Part One: The Prelude and the Passion – The Questioning Messiah.

I never get tired of re-reading the gospel narratives of the Passion and Resurrection. As a teacher, I have always been interested in Jesus’ method of asking questions, teaching in a deductive manner which I have sought to use in my own teaching of the Humanities (mainly History and Religious Education) and, in the second half of my career, as a teacher and trainer of students and teachers of English as a Foreign Language. Deductive methods encourage diversity and critical thinking, as opposed to inductive approaches which encourage convergent thinking and focus on the transmission of knowledge, whether in terms of predetermined narratives or structural approaches to language teaching and learning. For Jesus, the books of the Torah, the Hebrew Law, and the eschatological narratives of the prophets were not set in stone but were organic, evolving in interaction with the hearts and minds of the people. That is how the gospels were formed, through a process of enquiry and interpretation.

Jesus did not tell his stories simply to answer questions (or, sometimes, to avoid answering them directly), but to provoke questions, to stab people wide awake, to make them think again, as Alan T Dale (1979) suggested. Dale pointed out that he chose his disciples from those who came up to him to ask him questions about what he was driving at. He didn’t want Yes-men, Dale went on, or people who didn’t want to do any hard thinking. I would add that such people only asked closed questions, requiring a ‘Yes/No’  answer, whereas Jesus preferred open questions; Who is my neighbour? rather than the ‘trick question’ of the religious leaders, Should we pay taxes to Caesar?

Dale argued that this approach has implications for us in reading the stories Jesus told. We mustn’t ask too quickly, What does this story mean? Instead, we must live with all the stories, not just a few familiar ones, and let them capture our imagination as real stories. We need to read and listen to each story as it was first told, as a whole story, and not to focus only on its moral or its message. The same is true of our need to read the stories about Jesus told by the gospel-writers. We need to suspend our disbelief when we read the accounts of his miracles, rather than approaching them with our own pseudo-scientific or sceptical, historicist, twenty-first-century constructs. This applies especially when we consider the resurrection narratives. Too often we make artificial divisions between the Ministry of Jesus and the Drama of his ‘Last Week’ and the following forty days. In fact, Jesus never stopped teaching, asking and provoking questions among his followers right up until his Ascension. He remained ready to talk about the great issues continuing to confront those who were his witnesses and missionaries, and to deal with, if not always answering, the questions which they raised.

On the cross, he quoted, as a poet himself, the psalmist’s desperate question, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? (Psalm 22: 1) Matthew (27: 46) translates this from the Aramaic, Eli, Eli, lama sebachthani? Even then, he was teaching his Galilean witnesses in their own native language, perhaps also leading them in a protest against the authorities, both Roman and Jewish, whose representatives stood nearby, rather than railing against ‘divine providence’. The Judeans mistakenly thought he was calling for Elijah to come and rescue him. Jesus dies before he can continue reciting the Psalm, which goes on to refer to how they part my garments among them by throwing dice (v 18), just as Matthew describes the Roman guards doing after putting Jesus on the cross (v 35). John adds further significant detail to this event, describing how they divided his own clothes into four parts, one part for each soldier, and then took the purple robe, given in jest (in Luke’s account) by Herod Antipas to Jesus. It was made of one piece of woven cloth, without any seams in it. They decide not to tear it, but to throw dice to see who would get it. This happened, John tells us, in order to make the psalmist’s ‘prophecy’ come true:

They divide my clothes among themselves,

And gamble for my robe.

But in addition to this prophecy, the psalmist had answered his own cry when ending his poem on a triumphant note: 

For he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted;

Neither hath he hid his face from him;

But when he cried unto him, he heard.

 

My praise shall be of thee in the great congregation;

I will pay my vows before them that fear him.

The meek shall eat and be satisfied;

They shall praise the Lord that seek him;

Your heart shall live forever.

 

All the ends of the world shall remember and turn to unto the LORD;

And all the kindred of the nations shall worship before thee.

 

For the kingdom is the LORD’S;

And he is the governor among the nations.

…

A seed shall serve him;

It shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation.

They shall come and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done this.

