"Behold, The One Who Betrays Me Is With Me"

Dr. Will Willimon

"But see, the one who betrays me is with me, and his hand is on the table.Then they began to ask one another, which one of them it could be who would do this."

This professor revealed to me, the other day, the rather seedy etiology of two human activities which I had heretofore considered congenial. Why do we shake hands when we meet? A show of friendliness and warmth? Not so. The handshake originated in Europe, the Middle Ages. Men shook hands when they met (women did not) as a means of checking one another for concealed weapons.

The ritual clinking of glasses that follows a toast at the dinner table? Well, after checking out one another for concealed weapons, men would gather at the table. But before they ate, they clinked their glasses under the agreement to pour a bit of wine into one another's cups in order to protect themselves from being poisoned.

These apparently innocent, affable gestures rooted in violence and suspicion. We really are something, we humans. Scratch beneath even our most innocent appearing customs and you will find darker significance. Two little boys in Arkansas, the First Family in the White House, the people gathered here around the table, we really are something.

On the night he was arrested, Jesus gathered his disciples in an upper room and shared with them a meal. And what more intimate experience of conviviality, and warmth, and love, than a meal? Jesus and his twelve best friends. And what greater sign of solidarity and support than a communal meal?

Scarcely has the meal begun than Jesus drops a bombshell, "One of you will betray me," he announces. (Widespread shock around the table.) Who among us, Jesus' best friends and disciples, could do such a thing?

"Behold the hand of him who betrays me is on the table." And all lifted their hands off the table. Who could do this?

You know the answer.

An argument arose among the disciples "as to which one of them was to be regarded as the greatest" (22:24). Mark puts this dispute over greatness elsewhere, when Jesus and his disciples are on the road one day. Luke, with his typical dramatic genius, places it here, at the table, just after Jesus has predicted that one of his own will betray him.

"When the campaign is over and we get Jesus elected Messiah, King of the World, who will get to sit on the Cabinet?" Me! No, me!

And thereby the disciples demonstrate, in this argument, that these, Jesus' twelve closest friends, those who have been with him every step of the way, heard all of his lectures, observed all of his miracles..have not the slightest notion of anything he has been saying!

Jesus, surely in exasperation, goes over it again in words of one syllable, "The Gentiles love to lord over one another, but not you for the greatest is the least, and the least is the greatest and the first shall be last."

Jesus is among them as one who serves, waiting upon them at the table, serving them, and they argue over who is the greatest. Has not Jesus predicted that one of his own would betray him? Now, in this argument, his own disciples fulfill his predictions. By their bickering over greatness, they reveal that they all have betrayed him. They all misconstrue and pervert his truth.

Yet Jesus follows immediately with a curious statement. "You are those who have continued with me in my trials." Yea. Sure. Did he say this ironically, sarcastically? He would have been justified in saying it so.

To these betraying, misunderstanding ones he promises, "You shall sit upon thrones judging the tribes of Israel." You.

And then he turns to Peter. "Simon, Satan has demanded to have you that he might sift you like wheat."

Then come the pitiful denials and loud declarations. "Lord! Though all of the rest of them fall away, I'll be there for you. When the going gets rough, I'll be there behind you!"

Sure. Way behind Jesus!

Jesus sadly tells Peter that before the rooster crows at dawn, he will have denied Jesus three times. He will tell the questioning maid, "I don't even know him."

And then they go out into the darkness of that Thursday night, and when the soldiers' swords are drawn, the disciples flee into the darkness and as Jesus is led away, those upon whom he waited at the table, are gone. The gap between the warm, amicable camaraderie of the table and their frantic scurrying for cover in the darkness is wide.

And we know this story. We gathered here to have a Thursday dinner with Jesus, we know this story, a story of the gap between our religious declarations and our real actions. We know what it's like to make promises in church, but then lie when the going gets rough in the dorm. We mean to live up to our commitments. But then, in the darkness, when the swords are drawn, and there is a cost to be paid for our commitment, we say, "You know, now that you mention it, I didn't really know him."

He says to us as he said to them, one of you, all of you will, have betrayed me. You know that story.

But do you know this story?

Later, we would remember his rather odd promise spoken amid all our betrayal. "I confer on you, just as my Father has conferred on me, a kingdom, so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and you will sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel."

It was an odd thing to say to us, considering how well he knew us.

To you, you betrayers and misunderstanders, I will give my kingdom, and you shall rule.

To you, Peter, who intends to do well this night, but won't. To you, all of you, who just never get the point, or never quite get the life. To you, a kingdom.

"One of you will betray me," he said. And who doesn't? And to these he promised a place in his kingdom, a kingdom of the betrayers. His promise is based, not upon who we are, but upon who he is. We betrayed his love. He does not.

My old friend Stuart Henry recalled, in the strict, Southern Presbyterian church of his childhood, on those Sundays when Communion was observed, that the pastor would stand before the congregation and say something like, "It is my sacred and solemn duty to warn you that if there be any adulterers, fornicators, liars, thieves, or blasphemers among you and that if you partake of this holy food unworthily you partake of your own damnation."

Dr. Henry said, "We all pranced right down to the front to receive the body and blood of Christ anyway."

And they were right. Watch us, here in church, and on a Thursday too, saying our prayers, eating and drinking with Jesus, if you didn't know us that well, you might think that we are good. But scratch below the surface and you will find a darkness and a depth of betrayal unfathomable.

I for one am glad that Judas was there that night. If he had not been, how could I be here tonight?

Last year about this time, when writer Reynolds Price read from his Gospel of Mark, after his reading ­ and you know how Mark treats the disciples, as complete dolts and buffoons ­ this graduate student comes up to me on the way out and asks, "Did they ever get the point?"

"What do you mean," I asked.

"Did they ever get the point? Did they ever understand what Jesus was talking about?"

"No," I said, "they never got the point. And that's why, for many of us contemporary disciples, we love this gospel above all others."

They never got the point. They weren't spiritually discerning, religiously wise. They were knaves, cowards, fools, and fakes. And we, who are.well, we love them for that. More, we love Jesus for loving them, for sharing his last meal with them, for pouring out his blood ­ for them ­ for promising them a kingdom.

Remember that as you come to the Lord's table.

Remember, one of the earliest charges against Jesus was, "This man welcomes sinners, and eats with them" (Luke 15:2). He still does, thank God.