Routine and habit can make me insensitive, lacking in ability to feel or notice. They also make it possible to fill up otherwise wasted moments of my day with meaning and the chance to receive.

I don’t know why it stuck out to me so particularly on a Sunday morning a few months ago, “on the night He was betrayed…”, as our church family practiced communion. It is a routine, the first Sunday of the month. A habit, if you believe, you are welcome to participate in this strange, millennia old sacrament begun by Jesus Christ. Your soul can be connected as you physically partake…or it can be disconnected, insensate, dull.

That morning, after decades of ritual and habit, the words hit different, as the youth say these days. On the night He was betrayed. Maybe it is because I am noticing afresh my lack of love at times. Sure I’ve grown over many years in being loved and being a conduit of love. But it is still there, the lack of love.

It is no small comfort that what Jesus’ follower John honed in on as he grew older was love. Love being at the center of all. And not the weak, self-serving, conditional, self-indulgent love of today but the true love of Jesus that sacrifices without thought of what can be paid back or received by Himself.

So maybe that’s why on the night He was betrayed is stuck in my mind and soul these days. Because on the night Jesus gave Himself on our behalf, His whole physical and spiritual self, He was betrayed. Not only that, He knew His followers were going to betray Him. This isn’t an after the fact realization He had–that He would give Himself and then find out His followers failed Him. He knew before and as He sacrificed Himself that it would be a lonely, thankless, necessary, and willing task to give up His life for unworthy people like Peter, John, me…and you.

The whole subject of communion and its meaning is one that fills entire books and shelves and rooms, I’m sure. For me, right now, it is enough to reflect on one aspect of His communion with us, His followers.

That He gave Himself willingly, in love, even as those closest to Him, who saw in person the universe altering gift, betrayed Him.

I often wonder who I would embody in the times Jesus walked the earth. Would I be a moralist Pharisee offended as Jesus blocked my desires to earn my way? Would I be the crowd that was just there for the easy food, after all I love giveaways? Would I be the woman forgiven who walks away completely changed?

It’s worth pondering as I seek to know Jesus and myself more deeply that I may be like Him because the tendency is to think we’d be faithful. We would recognize His deity if He walked the earth in front of us. We would rise above all that moralism and materialism that kept people from Jesus. But would we?

Probably not, because Jesus was betrayed by most everyone on the night He was to give us His greatest gift. How could I think I’d be different?

I would betray, have betrayed, will continue to betray Him in my selfishness and lack of love, but my hope is also in this truth. Because on the night He was betrayed, He still gave Himself.

And the hope is deeper and the love deeper as I realize this truth more deeply.