Jesus must have been aware of the continuing content of the poem when he shouted out its first lines. He was interrupted by the mocking response of those who shouted abuse of the ignorant crowd who stood close-by and who, not understanding Aramaic, thought he was calling upon Elijah to come to his aid. The prophet had an important role in the Passover celebration since the last act of the Seder, the meal celebrating the unleavened bread, was the symbolic pouring of wine for him, when the door to the home was left open for him to enter and drink. We don’t know whether Jesus intended to recite the whole poem, but that he should choose to do so in his native tongue is hardly surprising, given his upbringing among the Galilean men and women who now stood in a group at a ‘safe’ distance from the Roman executioners, the chief priests and their Judean mob. The four soldiers, no doubt, had their orders to keep the revolutionary northern rabble at a safe distance in case there should be any attempt to remove their ‘Messiah’ from the cross, alive or dead. Only a few of Jesus’ close female relatives, together with John, were allowed to stand close enough to hold a brief conversation with him. Of those present, the gospels only refer to John and Mary, his mother, his aunt, Mary the wife of Cleopas and Mary Magdalene as witnessing the tragedy from the foot of the cross. Other women, including Salome, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the wife of Zebedee, were looking on from a distance, together with the rest of the male disciples.

The world Jesus had grown up in was full of burning questions which the people of Galilee were continually debating in a dialect that few outsiders, whether Graeco-Roman or Judean would understand. Why indeed, they asked, had their God abandoned them to these foreigners? The psalmist’s poetic hymn of protest would be written in their hearts and memorised, like any well-known folk song. Jesus was one of these simple folk, a Jew and a first century Palestinian, who thought as they did. But they were not fools and were capable of asking very shrewd questions. There were many among them who would not take what was reported, or even inherited, at face value. Reports, assumptions and traditional beliefs could be debated and challenged, or rejected and re-interpreted, as prophets like Nehemiah and Amos, and poets like the author of Job, as well as the psalmist, had shown.

The arguments had gone on, no less heated, between him and his disciples, walking along the dusty roads or in after-dinner conversations and discussions. Just as he chose these close friends from those who came back to him with open questions, so he encouraged them to keep asking genuine questions. He had no use for the common assumptions and assertions of social and religious orthodoxy. There were plenty of orthodox people around who wanted to stop questions being asked. Jesus would have agreed with Socrates in asking them – if you can’t ask questions, what is the point in living? That’s why his discourses, or conversations, with his disciples, remain so vivid in the memories of witnesses, even in the forty days between his resurrection and his ascension. It was as if the later conversations connected with the earlier ones in a way which now gave them full meaning: 

“People are talking about me,” said Jesus to his friends, as they were walking along the road. “Who do they say I am?”

“Some say John,” they told him. “Others say Elijah, and others say one of the great men of God.”

“But you,” said Jesus, “who do you say I am?”

“You’re God’s Chosen Leader!” said Peter. …

He went on to tell them that he himself – and his friends as well – would have to go through hard times. He would be treated as an enemy of the Jewish Leaders and would have to face death; but his death would not be the end. He was quite open about it. Peter took Jesus on one side and talked seriously to him. Jesus turned round and saw his other friends. He spoke seriously to Peter:

“Out of my sight, tempter!” he said, “You”re not thinking of what God wants. You’re talking like everybody else.”

(Mk. 8: 27-31, Dale’s New World paraphrase)

Peter and the other disciples had grown up with the idea that God’s chosen leader would establish some kind of national kingdom, with a warrior king like David and a new government. Jesus would have nothing to do with such ideas. He had not come to be that kind of king. There must indeed have been some serious words exchanged in his ‘private’ conversation with Peter. In his account, Mark uses a strong word for ‘rebuke’ or ‘talk straight’ three times, once by Peter and twice by Jesus. Peter could consider himself to have been given a serious ‘ticking off’, but the other disciples must also have thought Jesus’ discourse about suffering utterly impossible to believe. How, they would have asked, could God’s Chosen Leader suffer in any way or die at the hands of the foreigners? In a second difficult conversation, James and John, Jesus’ other fishermen friends, brothers and ‘sons of Zebedee’, came up to Jesus with a question which revealed their own prejudice, based on a general misconception about the ‘Messiah-ship’:

“Sir,” they said, “we’re going to ask you for something and we want you to do it for us.”

“What do you want me to do for you?” asked Jesus.

