Communion (part two) ...

What is betrayal?  How long does it last?  Can it be undone?  John sets the scene for us again in his gospel in chapter 13.  The act of humility and service of their King washing each of their feet is still fresh in their minds.  But a disturbing fact has emerged.  Christ has said one of them is not clean, despite the foot washing.  They all know this means that one of them is unclean in spirit.  But who?  And to what extent?  And what could this mean?  Is one of them unfit to serve in the new anti-Roman kingship their Lord is sure to setup in the near future?  The people have already tried to crown Him more than once in His ministry, and it stands to reason that He won’t be able to avoid this eventuality forever.  They all believed His coronation was eminent, so to have one of them identified as being unworthy to be a leader in the new administration was quite disturbing.

But being “wrong” about doctrine, was not a sin.  If it were, ALL of them would have been guilty.  The misinterpretation of scripture was going to lead them all to a great disappointment, but was not going to alter the truth in any way.  The true meaning of scripture was about to be revealed.  The true glory of God was about to be seen in the giving to us the ultimate of sacrifices of self.  So despite them clinging to misguided interpretations, and hopes that vaunted their pride and ambition, these ideas were NOT the source of the uncleanliness that Christ was identifying.  In that sense the disciples were little different than the Pharisees.  Both were mistaken about doctrine and scripture.  But the difference was that the disciples were willing to follow and love Christ in spite of the error of their doctrinal beliefs.  As long as they were willing to follow, their beliefs could be corrected.  When like the Pharisees they no longer believed they needed correction; that they were already the foremost authorities of scripture ever known to man, truth could not be discerned by them – even when it was accompanied by miracles, and the literal voice of God the Father.

How like us.  Each Christian denomination is so certain today of its respective beliefs and doctrines that none of us believe we still need to be led to truth.  We have our own ideas about the packaging of truth, and believe only our own leads to heaven.  But in this we are ALL mistaken.  We are ALL in need of the leadership and guidance of Christ; for it is Christ alone that allows us to see truth clearly.  It is Christ alone who allows us to look beneath our respective packaging, and find the truth in its purest form.  For Christ alone is truth.  Interpretation of scripture is nothing more than an attempt at discerning Christ better.  It is a vehicle by which to behold Christ.  But it is always and only Christ who IS the truth.  When we become willing to be led, we can be led.  When we are humble enough to discard our own human wisdom and look to Christ to receive His wisdom instead of our own – we will find it.  And we may come to rethink many of the core beliefs we hold as sacrosanct.  Think about it.  The most fundamental belief of the Jewish nation at the time of Christ was regarding the mission of the Messiah.  And they were ALL wrong about it.  But it was the disciples who were willing to be corrected and led by the Truth of Jesus Christ.  We may find that one or more of our core beliefs are mistaken as well.  And we may be the better and blessed for this discovery, but only as we put our faith, our trust, and our humility to follow in the only true leader Jesus Christ.

Judas however, was not so willing.  Judas was too much like the Pharisees around him.  Judas could see that Christ was simply too humble to ever take the crown the people wanted Him to have.  So Judas planned to force the issue.  He would betray Christ into the hands of His enemies, thus forcing Him to become the King He was supposed to be.  Surely no man would ever allow Himself to be killed, rather than become the King of the world.  The plan of Judas was a sound one.  It was logical, rational, believable, and he was certain Christ would thank him for it later when He was King.  Then, once having a crown on His head, Jesus was sure to remember who was responsible for putting that crown on His head.  He was sure to reward the ingenuity and creativity of the Machiavellian planning of Judas.  Judas thought himself in a win-win scenario.  He would make a little money, and force Christ on the throne at the same time.  He would naturally become the number two guy in the new kingdom.  And he would win the thanks and gratitude of Christ in the process; even if the process itself, was a little shady.  The lesser of two evils though right?  And after all, the end justifies the means.

