Remembering the Future

While we are yet sinners, there is yet a table where Jesus eats with us

Holy Thursday — Matthew 26

Jesus’s last meal is Jesus’ last meal because Jesus has been handed over by Judas, yet even before the supper has been served Matthew wants you to know that Judas remains welcome at Jesus’s supper table.

Being handed over to a god-forsaken death on a cross apparently makes for awkward dinner conversation.

As soon as Jesus sat down in the upper room, Jesus prophesied his imminent passion, “Truly I tell you, one of you will hand me over.” Matthew tells us that upon hearing this prediction the disciples became “greatly distressed,” the very same language John uses to describe Jesus praying before the grave of Lazarus who’d been four days dead.

Greatly distressed, the disciples respond one after another “Surely, not I Lord?”

Surely not I, Lord!?

That they all so respond is an indication that the sin Judas sins against Jesus is a possibility for them all; that is, they all recoiled at the total, lavish devotion Mary showed Jesus in Bethany in anticipation of his death.

They’ve all betrayed him because none of them want a crucified Lord.

So Jesus elaborates,“The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with me will betray me.”

The bowl to which Jesus refers is the basin of water required by the law for the ritual hand-cleansing prior to the passover meal. The bowl was part of the prescribed place setting; the handwashing happens near the top of the script for the holy supper. Jesus outs his betrayal by Judas just as Jesus passes the bowl of water— family style— around the table. Judas is still holding the bowl, both his hands and the towel damp, as Jesus drops the truth of Judas on Judas, “The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with me will betray me.”

And Judas passes the basin and towel to the next disciple and says: “Surely not I, Rabbi?”

Notice—

Judas does not call Jesus “Lord” like the eleven; he calls him “Rabbi.”

Judas can be a traitor because to Judas Jesus is not the Lord. Judas’s treachery is made possible because to Judas Jesus is not the Lord, the Maker of Heaven and Earth and the firsborn of creation.

To Judas— as he is to many today— Jesus is but another teacher among teachers and, thus, someone to be sold.

“The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with me will betray me,” Jesus says.

Look, here’s the point:

The handwashing happens at the start of the passover script. Matthew doesn’t even pick up the story again until they’re in the middle of the meal.

• They wash up.

• Jesus airs the dirty secret about Judas ratting him out.

• Judas responds by lying and— noticeably— not calling the Lord Lord.

• And then what?

• And then Jesus serves him supper, that’s what.

Jesus eats and drinks with sinners even if it kills him.