John 13:1-17,31-35

Maundy Thursday | April 6, 2023 | John 13: 1-17; 31-35 (RCL) | David Zersen |

After saying this Jesus was troubled in spirit, and declared, “Very truly, I tell you, one of you will betray me.” The disciples looked at one another uncertain of whom he was speaking. One of his disciples—the one whom Jesus loved—was reclining next to him; Simon Peter therefore motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking. So while reclining next to Jesus, he asked him, “Lord, who is it?” Jesus answered, “It is the one to whom I give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.” So when he had dipped the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas son of Simon Iscariot. After he received the piece of bread, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, “Do quickly what you are going to do.” Now, no one at the table knew why he said this to him. Some thought that, because Judas had the common purse, Jesus was telling him, “Buy what we need for the festival”; or, that he should give something to the poor. So, after receiving the piece of bread, he immediately went out. And it was night.

When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

FINDING A PLACE AT THE TABLE

Some years ago on Maundy Thursday, the day which remembers Jesus’ commandment to love one another, our church recreated a table setting with twelve disciples garbed in first century costumes. It was a dramatic moment in our Holy Week worship services as we gathered to imagine ourselves back at the table with Jesus himself. In today’s lesson from John’s Gospel the evangelist focuses on something that happens before what we have come to call the “Words of Institution”. The spotlight is on Judas who goes out into the night to participate in a plan about which the other disciples apparently know nothing. And it is this action that invites our attention now. The drama lies in the words of v. 31 “When he had gone out…” and in Jesus’ follow-up words, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified.” Let’s spend a few moments trying to unpack these words.

First, let’s think about Judas leaving the table. What a dramatic moment. The paragraph simply ends with the sentence “And it was night!” We are allowed to wonder with the eleven who remained what he was going to do. Buy something for the Passover festival or some bread for the poor? If they were at all close, however, don’t you think they might have asked him where he was going? Did anyone worry about him, become anxious about him at this controversial time when Jesus had settled himself with the twelve in a secure place?

No one went after him and no one found him until it was too late. That was the night when the “new commandment” was given that Jesus’ disciples love one another. This love as we have come to learn was extreme. It would be willing to give itself in sacrifice for others. But that night no one went after Judas then, or later, after the betrayal. To this day we remember Judas’ sin every time we read the words at the Eucharist, “On the night when he was betrayed…” We remember him in negative ways. There is a term “Judas goat” that is used in animal husbandry”. A goat is trained to deceive the other animals by leading them to the slaughter pen. Judas’ name lives on in such a way among us. In English, some boys have been called Jude and Judah, but it would be unusual for parents to use the same root with the spelling, “Judas”

Yet at the moment when Jesus sends Judas out into the night, something very special is happening .Jesus is moving ahead with the plan that he understands God intends for him. He is, in his words, about to be “glorified”. And his glorification consists in fulfilling the goal of his ministry– the matter of giving his life away for others. That goal is about to be realized. As Jesus explains it to the eleven remaining disciples, his new commandment exists in loving one another as he has loved us. Although he is killed by angry and self-righteous people, we remember how far he was willing to go to insist that perfect love casts out all fear for him—and for us. Also, we remember that just as death had no power over him, it cannot conquer those who live in him.

You and I through our baptisms and our faith bear the name of Christ. Speaking symbolically, however, we all know that there are some with whom we would not prefer to gather when we assemble at the table of the Lord. Additionally, we also know that there are places at the table where some no longer kneel and pews in which others no longer sit. I’m not thinking so much of those who have gone to meet their Lord before us, but of friendships that have ended over harsh words. For each of us, there may be a Judas walking around in the night, unforgiven. And, by contrast, some of us know the same loneliness if we have been unforgiven. There’s an old Beatle’s song, “All the Lonely People”, which laments “Where do they come from, where do they belong”? Terrifyingly, some of them in our own time, have taken up guns to express their anger, their solitude, their hopelessness. It is their way of trying to find meaning in life—only to discover that hate and anger lead to a dead end.

While there are no simplistic answers to those who feel hurt or abandoned or lonely, it is also clear that Jesus is getting at the very thing that separates us from one another.  He encourages—even commands, a dimension of love that goes after the one from whom we have become estranged until they find a place at our table. It can mean embarrassing ourselves in painful ways as we seek to reclaim someone who has been hurt by us or by others. However, the joy of having the prodigal at the banquet table is more important than the shame we feel at running awkwardly down the road to embrace him.

I remember very well a sermon in which a pastor told a congregation about his predicament with his son. The son had run away and the father accepted some blame for this. But as he poured out his sorrow before strangers in the nave that day, pleading for anyone to help find the teen and bring him HOME, there were many tear-filled eyes that were not concerned about anyone’s embarrassment, but rather about helping to bring a son back to his father’s table.

Will we ever find the Judases who have left the table for unknown reasons? Will those who have been hurt by us or by others be helped to reclaim the vacant chair? My father often came home from Rotary One in Chicago, the oldest Rotary Club in the world, and said, “Well, we sang ‘The Vacant Chair’ again today. It was, I later learned, an old Civil War song sung by veterans who were missing their comrades. The Rotarians, however, were remembering the loss of deceased friends. The emptiness and pain that we experience because of people who are no longer at the table because of our own words or actions are real, my friends. At the heart of our life and faith, however, lives a crucified and risen Lord who loved by giving himself away. His love is at work in us today as we seek to reach out to those waiting for our love and forgiveness. And some of those who are working to master this love– may also be searching for ways to offer us a vacant chair at their own tables

Lord, we pray for the courage to embrace those we have distanced from ourselves, to forgive when we have been wronged and to be excited about what love can do. Additionally, where we have been wronged through no fault of our own, where we have suffered unjustly, help us to find ways to be reunited with those who wish they could love us as much as you love them.

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David Zersen, D.Min., Ed.D., FRHistS                                                                                                President Emeritus, Concordia University Texas