It was shocking news about shocking news. Several years ago, just as we began the season of Lent, Johns Hopkins’ cardiologists revealed the shocking news about shocking news. The Johns Hopkins’ researchers discovered that sudden emotional stress can mimic a classic heart attack.  Patients with this condition, called stress cardiomyopathy, are often misdiagnosed with a massive heart attack when they suffered from a days-long surge in adrenalin (epinephrine) and other stress hormones that temporarily “stun” the heart. 

The study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine and it confirmed what conventional wisdom has known for centuries. When a loved one or a friend dies, when a relationship ends abruptly, when there is the loss something real or the loss of something hoped for, people described feeling a heaviness, emptiness, sadness—literally heart broken. In. fact, the John Hopkins researchers named a stress cardiomyopathy, the “broken heart syndrome.” The effects on the heart are real,  with a weakening of the left ventricle, the heart’s main pumping chamber. While there is verifiable temporary weakening of the heart, a broken heart doesn’t have to be permanent. Healing can take place. [i]

This study fascinated me because it confirmed my experience. One predominate group in the “broken heart syndrome” study were older woman. In my first congregation, I buried several women who died of a broken heart within a year of burying a husband,  whom they had been married to for more than 50 years. Folk lore is filled with images of people who die with a broken heart. Shakespeare’s King Lear, clutching the body of his dead child Cordelia, dies of a broken heart.  Beauty finds the Beast dying of a broken heart. When the witch casts a spell on Sleeping Beauty, the queen dies a few days later of a broken heart.

The Bible has many stories of the broken hearted. Job says, “My days are over. My hopes have disappeared. My heart's desires are broken” (Job 17:11NLT). David laments in the Psalms, “…I am in deep trouble! …from all my enemies…their insults have broken my heart, and I am in despair. (Psalm 69:17-20 NLT). The prophet Jeremiah weeps, “My grief is beyond healing; my heart is broken.” (Jeremiah 8:18 NLT) Even God is described this way when seeing the sin of humanity. God makes the decision to flood the earth and Genesis says, “…the LORD was sorry he had ever made them. It broke his heart (Genesis 6:6 NLT).   A broken heart resonates with our experience of life. When hope is gone, when you are betrayed, when you experience grief and despair, you are broken hearted. All of this is present tonight. It is an evening of shocking news, a night of broken hearts.

The evening begins with Jesus’ broken hearted. John tells us that “Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end” (John 13: 1). It is the most human of emotions. Despite Jesus understanding that “he had come from God and was going to God” (John 13:3), his heart was heavy. He was leaving those whom he loved. Even Jesus, the most perfect man has sadness to leave his loved ones behind. We see our Savior in his most human form. It starts in the upper room where he is broken hearted.

Jesus is broken hearted because he knows that it was in Judas’ “heart to betray him” (John 13: 3) and that he was looking for an opportune time (Mark 14:11). This is why Jesus makes clandestine arrangements for his Passover meal. Only two disciples seem to know the location of the meal. This meal is too important. It has to happen. Judas can’t use it as his opportunity to betray Jesus.

We don’t know a great deal about Judas, but we do know that he was highly trusted by Jesus and the disciples. You don’t make someone whom you don’t trust the keeper of the purse. You certainly wouldn’t give the limited funds of a group of 13 people to someone who is untrustworthy. And if Judas had previously failed to live up to the trust placed in him, he would not have been seated at the place of honor. We know he is honored this way because Jesus says the “one who dips his hand in the bowl with me will betray me.” To share a bowl with Jesus meant that he was sitting in the place of honor next to him.

There is really no way to understand this trust in Judas other than he was a person of influence and honor, one of the leaders of the disciples. All this makes his betrayal heartbreaking. It is one thing to be let down by someone on the edge of a community, someone who hasn’t presented himself with real commitment; it is something all together different when a trusted leader, a person of respect, betrays you. I cannot imagine the pain that Jesus must have felt knowing this. I cannot imagine the heart break the disciples experience in the garden of Gethsemane when Judas kisses Jesus. It is heartbreaking to know that once Judas realizes how broken his heart was by betrayal, he hangs himself in despair.

Before the tragic heartbreaking scene at Gethsemane, the disciples cannot imagine anyone betraying Jesus. Jesus tells the disciples that they will all desert him. Peter vows it will never happen. Jesus gives him a timeline, “before the cock crows twice, you will deny me three times.” They eat, drink, experience the same meal we will soon eat and drink, sing a hymn and leave for the Garden of Gethsemane.

After Jesus and his disciples arrive in Gethsemane, Jesus goes a short distance away from them in order to pray. He takes Peter, James and John with him. Now Jesus is terribly broken hearted, described by the gospels “distressed,” “agitated,” “Deeply grieved, even to death.”

Do you remember what it was like the first time your heart was broken? Every child has their heart broken. Sometimes it is when a neighborhood friend is mean; sometimes it is when there is a disappointment at school or an invitation not received. It might even be something so seemingly trivial as a toy breaking or a gift not received. Your heart was broken as a child and in the despair of having your heart broken, what did you do? You turned to your daddy or mommy. “Daddy, Mommy, you cry out in sadness.” This is what Jesus does. He throws himself on the ground and prays, “Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want (Mark 14:36).   

Jesus calls God “abba” an Aramaic word that Mark includes even though he is writing in Greek. In Aramaic, it is the intimate form of father; it is like us saying papa, or daddy. Is there any more human moment than a broken hearted child turning to a parent for comfort and support? Is there anything more familiar to us than a child crying out for comfort? Jesus prays to “abba”, to daddy for deliverance.

Judas arrives with a group of temple soldiers. There is the kiss of betrayal. Jesus is arrested and the rest of the evening unfolds quickly the way Jesus predicted. Peter denies knowing Jesus three times, the cock crows and he weeps bitterly, broken hearted. Where is his comfort?  Where are the other disciples? They are hiding in shame, brokenhearted. It is a night of broken hearts.

How do you heal a broken heart? You love it back to wholeness. This is both the purpose of Jesus’ mission and the core message of his teaching.  When Jesus begins his ministry, he returns from the wilderness to the synagogue in Nazareth. He unrolls the scroll to the prophet Isaiah, the 61^st chapter and reads his job description. “The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; (Isaiah 61: 1).[ii] The purpose of Jesus mission is to “bind up the brokenhearted”, to heal broken hearts with his love. He demonstrated it by “loving them to the end” and he taught it, saying “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27). We’ve repeated it over and over again throughout this season of Lent, asking ourselves the questions, “Do I have a heart for God and a heart for others?”

On the night when Jesus was betrayed, he simplified this commandment, saying, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another” (John 13:34). Now it’s not loving God and loving neighbor. It’s simpler. “Love one another like I loved you.”  It makes the questions simpler. Now our question is “Do I love like Jesus?”

I’ll admit to liking the earlier questions better than this simpler one. “Do I have a heart for God and a heart for others?” Most of the time I can answer these questions with a yes. “Yes, I do. I have a heart for God and a heart for others.” I try to do this and most days, I’m successful. But when it comes to the simple question, “Do I love like Jesus”, I am broken hearted for I know how great his love is. He dies for me, for you, for us. How can I love like this? “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.  No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends (John 15: 12-13). In light of this, let me ask again, “Do you love like Jesus?”

When it comes to this question, you too are broken hearted, aren’t you? Your answer to “Do you love like Jesus” is “no.” None of us can answer anything but no. It breaks our hearts to admit it but the answer is no. This is why it is a night of broken hearts.  We readily admit that we cannot love like Jesus because we know and see his extraordinary love. He dies for us to express this love. We see it and know this and acknowledge our inability to love like him.