“When you are a real king,” they said, “make us the chief members of your government.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Jesus. “Can you go through what I must go through?”

“Of course we can!” they said.

“You’ll go through what I must go through all right,” said Jesus. “But I can’t make anybody ‘a chief member of my government’. God has marked out my leaders.”

(Mk. 10: 35-45; Dale)

In his following discourse, Jesus goes on to turn upside down all accepted patterns of ‘greatness’ and what it means to be ‘Number One’. He describes himself as being a ‘slave’ or indentured ‘servant’. He was ‘the servant king’. How, on earth, his followers must have thought, could Jesus compare himself to a farm-labourer on one of the great estates owned by the foreign landlords?

The disciples sometimes recalled some very simple statements, or sayings, which Jesus gave in response to their questions. One of them was given in response to a complicated question by Simon Peter:

“Sir,” he said, ” how often can somebody treat me badly, and I forgive him and be friends with him again?

Will seven times be enough?”

“This isn’t something you can add up like sums,” said Jesus, “the answer is – every time.”  

Peter, being a fisherman, was probably good at sums, but he had a lesson or two to learn about forgiveness, not least his own. Jesus also warned people against taking disputes to court before trying to resolve them among themselves. He suggested that they should first ask themselves the question as to why they couldn’t make up their own minds about what was right and wrong and seek their own resolution to the conflict. All that courts could do was to impose fines and imprisonments, making matters worse, in many cases for both parties. In his controversial ministry, Jesus quickly provoked questions and debates. The fundamental question at stake was what does religion really mean? Is it a matter of rules and regulations? Are these at the heart of religion? Do they come first? Can we have too many of them? Can we begin to think more of them than we should? Are there not more important matters? Many of the questions which were asked by the Jewish Leaders of Jesus may seem petty and trivial to modern minds, but arose from this fundamental question about the nature of religion:

Why don’t these friends of yours keep the old customs? Why do they eat food with “dirty” hands?

Why do John’s friends fast, but your friends don’t?

Jesus’ answer was that the religious ‘Leaders’ were making the people do what they wanted them to do, rather than what God wanted them to do. God had said, Respect your father and mother, but they said that a man must give his money to the Temple first, and needn’t then give anything to his parents. So their “old custom” had taken the place of God’s original commandment. They were simply ‘hypocrites’, playing at being good. For Jesus, real religion was something much greater than keeping rules, however useful they may be in helping the people live in an orderly way. A man can live in such a way, yet still be very irreligious, as Jesus’ own questions to the ‘Leaders’ were designed to demonstrate:

Today is the Holy Day; is making a sick man better today right or wrong?

Is there any of you who wouldn’t pull his son out of the well he’d fallen into, even if it was the Holy Day?

As far as the question about the friends of John the Baptist fasting was concerned, Jesus recognised that they wanted to trap him into criticising John, who was more old-fashioned in his observance of basic religious rites, as his use of baptism in itself revealed. People recognised that John’s view of religion was different from that of Jesus, but the Galilean was careful not to answer the question in a way which would antagonise ordinary Judeans, and enable ‘the Leaders’ to drive a wedge between the two movements. Therefore, he responded with rhetorical questions which nevertheless confirmed his nonconformity:

Can guests at a wedding leave the wedding breakfast uneaten? What would the bridegroom think?

By his rhetorical response, Jesus showed that for him religion was not about ‘austerity’, especially one which was unequally imposed on impoverished people by those who had plenty, unlike John and his disciples, but about the celebration of life. To follow John was to follow a path of repentance, to follow Jesus was to rejoice. The true legacy of John the Baptist was turned against the Jewish leaders when they challenged him directly in the Temple about the way in which he had cleared the courts of store-keepers and bankers in what he intended as an ‘acted parable’, a public act of protest designed to demonstrate that God’s care was for all people:

“Who told you to do this sort of thing?” they asked.

“Who gave you the right to act like this?”

“I’ll ask you a question first,” said Jesus. “You answer my question and I’ll answer yours. You remember John the Baptist; was he God’s messenger, or just another of these mob-leaders?

You tell me.”

They didn’t know what to say. “If we say, ‘He was God’s messenger’, he’ll say … ‘Why didn’t you join him, then?’

