve is a betrayer who willingly becomes the instrument of Satan by which our Lord’s crucifixion will take place. Which one are we? Are we the doubtful disciple who humbly desires to obey Jesus? Or are we no different than Judas in betraying our Lord? This passage shows how the willing sin of men can be directed by God’s providence to accomplish HIS holy purposes without God the Father being blamed for men’s willing betrayal. Let’s read Matthew 26:17-25 and discover together the depths of treachery that led to our Lord’s crucifixion.