The Last Supper, and the events leading up to Jesus's arrest, trial and crucifiction are some of the richest accounts we have in the Gospels. I have no doubt that we all have heard or read countless meditations or sermons on these verses, about the submission of Jesus to the Father and the Father's will, about the institutions of the Lord's Supper and the connection we have with believers throughout the centuries and the connection we have with Christ and his death through this institution. And I'm sure that we've heard sermons about Judas, or about the disciples falling asleep in the garden, so we know well that it is not all equally edifying.
Soren Kierkegaard, in For Self-Examination, stresses the use of Scripture as a mirror in which we see ourselves reflected. Even as we acknowledge the distance between us and the text, and acknowledge the truth that is transmitted in the text, we must relate this truth to us and to our lives. I believe this provides us with an interesting approach to a meditation on "the night he was betrayed."
There are a number of characters present in the upper room accounts in the gospels and 1 Corinthians. Jesus is there, the twelve disciples are there, and certainly some of the faithful group of women were not far off either. Following the lead of Kierkegaard, I would implore us to seek to find ourselves in this story, and see what this tells us about us, and about the significance of the story. It would be easy to say that we are one of the "faithful" disciples, sitting bravely and steeling ourselves for the events to come, even though that sure doesn't seem to be a very good characterization of their state. Or we could see ourselves as merely an observer in the room, taking in the events of the evening. But I would assert that one useful and honest way to view the story is in the character of Judas. If I am honest with myself, I must acknowledge that I am a betrayer, and I'm sure this is an admission which we have all come to, at least at some level or another. It is one thing to ackonwledge that we are sinners, and this is a big enough admission, but I'm not sure we always really get to the heart of the significance of that, and realize that we actively betrayed him, put him on trial, and hung him on the cross.
I have sat around the table with Jesus, in fellowship with him, as Judas did, and I too have been prompted by Satan, the tempter (?John 13:2). Not only that, I have schemed against Jesus, and made plans for my own monetary benefit, at his expense. (I think this may be getting a little too personal and revealing, but that, I think, is a good sign that maybe we are getting to the heart of the passage.) Moving to the garden, I too have betrayed Jesus by a kiss, maybe through acting in a hurtful or sinful way supposedly on Christ's behalf, as a member or representative of Christ's body the church. The gospels finally note that Judas realized the significance of his own deeds, and this led him to take his own life. I believe this result can be instructive to us as well, as we reflect on the significance of our own sin, of our own betrayal of Jesus the Christ, the sinless and annointed Immanuel.
We now return to the Lord's Supper, that fateful Thursday evening where we find ourselves as betrayers. 1 Corinthians instructively opens its account of Jesus's institution of this meal with a reference to Judas's betrayal, and I believe this properly leads us to keep these truths of our own sinfulness in mind, for Jesus did not come to earth to save the sinless, but to seek and save the lost. We gather around the Lord's table as a fallen and redeemed community, through the grace of God, remembering the blood that Jesus shed for us. It is the new covenant, a new and almost unbelievable closeness that God has brought to us in his Son. I hope we can all remember, when we hear those words next time we gather at the table, "on the night he was betrayed," and see ourselves there, as betrayers whom God has reached down and gathered to himself in the blood of his Son, for it is this that we celebrate and recognize in communion.