If we say, ‘Oh, just one of these mob-leaders…’.” 

In asking them a closed question, Jesus was choosing to play them at their own game of entrapment in what was daily becoming a more intense stand-off. They hardly dared finish their sentence among themselves. They were frightened of the crowd of bystanders, for many of the ordinary pilgrims in the Temple regarded John as one of the prophets. They answered that they didn’t know, an option that the question did not allow, as every experienced teacher would point out to a recalcitrant student. So Jesus felt free to opt out of answering their original question. Instead, he told them a story, a parable about a landowner who sent servants to collect his rent, payment in kind, from his tenant-farmers. When they beat up the servants and sent them away empty-handed, he sent his only son, thinking that they would show him greater respect. But they killed him and threw his body outside the farm. This time, he ended his story with a question which he answered himself so that the Jewish Leaders would be in no doubt that the story was aimed at them:

What will the landowner do?

He will come himself, of course, and destroy those farmers and give the farm to others.

These questions and answers show how Jesus dealt with critics. He sometimes responded to a question with another question, trying to make people do their own thinking or to force them, as here, to confront their own hypocrisy and come out into the open. He was also quick to recognise when the question he was being asked was not a genuine one. The Jewish Leaders were like the tenant-farmers who were determined to make the Temple their temple rather than a house of prayer for all nations, as God had intended.  But then, they weren’t interested in asking what God really wanted them to do with it. It was no wonder that they made up their minds that they would not tolerate such radical challenges as these. Not only did they disagree with him fundamentally, but they were frightened that the common people, whose dislike for them was a thinly disguised reality, would take him seriously. That’s why they wanted him to answer their question by declaring that he was acting on God’s authority. Then they could use the Temple Guard to arrest him on a charge of blasphemy. But Jesus didn’t intend to be caught out as easily as that, making a direct statement which could be used against him in court.

The ‘Leaders’ may have made up their minds to put Jesus on trial in the Sanhedrin after this ‘interaction’, but they knew that a formal interrogation could only succeed against him if they had clearly witnessed statements of his that the chief priests would consider as evidence of blasphemy. Reports of rhetorical questions, figures of speech and parabolic discourse, no matter how radical, would not be enough to convict Jesus of Nazareth of a capital crime. They laid plans to have him arrested, but he kept out of reach, spending the winter in the countryside east of the River Jordan where their writ did not run. But when he came back to the city just before the Passover Festival in the spring, the authorities were ready to act. Two days before the Great Feast, Mark tells us, the Jewish Leaders met to find some way of getting hold of Jesus in order to kill him secretly. They wanted to do this before the main Pesach festival because they feared the people would riot. The eve of the festival, during the Feast of Unleavened Bread would present them with a better opportunity since each family would be celebrating their Seder meal in their own home. They planned, with the help of Judas Iscariot, to arrest him in the darkness of the night in the hillside olive groves outside Jerusalem.

Mark copied down the earliest account of what happened on that last night of Jesus’ life, but in many ways, John’s account is the fullest and most insightful. It begins with an acted parable, through which Jesus hopes to teach the disciples an important lesson about the new roles they are about to ‘inherit’ from him. By the door of every Palestinian home was kept a bowl of water, so that every visitor, removing their sandals, could have any residual sand from the dusty streets and roads removed. Very often one of the household servants would help them with this. It was not a major task since any self-respecting guest would have washed properly before leaving their own home. Perhaps there was no servant available to perform this task in the hired room since nearly all of them would have been allowed to go home to be with their own families. So, as the disciples came through the door, Jesus rose from the table, tied a towel around his waist, then poured some water into a washbasin and began to wash the disciples’ feet in turn. When he came to Simon Peter, the fisherman objected:

“Are you going to wash my feet, Lord?”

Jesus answered him, “You do not understand now what I am doing, but you will understand later.”

Peter declared, “Never at any time will you wash my feet!” 

“If I do not wash your feet,” Jesus answered, “You will no longer be my disciple.” …

After Jesus had washed their feet, he put his outer garment back on and returned to his place at the table.

“Do you understand what I have just done to you?” he asked.

