Wednesday of Holy Week 2019

Sermon preached at Farington Moss St Paul

Isaiah 50.4-9a; Hebrews 12.1-3; John 13.21-32

What would you do if God spoke to you and told you that you would have to suffer in order to do God’s will and lead people to God? Would you be willing to do it? Would you be willing to sacrifice yourself for everybody else?

The problem is that we are designed to protect ourselves at all times. The workings of our brains make us avoid danger. Faced with certain stimuli, certain dangers, our brains set off a whole process where adrenalin rushes through our bodies and we prepare ourselves either to fight or fly. This whole process happens in milliseconds. We come pre-wired, as it were, with all sorts of self-protection mechanisms.

Because this, of course, is how we survive. The world is actually a very dangerous place, full of dangers and threats to our well-being. We probably don’t realise it because so much of that which protects us and takes us away from danger happens without us necessarily being aware of it. We don’t go towards danger, towards suffering, we avoid it.

And if we know that somebody is a threat to our wellbeing, we tend to avoid them, to hide from them. If we know that going to a certain place, even if we always go there will put us in danger, we will often go somewhere else. We avoid danger.

Jesus came to supper with his disciples. The Scriptures tell us that he knew that one of the disciples would betray him and that he would be beaten and put to death. More than this, the Scriptures tell us that Jesus even knew who would betray him. What would you do? I think I would probably exclude that person. I would probably make sure that I was safe and protected. Most of us probably would because that is how we are wired—to protect ourselves.

John’s Gospel is the only one that tell the story in the way we have heard it tonight: that Jesus specifically gave a piece of bread to Judas and told him to go and do what he was going to do. The other Gospels simply tell the story of the Last Supper and that Jesus simply said that one of the disciples would betray him. However it actually happened, it is clear that the disciples didn’t know at the time that Judas was going in order to betray Jesus. Otherwise, they would probably have tried to stop him.

So what was going on when Jesus gave him the bread? Was this the same bread that Jesus broke and gave to his disciples saying ‘This is my body, which is given for you’? This was a holy event. This is the event that has led the Church to celebrate the Mass, the Eucharist, Holy Communion for two thousand years. We do this in remembrance of Christ and in remembrance of this event in the Gospels. It is a holy event that we should rightly take very seriously indeed. It is a holy event for which we should prepare ourselves and examine our conscience and make confession of our sins if that is what we need to do.

There are many things for which the Church, historically, has banned people from receiving the Sacrament of Holy Communion. I remember once going to a Church where a woman was not allowed to receive Holy Communion because she was living with her boyfriend. She was not counted worthy of receiving these most precious gifts of Christ’s body and his blood.

If anybody was not worthy of receiving these holy gifts, it was the person who would betray Jesus and hand him over to the people who would beat him and nail him to a cross to die, bleeding, naked, and alone. And yet, to read the other Gospels, it would seem that Jesus included even Judas in the sharing of his body and his blood. It would appear that Jesus washed even his feet. It would appear that Jesus still loved him to the end, even though he was going to do such a horrible thing.

Why did Jesus include him? Why did Jesus do this? Why did Jesus not do something to protect himself?

Isaiah 50:5 says that ‘the Lord God has opened my ear’. Christians have interpreted this part of Isaiah as being a prophecy about Jesus. The phrase ‘to open the ear’ suggests that it was closed. You don’t open something that is already open. It suggests that what was heard was not in the hearing of ordinary people: there had to be another, special opening. In other words, it could perhaps be translated as ‘God has enabled me to hear things that nobody else can hear’.

It was this hearing that came from God that enables the servant in the prophecy to give his back and his cheeks to those who would hurt him. This is not just a submitting because there was no escape: this is an active giving of his back and of his face because of this special hearing that God has granted to him, because of knowing that ‘the Lord God helps me…he who vindicates me is near’.

The truth must hit us that Jesus willingly and actively went to his suffering and death for us. It was so actively and freely done that even the one who would betray him was included in the last words and actions of Jesus. It was not a passive going to death: it was chosen. This is why even Judas could be included, because Jesus knew that this was God’s will. More than this, Jesus knew that this was the very reason he took flesh and became man.

As I look at some of the pain and suffering I have endured in my life, I can begin to see how it has all been part of God’s plan. God worked through Christ’s suffering. God can also work through ours. It is not, I believe, that God wants us to suffer or experience pain, but God can use every situation and use it for good—even when we suffer and die.

If even Judas was included in the Last Supper, there is hope for all of us. Whether we feel ourselves worthy or unworthy, there is a place for us at the Lord’s table. Let us not hesitate to come. Let us receive Christ’s body and blood, so freely given for us.