Ugolino di Nerio, Last Supper
A few details from Holy Thursday give us an interesting angle on Good Friday. Christ feeds us and washes us. . . .
First: Christ feeds us. “And as they were eating, he said, ‘Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.’ And they were very sorrowful and began to say to him one after another, ‘Is it I, Lord?’ He answered, ‘He who has dipped his hand in the dish with me will betray me’” (Mt 26:21-23).
Now, there are a few ways to interpret this, and indeed the Evangelists take it in different directions. Matthew reminds us that Jesus is (as so often) quoting the Psalms: “Even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me” (Ps 41:9).
It is poignant that the disciples say, “Is it I, Lord?” To be with the Lord at table is no sign that we are not a Judas. We cannot even know ourselves – Peter is not Judas, but despite his gallant attitude in the Upper Room, he too will abandon the Lord before the Cross.
The Cross is the test of our friendship. “Do you love me more than these?”
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Indeed, our closeness to Jesus at the table is not to our benefit if we will not follow him to the Cross. Mark (Peter’s disciple) always simplifies, but the lines he keeps go straight to the heart. “He said to them, ‘It is one of the twelve, one who is dipping bread into the dish with me. For the Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born’” (Mk 14:20-21).
Better if he had not been born! How those words must have pierced Peter’s heart!
Indeed, the reading from I Corinthians ties this to the Eucharist: “For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself” (1 Cor 11:29). Our presence at the Eucharistic table is dangerous.
“For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Cor 11:26 ). “I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread” (1 Cor 11:23). The Eucharist is the memorial, also, of betrayal.
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John, who always takes us to the interior of things, adds two significant details. First, he contrasts the closeness of Judas with the closeness of John: “One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was reclining at table at Jesus’ side, so Simon Peter motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking. So that disciple, leaning back against Jesus, said to him, ‘Lord, who is it?’” (Jn 13:23-25).
Three kinds of closeness: Judas sits at the table, but betrays Jesus. But John leans on the heart of Jesus, and follows him all the way to the Cross. Let this meditation not be too negative about prayer! That table fellowship is the source of Judas’s condemnation – but it is also the source of John’s closeness.
The lesson here is not that closeness to Jesus accounts for nothing. It is everything! We cannot follow Jesus to the Cross unless we lay close to his heart in the Eucharist. The lesson is not that only suffering matters. The lesson is that we must distinguish between true and false intimacy. We can think we are close, but we need to be closer.
(So it is nice that John gives us a third, in-between intimacy: Peter, who like us, is not close enough to follow Christ to the Cross – but who is close enough to return.)
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Then John gives us a second detail, “Jesus answered, ‘It is he to whom I will give this morsel of bread when I have dipped it.’ So when he had dipped the morsel, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. Then after he had taken the morsel, Satan entered into him” (Jn 13:26-27).
In the other Gospels, it is “he who has dipped his hand in the dish.” But in John, Jesus dips, and gives – he feeds Judas as a mother feeds a child. What exactly happened at that dipping, I don’t know. But John reminds us that we must let Jesus feed us. It is precisely the refusal to receive everything from Jesus, the demand that we feed ourselves, that we rely on our own strength, that keeps us far from Jesus.
That is the true lesson of the Cross: only Jesus has the strength to carry us to true intimacy.
How could our prayer lean more truly on the heart of Jesus?