“You call me Teacher and ‘Sir’, and it is right that you do so, because that is what I am. I, your Lord and Teacher, have just washed your feet. I have set an example for you, so that you will do just what I have done for you. I am telling you the truth: no slave is greater than his master, and no messenger is greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know this truth, how happy you will be if you put it into practice!”

This is Jesus, as Teacher, was using a method of deduction and example to demonstrate to his disciples how leaders must serve those they lead. In this case, he links the acted parable to a clear explanation, joined by a question, rather than leaving their understanding simply to permeate through their imaginations. They were devout and intelligent men, with a good understanding of the Scriptures, but when all was said and done they were still fishermen, used to hooking fish themselves rather than being hooked by intellectual discourse and inductive teaching. But how were they to be trained to teach themselves, to replace the master-teacher? He demonstrates how to use a physical ‘hook’ when seeking to ‘catch’ the imaginations of men. His non-traditional view of hierarchies of greatness and servitude was not easy for even the most erudite among them to grasp only with their minds, as some of the other intellectual interactions between Jesus and his disciples, already noted, suggest. At one and the same time, he is teaching them a lesson about greatness and keeping his promise to make them into fully trained, fully qualified fishers of men for when he is no longer with them. He has shown them how ‘to fish’ for themselves.

This is the heart of the story of Jesus, the point which John is making when, at the very beginning of his Book of the Passion (Jn. 13: 1-9), the great conclusion of his dramatic presentation of the ministry of Jesus, he places this story as the supremely characteristic story about Jesus. Jesus is teaching them to become both servants and masters; to become message-makers as well as messengers. They have reached the turning point in their training and personal development where they themselves must do what they have just been shown to him.

As he sat down with his twelve companions to share the Seder together, Jesus again ‘put the cat among the pigeons’ by telling them that one of their numbers would betray him. How could he be so hurtful? This time he was teaching them a lesson using an emotional hook. What upset them was that this meal was supposed to be the happiest time in the Jewish calendar, with the entire family sitting around the table. They would each have strong feelings, recollecting with great warmth the exchange of greetings, their childhood homes filled with light, and the meal itself with the four cups of wine, the ‘matzoh’, the cakes of bread, bitter herbs and sweet paste of almonds, apple and wine. The various parts of the meal reminded Jews of their deliverance from the cruelty and enslavement in Egypt. At the commencement of the meal, the youngest son in the family asked four traditional questions which his father would answer in full, showing the way in which the younger generation should be taught.

Jesus was now using an emotional ‘hook’ to teach them a hard, hurtful, experiential lesson about the real costs of family life and what we might call today, ‘tough love’. He wanted them to look forward to the pain and suffering to come, rather than simply looking back to past pleasures. Of course, as C. S. Lewis would remark, the one informs the other; it is not exclusive, but inclusive of the other. But family life is not one long party, as they themselves were soon to discover. Mark and all the other gospel writers tell us that the disciples began to react to Jesus’ interruption of these traditions by asking him, one after the other, Surely you don’t mean me, do you? Jesus answered:

It’s one of the “Twelve” … He is sharing this very meal with me. … What is going to happen is just what the Bible said would happen. But it will be a terrible thing for the man who betrays me; it would be better for him if he had never lived.

One of them is about to become the ‘black sheep of the family’ since every family must have one. In Matthew’s account, Judas is identified as ‘the traitor’ by Jesus. Luke also inserts a discourse about the continuing dispute among the disciples about ‘greatness’, similar in content to Jesus’ earlier conversation with James and John, and a recapitulation of the theme of the acted parable of feet-washing recorded by John. Jesus, perhaps referring to the Seder tradition of having the youngest son ask the four questions of his father, tells them:

… the greatest one among you must be like the youngest, and the leader must be like the servant.

Who is greater, the one who sits down to eat or the one who serves him?

The one who sits down, of course. But I am among you as the one who serves.

When the ‘supper’ was over, they sang a traditional hymn and walked out to the Mount of Olives on the way towards the village of Bethany, where Jesus was staying. On the way, he told them more directly, but still using metaphors from Scripture (Zechariah 13: 7), that their ‘family’ was about to be broken up:

I will strike the shepherd,

And the sheep will run away.   

Peter protested that though everyone else might let him down, he never would. But Jesus told him that before dawn that night, he, Peter, would say three times that he was no friend of his. Peter answered, even more hotly:

Say I’m no friend of yours? I’d die with you first.

