[ p. 164 ]
JESUS’ challenge to the chief priests was accepted. The end was at hand, and no one could now disguise what that end must be. The Twelve were bewildered by the knowledge, but hoped against hope —all but one: Judas. He, with impatience at the course Jesus was pursuing and determined that he, at least, would face realities, decided to abandon the lost cause, to ingratiate himself with the authorities, and to save what he could out of the wreck. So, at the end, when Jesus withdrew from Jerusalem, Judas sought out the priestly leaders and arranged for his Master’s capture.
He was welcomed. At Passover time the pilgrims not only crowded Jerusalem to its utmost capacity, but overflowed into the open fields as well. Tens of thousands encamped around the city, and to find any given individual in such a crush was next to impossible. Moreover, to avoid turmoil, the authorities wished to make the arrest at night, and consequently their best hope was in a traitor. Now a traitor was at their disposal.
Judas is a mystery. Why was he chosen? Was he Christ’s one mistake? Or, if it cannot be imagined that he who so clearly read human nature could have [ p. 165 ] made such a mistake, what was his purpose in choosing Judas? Was it that, near Jesus, he might have every possible chance? And what about the clash of human freedom and divine foreknowledge? It was once a subject which delighted the theological mind. Probably in this day most of us have come to the common-sense conclusion that such questions are among the insoluble mysteries and that we waste precious time in disputes about them.
We cannot solve the mystery of Judas, as it has to do with his original choice; but we can see plainly how his downfall came about. When the tragedy was over, he was seized with remorse and committed suicide. He “went to his own place,” and only the Infinite Mind knows whether or not remorse was touched with penitence at the last and whether his “place” was other than the abode to which he has been so readily consigned when his fate has been determined by men who ought to know in their own hearts the power of sin. The tendency in other days was to set Judas by himself as the chief of sinners and to fail to see in him any likeness to oneself. But is he so different from others since? Are there not cool, hardheaded men today just as impatient of idealism as was Judas when he felt that his Master was foolishly persisting in an impossible course?
Jesus was well aware that treachery was at work. He had determined to visit Jerusalem once more for the final Supper, but he took careful precautions. Not even the Twelve were to know the place until the last [ p. 166 ] moment. Arrangements were made secretly with some trusted Jerusalem disciple, and the two messengers whom Jesus sent for the final preparations awaited him in the city. [1] The room of meeting was possibly in the house of the parents of Mark the Evangelist. We are not sure. The unknown disciple who put at Christ’s disposal this room where he might eat the Supper, in quietness and security, did the one thoughtful act which must have been most pleasing to his Master; but, as in the case of the personal history of many another obscure disciple, his name and rank have never been known.
Whether the Supper itself was actually the Jewish Passover Supper proper, or was a preliminary rite, the so-called “Sanctification” [2] of the Passover, held the night before, we shall probably never know. Experts nowadays tend toward the latter view, but there is no unanimity of opinion. At any rate it was held on Thursday night—ever since called “Maundy” Thursday, [3] because it was the occasion of the giving of the “New Commandment.”
Elaborate descriptions have been written of the ceremonies of the Supper, but here once more we should rather confess our ignorance. Even if we could determine whether the meal was the Passover or the Consecration, we should still be much in the dark. Our information about Jewish ritual is adequate from the third Christian century onward, but we know very [ p. 167 ] little about the practices in Jesus’ day. The outline of the Passover customs at that time is reasonably clear, but details are quite obscure, while the proper procedure at the Consecration was not yet uniform. [4] Moreover, it is hopeless to attempt to fit Jesus’ acts precisely into any scheme of traditional Jewish usages; not only did he refuse to be bound by such traditions, but he was deliberately instituting a rite altogether new. So even the few details given in the following account cannot claim more than probable accuracy.
