Reliving The Passion #10

Mark 14:17–21

And when it was evening he came with the twelve. And as they were at table eating, Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me.”

They began to be sorrowful and to say to him one after another, “Is it I?”

He said to them, “It is one of the twelve, one who is dipping bread into the dish with me. For the Son of man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.”

“Stop it,” says my friend. (Whatever else she may be, sister, spouse, or child, she is by this very cry proving her friendship to me.) “Stop it,” she pleads, though I haven’t yet done the deed. She sees it coming. She knows its effect. “Stop it. Please! You’re hurting me.”

Well, and then my tendency is to feel resentment—especially when she’s right and I’m wrong. I’m embarrassed by the exposure of my sinfulness.

But the plea, which makes me aware of myself, is no evil. It’s a gift. Even if my friend is only protecting herself, this is no less than a gift from God intended to benefit both my friend and myself: her peace, my prudence, my obedience, and finally my peace as well. Please! You’re hurting me. Oh, let me hear the warning not with anger but with gratitude—and stop.

Judas has no better friend than Jesus.

Loving him, not loathing him, Jesus grants Judas a moment of terrible self-awareness: “One of you will betray me, the one who is dipping bread into the dish with me—”

The deed is not yet done. But Jesus sees it coming and, while yet the sinner contemplates the sin, gives Judas three critical gifts:

1. Knowledge. He knows now the moral quality and the consequence of the deed. This is betrayal. Betrayal is wrong!

2. Free will. Knowledge frees him both from ignorance and from the unconscious compulsion. He now can choose whether to do, or else not to do, the deed.

3. Sole responsibility. If he proceeds with it, then, he alone shall own the deed.

What more can a friend do than Jesus has done—especially in the present context? This is the Passover meal, after all. Judas would therefore be “lifting his heel” against an intimate, one who shares custom and kinship and immediate trust with him.

Moreover, they have just drunk the second cup of wine and recounted the story of Israel’s salvation; Jesus, as head of the house, is dipping bread in bitter herbs and stewed fruit. The gesture and the dish are traditional signs of Israel’s suffering. But right now they also symbolize the horror of Judas’s sin. If he does not stop, he shall become the cause of bitter suffering! He shall be to Jesus what Egypt was to Israel. His act shall offend the very salvation God prepared for his beloved. It will outrage heaven.

Jesus shall surely “go as it was written of him.” But now Judas can’t help but see the true treachery of his sin and might choose not to be the one by whom Jesus is betrayed. He might choose the quicker, lesser pain: with the others to “be sorrowful” and, louder than the others, to confess, “Yes, it is I.” He might admit the love in the gifts that Jesus gives him:

Stop it! Stop it, please! You’re hurting me.

The cry of my friend feels harsh. Perhaps I’ll hear the accusation only and harden myself in my sin and, angrier still, continue.

Or maybe I will realize the love of God in her plea and suffer my conscience to hurt and confess myself a sinner and repent and stop. And stop. And—given three gifts by the grace of the dear Lord—stop!

Holy Jesus,

Send your angels always, always to warn me of my sinning. And grant me, please, the true humility to heed them. I yearn to grow more and more like you!

Amen.