Everybody else said the same. In John’s gospel, Peter wants to know what Jesus meant when he said, in conversation over supper, that they could not go where he was going. Jesus replies that he would follow him later, but Peter wants to know why he can’t follow him then and there since he is ready to die for him. Jesus asks him:

Are you really ready to die for me?

Jesus tells them not to be worried or upset, that there are many rooms in my Father’s house, and that he was going to prepare places for them there. Then Thomas asks him, ever the sceptic, his understanding frustrated by Jesus’ continual use of figures of speech:

Lord, we do not know where you are going; so how can we know the way to get there?

Jesus answers, again speaking figuratively:

I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one goes to the Father except by me. Now that you have known me … you will know my Father also, and from now on you do know him and you have seen him.

So Philip asks:

Lord, show us the Father; that is all we need.

Jesus answers him with questions:

For a long time I have been with you all; yet you do not know me, Philip? 

Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.

Why, then, do you say, “Show us the Father?”

Do you not believe, Philip, that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? 

More figures of speech, the disciples think. The other Judas, not Iscariot, asks him:

Lord, how can it be that you will reveal yourself to us and not to the world?

Jesus answers him:

Whoever loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and my Father and I will come to him and live with him. Whoever does not love me does not obey my teaching. And the teaching you have heard is not mine, but comes from the Father, who sent me.

Peace is what I leave you with; it is my own peace I give you. I do not give it as the world does. 

When they got to the olive groves, Jesus took Peter, James and John with him to the Garden of Gethsemane, across the Kidron Brook, asking them to keep watch while he prayed a little further on. When he returned to them, he found them asleep. He spoke to Peter:

Simon, are you asleep?

Weren’t you able to stay awake for even one hour?

So much, then, for Peter’s promises of providing protection for Jesus. Twice more he returned to them, finding them unable to keep their eyes open, and on the third occasion he remarked:

Are you still sleeping and resting?

Enough! The hour has come! Look, the Son of Man is now being handed over to the power of sinful men…

Judas Iscariot knew exactly where Jesus would be because Jesus had met his disciples there many times before. At that moment, Judas arrived with a gang armed with swords and clubs, sent there by the Jewish Leaders, some of whom are present, together with Temple Guards and a small group of Roman soldiers. The High Priests and the Sanhedrin did not have the power to arrest a citizen. That power belonged exclusively to the Roman procurator and court, which exercised direct rule over the whole of Judea. An arrest could only be carried out by a Roman guard on the orders of the Roman authorities in response to a complaint recognised under the Roman law. The Temple Guard, as their name suggests, were only responsible for keeping order within the Temple precincts. Besides their arms, they carried lanterns and torches. Luke has the most graphic portrayal of Judas’ betrayal, using the secret signal of a kiss:

He came up to Jesus to kiss him. But Jesus said, “Judas, is it with a kiss that you betray the Son of Man?”

Luke tells us that the disciples had two swords with them when they left the ‘upper room’. They make Jesus aware of this and he tells them, that is enough! Rather than meaning ‘that is sufficient’, he may well have meant ‘that is enough fighting talk’ in the light of what takes place subsequently, but this may have been a crucial misunderstanding of Jesus’ discourse in the previous passage. Now, as Jesus is about to be arrested, they spring into action…  

When the disciples who were with Jesus saw what was going to happen, they asked, “Shall we use our swords, Lord?”

They arrested Jesus, despite the attempts of Peter to prevent this by attacking the High Priest’s steward, Malchus. He drew his sword but succeeded only in cutting off the steward’s ear. In Matthew’s account, Jesus chided the assailant and challenges him with two questions:

Put your sword back in its place … All who live by the sword, will die by the sword …

Don’t you know that I could call on my Father for help, and at once he would send me more than twelve armies of angels?

But in that case, how would the Scriptures come true which say that this is what must happen? 

Do you think that I will not drink the cup of suffering which my Father has given me?

(Jn. 18: 11) 

In Luke’s gospel, Jesus remarks, Enough of this! By this, as in the ‘Upper Room’ before, he seems to have meant ‘enough of this fighting!’ He then heals the injured man before addressing the crowd of men, questioning their jurisdiction and the legality of them making an arrest not just outside the Temple precincts, but also outside the walls of Jerusalem:

Did you have to come with swords and clubs to capture me, as though I were an outlaw?