When the “hour was come,” Jesus “sat down”— reclined on the low couches—with his disciples; primarily the Twelve, but perhaps not excluding a few others as well. An unnamed disciple [5] “whom Jesus loved was given the place of honor at Jesus’ right hand; this position is technically called “on the host’s breast,” a phrase devoid of sentimental implications. Then:
Jesus, knowing that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own that were in the world, he loved them unto the end.” So writes John, [6] at the beginning of a story that tells us the meaning of the final meal with perfect beauty and simplicity. [7] A dispute [ p. 168 ] arose among some of the guests as to their relative ranks. Jesus arose, quietly stripped off his upper garments, and tied a towel about his waist, so assuming the costume of a slave. Taking a basin of water, he knelt to wash the feet of the disciples, beginning apparently at Peter. [8] Then from man to man he went kneeling and washing their feet, and then, reclining again at table, taught the lesson of humility of which their dispute over the place of honor clearly showed the need. “I, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, coming among you as one who does the work of a slave. I have given you an example of humble service. Be like-minded. Do as I have done.”
At the beginning of the meal, Jesus took a cup of wine, [9] recited a thanksgiving, [10] and said: “Take this, and divide it among yourselves.” Each guest was provided with a cup of his own, into which he would pour a little wine from the cup Jesus had blessed. Jesus himself declined to drink of the cup, for wine was typical of joy. He continued, “I shall not drink from henceforth of the fruit of the vine, until the [ p. 169 ] Kingdom of God shall come.” [11] The words, based on the old Jewish expectations of a miraculously fertile Palestine under the Kingdom, are Jesus’ farewell to his disciples. He must leave them—and yet he looked forward triumphantly to their reunion in the age to come. Earth’s greatest tragedy was about to take place. Yet it was vastly more than a mere tragedy, for in Jesus’ impending death a new way to God would be opened. So, rising and with the accent of victory in his voice, he took bread, [12] and pronounced the traditional words, still used by every orthodox Jew: “Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who hast brought forth bread from the ground.” [13] Then, solemnly breaking the loaf, he gave the pieces to his disciples, and said: “Take ye: this is [14] my body.” Then, perhaps after an interval, perhaps immediately, he took another cup of wine, and pronounced: “Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who hast created the fruit of the vine.” He gave it to his disciples, and from this cup “they all drank,” not “dividing it” as they had the former cup. Then he said to them: “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.” [15]
[ p. 170 ]
How did the disciples understand what Jesus did and said? For the moment, of course, deep implications were out of the question. But this much they could not fail to grasp: Jesus’ death concluded a new covenant [16] with God, and from his body and blood, which, as the covenant victim, he offered willingly to God, a new power of life was given to them and to all believers. For fifteen hundred years the Passover had been kept by faithful Jews as a memorial of their deliverance from the bondage of Egypt. For nineteen hundred years more the new rite has been kept, in sacramental fulfillment of its promise, as a memorial of one who came, according to his own declaration, to deliver mankind from the bondage of sin.
The subsequent events of the Supper and the evening are so well known that it is hardly necessary to enter into details. Jesus warned his disciples that there was actually among themselves a traitor. They were horrified; yet knowing their own weakness, they were all stricken in conscience, and one after another they asked in shuddering whispers, “Master, is it I?” As the unnamed disciple had the place at table next to Jesus, Peter motioned to him that he should ask who it was that could do such a deed. The question was asked, and the reply given quietly, “He to whom I give the sop when I have dipped it”; and then, handing the [ p. 171 ] sop to Judas, he said, “What you are about to do, do at once.” And Judas went out into the night, to seek again the priestly leaders and to plan for his Master’s capture.
It is interesting to contrast him with Peter. Just at this break in the feast, the latter had boasted that even though others should find in their Master occasion of stumbling, and so fall, he would never desert him. He was ready to go to prison and death. A few hours later he was sobbing out his heart because he had failed tragically. The warning words of Christ which told how he would make denial three times before the morning’s cock-crowing came back to his memory as “the cock crowed the second time.”
Before they left the upper room, Jesus took a final precaution. His death was necessary, but the Twelve must not share his fate. The real purpose of his life lay beyond his own days. His task had not been simply to do the little good that could be done in those brief years, in one small corner of the world, but to train a band of men who would understand who and what he was and how his life was to be imparted to others, and would organize a society through which his life would be made known, his death pleaded, and his teaching perpetuated. If the Twelve should die with him, his work would have failed hopelessly. So. by his direction, [17] the disciples borrowed the only [ p. 172 ] weapons in the house, two swords; in the darkness these would be enough to delay possible pursuers and to enable the disciples to escape. Escape they must, at any cost.