Again, how like us.  When our prayers are not answered in the way we desire, we attempt to manipulate our circumstances to force God to answer them in the way we believe He should.  Instead of re-thinking “what “ we want, or “if” what we want is truly what is in our best spiritual and eternal interests, we demand positive answers in the here and now.  When we sometimes do not get the answers we want, we proceed with every human means at our disposal attempting to get them anyway.  We rationalize to ourselves that we are only following the certain will of God.  We rationalize that even if we must disobey the values and laws of God to get what we want, once we get it, God will be happy and forgive us our methods of achieving these goals.  This is the same logic that allows men who carry the name of Christian to commit murder of those who will not accept their ideas.  They believe they defend the honor of God, and follow His earlier edicts from the Old Testament regarding how to handle enemies.  But they entirely miss the life of Christ who took NO such approach when confronting those who would not accept His truths.  And they miss the same concepts of forgiveness offered throughout the Old Testament, from cities of refuge, to the sacrificial system, to the salvation of Noah who was far from perfect, to the bargaining of Christ with Abraham to spare both Sodom and Gomorrah with thousands of evil doers if only for 10 who were not so evil.  But when we are bent on our own ideas as being the will of God, we are never deterred by truth, logic, or the reality of the answer “No”.  We proceed on course and figure God will catch up with us later.  So it was with Judas.

Jesus continues talking to his disciples in verse 18 saying … “I speak not of you all: I know whom I have chosen: but that the scripture may be fulfilled, He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me.”  Jesus reminds them all that each of them is precious to Him, He chose each one.  Judas, John, Peter, all selected by Christ.  But being selected does not automatically translate into receiving the transformation He offers.  One must be willing for that to occur.  Jesus tells them that the damage done by “lifted up his heel against me” will not be a permanent detriment.  He continues in verse 19 saying … “Now I tell you before it come, that, when it is come to pass, ye may believe that I am he.”  Jesus is trying to tell them all, Judas included; that He knows what is about to take place.  It will not be a surprise to Him.  This was His mission.  The disciples all expect Him to be crowned King.  Instead He is about to be betrayed to His death, a death upon the cross.  That is a long ways from their expectations of Him, and the Messiah in general.  Had He been overtaken by events, without fore-knowledge, it might have totally dampened the faith of even His most loyal followers as to His divinity.  Instead He tells them here, plainly, He knows what is coming.

Jesus then looks forward, to a time when His followers will go into the world to preach the new gospel.  The gospel of redemption, reformation, and re-creation under the name of Jesus Christ.  This will not be an easy work.  There will remain those who believe it is their religious duty to kill the ones who spread these new ideas.  So in verse 20 Jesus reminds His followers, that they have a connection to Him, and through Him to God the Father … “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that receiveth whomsoever I send receiveth me; and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me.”  The gospel that will be preached by these men is not just one of the story of Jesus Christ in isolation.  It is the story of Jesus Christ and His intimate connection with God His Father, and now ours.  That connection is our vehicle of restoration, back to what His intentions were for us, before we embraced this evil of self.  In this verse, He offers them and us hope.  Hope that no matter how our message is received, it is a truth that traces back to the Father’s throne, not our own.

But none the less, one of His faithful few, remains bent on betraying Him to His death.  Betrayal is painful to us, but agonizing to Christ; and for a different reason.  Jesus agonized that the betrayal Judas would enact, may cause the loss of Judas to His kingdom.  He would gladly see Judas repent and be forgiven no matter what his crime.  But Judas would not believe he could ever be forgiven, and so would not ever ask it.  He would believe his crimes were too great.  He would believe he did not deserve a second chance.  So like us.  In truth, we know better than to choose to do the things we do.  Like every other sinner before us or after, we partake in the evil of self-service willingly.  We do not deserve his forgiveness.  And so, some of us will be like Judas, choosing to live as though forgiveness is not possible and therefore we must get as much evil as we can before we die eternally.  And some of us will live like Peter, who though we are guilty of great public crimes that cause immense pain, still crawl back to the throne of grace, only to find Him there with open arms longing to forgive our every crime, and purge us of the evil we embrace.  The weight of the loss of Judas hurts Christ and troubles Him.  He cries out to them in verse 21 … “When Jesus had thus said, he was troubled in spirit, and testified, and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me.”  This was both a prophecy and a warning.

