By Fr. George Dorbarakis
“The harlot loosened the hair of her head for You, the Master. Judas stretched out his hands to the lawless. The one, in order to receive forgiveness of her sins; the other, in order to receive money” (Aposticha).
This evening (Holy Tuesday) our Church sets before us two examples: one positive and one negative. One to imitate, the other to reject. A harlot woman and a disciple of the Lord. And, obviously, one might say that the positive and good example would be the disciple of Christ, while the negative would be the harlot woman. But things, as we all surely know, are reversed: the harlot is presented as the one we must imitate — even throughout our whole life — while the disciple is presented as the one we must turn away from, lest we too be led, like him, to destruction.
And this is understandable: the harlot is the one who became the timeless model — not of her immorality, of course, but of the repentance she showed when she felt the grace and love of the Lord. The disciple Judas is the one who is rejected throughout the ages — not, of course, because of his enviable position of being beside the Lord as His disciple, but because of the betrayal he ultimately chose toward his Teacher.
This means that what always counts before our God, regardless of what we have done or do — even if it seems great and important — is ultimately what prevails in our heart. Not what we appear to be, but what we truly are stands continually before God; that is, the content of our heart, which is our true treasure. This is the striking truth spoken by the Lord, which we usually do not give much attention to: “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” In other words, if I want to see my treasure — my God Himself — I must look within and see what reigns there.
In Judas, the disciple of Christ, instead of Christ it was money that prevailed: the passion of greed conquered him, and thus he followed the Lord while inwardly being an idolater. In the harlot woman, instead of sensual pleasure and immorality, it was the love of Christ that prevailed — leading her to her profound repentance.
Truly, the scene is completely overturning: it fills us with fear, because it makes us realize that nothing external, nothing measurable by our senses or our reasoning, can serve as firm ground on which to stand. The only thing that saves us is the love of our God: the very love that transformed the sinful woman and made her a model of holiness.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