Day after day, I was with you in the Temple, and you did not arrest me.

But this is your hour to act, when the power of darkness rules.

Jesus himself offered no resistance. Then, just as he had predicted earlier that night, all the disciples ran away, including a certain young man, possibly Mark himself, some scholars suggest, dressed only in his linen night ‘shift’, whom the gang caught and tried to arrest. He managed to struggle free and ran away naked, leaving the ‘shift’ behind. This suggests that the young man may have been asleep in the house with the upper room, perhaps being sent to bed gone to bed after having asked the four questions at the commencement of the Seder. He would have been woken up by the sound of the disciples leaving, singing their hymn, and followed them through the olive groves. This somewhat ‘vivid’ account only appears in Mark’s gospel, hence the reason that some scholars regard it as a personal note which the other gospel-writers chose not to copy into their accounts, though they copied so much else of his basic narrative.

Jesus was taken to the High Priests’ house, where he is first interviewed by Annas, to whom he repeats the challenge about the legality of his arrest and the proceedings against him. He also suggests that a wide range of witnesses who heard him speak in the Temple should be called to testify, anticipating the kind of evidence which will be presented against him. For talking like this to the High Priest, he is struck by one of the guards. The Sanhedrin is beginning to assemble, called to an emergency session at midnight for the sole purpose of trying Jesus of Nazareth as a priestly court, although they were only supposed to act as a religious legislature. The timing of the hearing was also a breach of the accepted judicial process since the Roman law did not permit court hearings to be held after sunset, even as an emergency measure. Moreover, a trial for life was exclusively the prerogative of the Roman court, to be held only before the Roman Procurator. The ultra-vires practices of Annas and Caiaphas reveal the desperate position in which the Sanhedrin viewed the insecurity of their own situation as being undermined by the popularity of the Galilean’s teachings. Jesus challenges the irregularity of the proceedings by asking Annas to refer the matter to the Council, so Annas decides to let his son-in-law take charge of them.

Peter had followed Jesus at a distance from the olive groves, stopping in the courtyard of the house, where he sat down with the guards, warming himself by the fire. To begin with, Jesus remained silent in response to the accusations made against him, which were clearly based on false statements by the ‘witnesses’ called. However, the little-known Gospel of Nicodemus also reveals that there was a concerted attempt made to provide a defence of Jesus by men who knew that the very act of their challenge had signed and sealed their own death warrant. Caiaphas soon tired of this, however, and decided to prosecute the Galilean directly, placing him under oath (according to Matthew). In the confusion created by the confused testimony of the bribed ‘witnesses’, who contradicted each other, he saw the danger that the trial might collapse, thwarting his plans that one man should die for all the people. His decision to take the prosecution into his own hands was a legal travesty that went against all Jewish jurisprudence. He conducted a vindictive cross-examination of the Prisoner. Jesus seemed to remain unperturbed, offering no reply until Caiaphas asked him a closed question to which he had to respond under oath:

Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed God?

To this, Jesus could only affirm his status, knowing that he was destined to die. This enabled Caiaphas to enter the charge of Blasphemy, asking the Council to decide on his guilt. Mark tells us that they all voted that he was guilty and agreed that he should be executed, although other sources suggest that some may have voted for the dismissal of the case and for Jesus to be released. In Luke’s narrative, Jesus initially answers this question by commenting on their method of interrogation, also making reference to their previous reluctance, in the Temple Courtyard, to answer his question about John the Baptist’s legacy:

“If I tell you, you will not believe me; and if I ask you a question, you will not answer … But from now on the Son of Man will be seated at the right side of Almighty God”.

They all said, “Are you, then, the Son of God?”

He answered them, “You say that I am”.

And they said, “We don’t need any witnesses! We ourselves have heard what he said.