The disciples could hardly believe their ears.  This was more than just being unclean or unworthy.  They had an active traitor in their midst.  They began looking around and doubting that this was even a possibility.  All of them had been with Christ for nearly three years.  They had all seen the miracles.  They had all seen the risen Lazarus.  It was unthinkable that one of them could do such a thing.  And in this scene, John takes time to note where he was.  He was in the “bosom of Jesus”.  He had his head on the chest of Christ, or perhaps in his lap.  But no matter, he was physically the closest to Jesus at the time this was all occurring.  Communion, even when it was painful, to talk of betrayal, was still occurring between God and man.  So Peter asks John to ask Jesus who it might be and John does ask.  Jesus could have exposed Judas clearly by name.  But if he had done so, Peter and the others might have taken direct action to prevent Judas from carrying out his plans.  So instead He is less clear to the others there, and only very clear to Judas.  I believe He was still hoping Judas might turn from his plans.

Jesus answers in verse 26 … “Jesus answered, He it is, to whom I shall give a sop, when I have dipped it. And when he had dipped the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon.”  Still dining, he dips some of the unleavened bread into the oils there and hands it to Judas.  Thus Judas knew clearly, that Jesus was well aware of His plan.  But the disciples were used to Christ serving others, and another act of generosity was not immediately interpreted as the identification of a traitor.  But at this point, something horrific happened.  John tells us in verse 27 that at that moment Satan entered Judas.  Christ then directs Satan within Judas … “Then said Jesus unto him, That thou doest, do quickly.”  Judas having refused to yield control of himself to Christ, has now yielded it to Satan whether he wanted to or not.  There are only two choices in this regard.  Satan tries his best to get us all to believe that “we” are the masters of our will and our fate.  That “our” decisions govern our lives and no one can control our will or make us do anything.  But this is just not so.  We have but one choice: to yield to Christ, or to default control of our will to Satan.  Our nature is to be bound to self-service, slave to it, we are simply NOT free to choose a fate for ourselves other than to give up to Christ, or be bound to evil.

The disciples in the room could still not wrap their heads around what Christ was saying, either to Judas or to them.  They did not know if maybe Jesus was asking Judas to go out and buy something they needed for the feast, or maybe to address some need the poor may have.  But whatever the reason, Judas got up immediately and left into the night.  Satan has no power against Christ.  He cannot resist the power of the love of God.  But he is fully able to conquer us without working up a sweat.  We are child’s play to him.  When we refuse like Judas to be transformed by Christ, to be protected by Christ, we find ourselves in the net of the devil already.  This was the sadness Christ had dreaded, for the one sheep had left the fold and was lost.  Christ loved Judas, and it was His will, that all would have remained faithful until the end.  But Judas would not choose to embrace that fate.  Now all that remained for Judas was Satan and the night.

To think that Judas alone betrayed Christ was and is a mistake.  We join him in that betrayal.  Every time we choose to sin, rather than choose His victories within us, we put Christ back up on that cross to cover the cost of our choices.  Peter too would betray His Lord, he would deny even knowing him, in order to protect his life, such as it was.  While our crimes are great, it is not our crimes the Lord came to judge within us.  Instead He paid our cost so that we might embrace His forgiveness, and begin to know His re-creation personally.  Had Judas like Peter sought repentance and forgiveness, he would have found it.  Though we are convicted by the truth of our sins, and though we do not deserve yet another chance, His love reaches out to us still.  He does not want to lose us, like He lost Judas.  He wants to reclaim us, like He was able to do with Peter.  But the choice of our response to His love, is our choice to make.  We can ignore Him, walk away from Him, believe we are not deserving and decide to never seek Him out again.  Or, we can return to the foot of the cross, confess what He already knows, acknowledge our need, and find redemption, and re-creation from a love that can transform the entire world, within us, and around us.  This is the lesson of Judas and his betrayal for us to learn from.  There is redemption, even after a betrayal of God, if we but seek it. 

And communion was not over yet …