+ A simple Gospel story — and yet loaded with meanings. A simple prophetic utterance — and yet packed with significance and even understood by us to apply to Jesus.
Beginning with Isaiah, we hear the second of the Suffering Servant songs. And this servant tells it so that he has gone full circle. He speaks of being called by the Lordfrom birth in his mother’s womb.
He tells it that the Lord has made him, “sharp-edged sword and a polished arrow” — both hidden and protected, and lethal, too. Because as the servant of the Lord, the Lord intended to use his servant as the one who would bring back Jacob and gather Israel.
But more than this, the Lord proclaimed that this servant would become a “light to the nations,” and that through and by this servant, God’s salvation would reach to the ends of the earth.
But mixed in with this glorious mission, there is that very human feeling of failure as the Suffering Servant seems to cry out in pain —
“Though I thought I had toiled in vain, and for nothing, uselessly, spent my strength.”
A momentary moan, but a moaning nonetheless. But, oh so quickly, the Suffering Servant finds victory in the Lord —
“Yet my reward is with the Lord, my recompense is with my God.”
In the Gospel, we are at a supper; it is here that Jesus teaches and reveals much. And in this very personal and intimate moment, Jesus tells all the unthinkable and shocking news —
“One of you will betray me.”
Gospel details are sometimes vague, and sometimes clear. So, at Peter’s urging, John asks, “Is it I?”
Jesus reveals, and at the same time, the answers seem too obscure. Jesus gives the detail that, “the one to whom I hand the morsel after I have dipped it.”
Then he gave it to Judas immediately after saying so.
Revealed, and immediately obscured. No one seems, at least in these Gospel words, to connect the dots. Judas gets up and begins the dot-dot-dot that will lead to the full betrayal of Jesus.
And once again, no one seems to have noticed.
But the story reveals more. The morsel dipped and given to Judas was most likely a bitter herb. Doesn’t that just announce what was coming: the bitter suffering and pain that Jesus was about to share on his cross?
And what a revealing detail, as the Gospel gives commentary about Judas’ departure from the meal. The Gospel simply says that Judas took the morsel and left at once, “And it was night.”
Hmm! Utter darkness! Ain’t that a perfect description of most sin: darkness? Sin seems to thrive on darkness, envelop us in darkness, and leave us in darkness.
And then immediately Jesus begins to focus on the glory that would follow him. And that they, too, would follow and share in that glory one day.
Peter insists that he could and would right now follow. And a second betrayal is revealed to Peter —
“You will betray me three times.”
Yikes! Yikes! Yikes! Stories and scripture passages are mixed with suffering and betrayal, yet also proclaim victory and divine glory.
And through it all, we come to see in the stories about them the story about us. What great mercy and love we are about to uncover and discover for us on our journey through this thing called life!