In years to come, to be sure, the disciples looked back on their desertion with horror; they felt they should have disregarded what they understood to be his command and so go with him to the death. Their sin seemed so awful in retrospect that they painted it in the blackest of colors. Indeed, they knew the fear in their hearts, and perhaps their picture of their own action is not over-morbid. But, if they had not “forsaken him and fled,” how would there have ever been any Christian message ? [18]
At the close of the Supper, they sang one of the psalms of the evening, and Jesus led the eleven through the street, out the city gate, and across the Kidron, to a garden where he was accustomed to retire for devotion. Here, for a moment, exhausted nature almost gave way under the unspeakable strain [19] beneath which the trusted three, Peter, James, and John, broke down completely. Jesus’ last words to them sought to comfort them for their weakness. The temple officials, headed by Judas, came to seize him, and Judas betrayed him with a kiss. Peter, in a moment of illadvised heroism, went beyond his instructions and attacked Jesus’ captors, then cast down his sword and fled in panic. Once more Jesus’ manhood flashed out, in power, as he came forth to meet his captors and they [ p. 173 ] quailed before him and stumbled back, falling over one another in confusion.
Before we pass on to the trial and death, it will be well to go back to the Supper; for the new rite which Jesus instituted then has now been the great service of Christian worship for nineteen centuries.
St. Mark xiv: 12-16. ↩︎
Kiddush. ↩︎
From the Jewish reckoning it would, however, be called Friday night, for the Jewish day Friday began at sunset of what we call Thursday. ↩︎
One school of rabbis maintained that first bread should be blessed and then wine; another school reversed the order. ↩︎
radition makes him John the Apostle; but we do not, here, go beyond what is actually written. ↩︎
St. John xiii: i. ↩︎
Whether the Evangelist meant his account to be taken as literal history or as a mystical interpretation revealing the deepest sense of the events is, for our purpose, unimportant. ↩︎
The dialogue here between Peter and Jesus is somewhat puzzling to modern readers, especially toward its conclusion, where the disciple impulsively urged, “Not my feet only, then, but my hands and head.” The answer that one who had bathed needed not to wash again, except to cleanse his feet, is probably a reference to the temple ritual, according to which the priests bathed before beginning the sacrificial service and then at stated intervals washed their feet of dust before beginning a new part of the ritual. Afterward the words came to symbolize the bath of regeneration in baptism, which is never repeated, though “the dust of sin” must be washed away. ↩︎
A red, sweet, fermented wine, diluted with from two to four times its bulk of water. ↩︎
Jewish “benedictions” are invariably thanksgivings; a Jew never says, “Bless this food to our use.” ↩︎
St. Luke xxii : 17-18. ↩︎
Palestinian loaves are flat and circular, about nine inches in diameter and an inch thick, but the Passover loaves were much thinner. For the latter, wheat, barley, oats, spelt and a local Palestinian grain were all permitted materials. ↩︎
This benediction was almost certainly in use in Jesus’ day and there is no reason to suppose he varied it. It forms the basis of the earliest known Christian liturgy. ↩︎
In Aramaic “is” is usually omitted, but would of course be understood. ↩︎
St. Mark xiv: 22-24. Since the words “Do this in memory of me” are not in any of the Gospel accounts—compare the Revised Version’s note on St. Luke xxn: 19—they were supplied to make explicit what everyone understood to be implicit in Jesus’ act. The phrase appears as early as I Corinthians xi: 24-25, but even there it is clearly a part of the older tradition which St. Paul had received. ↩︎
Contrast Exodus xxiv: 3-8. ↩︎
St. Luke xxh : 35-38. But the words of Jesus may have been a tenderly pathetic direction which excused their hasty misunderstanding. There seems to be a gleam of humor, even in this dark hour, in his words, “It is enough,” or “The two swords are quite sufficient!” ↩︎
The picture in St. John xvm: 8 is more objective than that in the other Gospels. ↩︎
Compare page 82. ↩︎