(The Passion account according to Mark)
It was about to go down.
All of Jesus’ teaching, all of Jesus’ healings and exorcisms, the miles
he traveled on foot, the loaves and fishes multiplied to feed thousands all led
to this moment. Jesus had told his
disciples that he was going to Jerusalem – since they were following him, so
were they. And he warned them that in
Jerusalem, he would arrested, tortured, killed.
But, he told them, there was hope: on the third day, Jesus would rise
again. Whatever that meant. His disciples were too busy jockeying among
themselves as to who was the greatest among them, and imagining those sweet
thrones they’d be sitting on judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
But, before it went down – the betrayal, the arrest, and all
that followed – Jesus would have a last meal with his friends, those to whom he
was the closest, his “ride or die” friends.
Except he knew them well enough that, while they were perfectly willing
to ride – on his coat-tails, so to speak – none were willing to die for
him. Nobody was willing to go the
distance for him. Yet he was willing to
ride and die for them.
He gathers them for one last Passover meal together. Mark’s account begins with a foreshadowing of
danger – we’re told that the chief priests and scribes, the Jerusalem religious
establishment, backed by Rome, wanted Jesus dead. While they were willing to wait until after
the Passover festival if they absolutely had to, in order to avoid a riot,
there was no question that they wanted Jesus out of the way. And people in their position eventually got
their way.
Before the Passover, and before what we call the Last
Supper, Mark’s gospel tells us about another supper, at which Judas with the
other disciples was present. Mark tells
us it was held in the home of Simon the leper.
Apparently that’s how this man Simon was known – not Simon son of
whoever his father was, as would have been the custom, but simply Simon the
leper. Perhaps his family had cut him
off. In any case, given that leprosy was
a dreaded, contagious disease, you may well imagine Simon didn’t get a lot of
dinner guests. But Jesus was there –
likely to avoid drawing the notice of the authorities. But it also shows that even in the final days
of his earthly life, Jesus was willing to cross boundaries to associate with those
whom society shunned.
Suddenly, there was an unexpected dinner guest. While Jesus was sitting at table, an unnamed
woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive ointment. She opened the jar and poured the ointment on
Jesus’ head. We’re told that some at
the table loudly questioned what they saw as a waste – John’s gospel names
Judas as the lead instigator. They said
that the ointment could have been sold for 300 days’ wages – almost a year’s
wages is what this ointment cost – and the money given to the poor. But Jesus stopped their griping – the woman
did what she could. Since I will dead by
this time tomorrow, consider it an anointing for my burial. When people tell of this night, what this
woman did will always be remembered. The
love and generosity of this unnamed woman, and not the griping and penny
pinching of the disciples, is what Jesus wants us to remember.
Apparently for Judas, this was the last of many straws. He had followed Jesus as the others had,
listened to his teachings, saw his miracles, but Judas saw Jesus going off the
rails – or at least that’s how Judas saw it.
Judas thought that Jesus had to be stopped, somehow, anyhow. After the dinner at the house of Simon the
leper had ended, Judas went to the chief priests and scribes and offered to
dime Jesus out. They of course were
delighted, and even offered to compensate Judas for his troubles.
Jesus wanted to gather his disciples, his friends, together
for one last Passover meal together. He
sent two of his disciples ahead to make preparations. Interestingly, Jesus had made some advance
preparations of his own. Jesus told his
disciples to go into Jerusalem and look for a man carrying a jar of water, who
would lead them to a furnished room. As
we read this, we likely wonder how the two disciples were to pick this person
out from so many in the city. But in
Jesus’ day, carrying jars of water was generally women’s work – so this man,
breaking gender roles as he was, would have stuck out in a subtle but definite
way. The two disciples found the man,
who led them to the room, and the two made preparations for the dinner.
The dinner conversation got off to a difficult start: “Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me,
one who is eating with me.” Imagine that
you’ve gotten together with your closest friends, for a religious festival no
less, and the one at the head of the table says, “One of you is a traitor. One of you is going to get me killed.” The conversation later went downhill even
further from there, as Jesus told his friends, his closest friends, “All of you
will become deserters.” But in between
those two statements, Jesus asked his friends to remember him, and gave them a
specific way in which to remember him, in which we participate tonight: “While they were eating, he took a loaf of
bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to them, and said, ‘Take;
this is my body.’ Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to
them, and all of them drank from it. He said to them, ‘This is my blood of the
covenant, which is poured out for many. Truly I tell you, I will never again
drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the
kingdom of God.’”
So Jesus knew that one of his friends would betray him, and
that the rest would desert him. We can
go through almost anything so long as we have support from others. Remove that support from others, and it is
difficult indeed to bear up. Jesus knew
that he would be arrested and crucified….and that his closest friends would
abandon him. Nobody would be writing
letters of support to Caiaphas the high priest or to Pontius Pilate the
governor. Nobody would be raising bail
money. Nobody would be doing jailhouse
support. No, he would be on his
own. And yet, he asked to be remembered,
and he spoke of covenant – binding agreement – his covenant or binding
agreement of love with his disciples, which he upheld, even though they broke
it almost immediately, his covenant of love with us, a covenant that the risen
Christ stands by through our repeated betrayals and desertions.
The denial of Peter and the betrayal of Judas remind us that
we have no idea of the depth of evil of which we’re capable. Just when we think, “I could never do
something like that,” that is the time to be on guard, lest we be tempted to do
exactly that. And the covenant of
communion, of breaking bread and sharing wine, reminds us that we have no idea
of the height and depth and breadth of God’s love for us. Jesus invited his friends to eat bread and
drink wine with him, even though they would turn their backs on him that very
night. And Jesus said, later, “When I am
raised up, I will go ahead of you to Galilee.”
Even though you run from me, you will come back to me, and I will be
waiting for you, in love….and in the same way, Jesus waits in love for each of
us. God’s love, not our sin, has the
last word. Amen.
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