Jesus’ answer is not as categorical in Luke’s account as in that of Mark, but his use of ‘I am’ seems to have been taken by the Sanhedrin to refer to the sacred word for God, ‘Yahweh’ in Hebrew, which only the chief priests were supposed to use, and only in worship. Its use by Jesus, even with ambivalence, would be considered blasphemous at the time. The next step was for him to be taken before the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate since the Sanhedrin could not carry out the death sentence by itself under the dictated terms of the Roman occupation. Only the Roman Procurator could try such a case and only he could legally impose the death penalty. This Caiaphas demanded, but Pilate was only interested in executing those who threatened Roman law and order, on a charge of treason, and did not wish to be troubled with all the charges brought against Jesus by the chief priests, especially those of blasphemy. The Romans were disparaging rather than respectful of the Jews’ religion and regarded all Jews, including their leadership, with contempt and scorn as vassal subjects of the Roman Empire. The rather weak claims that Jesus had been heard misleading our people, and telling them not to pay taxes to the Emperor were worthy of a whipping, nothing more. Their third accusation, that he was claiming that he himself is the Messiah, a king, was rather more interesting for the Governor, so his question to Jesus was simple:

Are you the king of the Jews?

In John’s gospel, Jesus answered:

Does this question come from you or have others told you about me? 

Pilate replied, frustrated by what he took to be an avoidance strategy:

Do you think that I am a Jew? It was your own people and the high priests who handed you over to me. What have you done?

Jesus mystified Pilate even more by his response:

My kingdom does not belong to this world; if my kingdom belonged to this world, my followers would fight to keep me from being handed over to the Jewish authorities. No, my kingdom does not belong here! 

So Pilate repeated his original question:

Are you a king, then?

Jesus spoke of truth to challenge Pilate’s view of power:

You say that I am a king. I was born and came into the world for this one purpose, to speak about the truth. Whoever belongs to the truth listens to me.

By replying “so you say” to Pilate’s core question, Jesus was pointing out that this was something that he could neither affirm or deny, but only Pilate to decide, not something that he himself had claimed. Jesus had claimed to be the ‘Messiah’ but he had been consistent that this did not mean that he was an earthly ‘king’ like Herod the Great or the other Jewish rulers tolerated by the Romans. Nevertheless, this was the charge which Pilate entered. Pilate responds to Jesus’ attempt to explain his real purpose, infamously, with the question:

And what is truth?

The writer of the score of Jesus Christ Superstar, Tim Rice, added the words, “We both have truths, are mine the same as yours?” This follow-up question emphasises the essential clash between Graeco-Roman and Jewish thought. For the former, ‘truth’ could be relative and plural, whereas, for Jews, there was only one eternal truth, that given by God through the Law. The question as to who best represented this truth, the Jewish Leaders or Jesus, was what the trial in the Sanhedrin had been about. Jesus had also claimed that his purpose was not to change the Law, but to fulfil it and to make it universal. Temporal powers could not determine this real truth, or change it. But, as one modern poet has put it, Pilate would not stay for an answer. Instead, according to John, he went back outside and asked the crowd outside his palace, the chief priests’ Judean ‘rent-a-mob’, if, according to the custom, they wanted him to set Jesus, ‘the king of the Jews’ free, or to release Jesus Barabbas the bandit. The chief priests incited the crowd to shout for Barabbas, who had been charged with murder, committed during the recent riot which he had fermented. Barabbas was released, though two lesser-known bandits were later executed with Jesus.

During his ‘interview’ with Pilate, the governor, finding no reason to condemn this man, discovered that Jesus is a Galilean. Luke inserts a section describing a further hearing before Herod Antipas, who was in charge of the northern territories or ‘tetrarchy’ of Palestine, including Galilee. We are told that Herod was interested in Jesus as a miracle-worker, and had been wanting to meet him for a long time. Besides wanting Jesus to perform a miracle for him, he asked Jesus many questions, but Jesus made no answer. So his soldiers made fun of him, putting a kingly purple robe on him, in which they sent him back to Pilate. The Governor was still not convinced that this prisoner deserved death, according to Luke. He tried to appease the crowd outside his palace, but they answered back that, according to Jewish law, his death was required on the charge of blasphemy, because he claimed to be the Son of God. Pilate understood the ‘claim’ of Jesus to be ‘a king’, but not this claim to be divine. His multi-theistic views made him nervous about killing someone claiming divine powers. What if Jesus did, indeed, possess such powers. So he went back into the palace and asked Jesus:

Where do you come from?

But Jesus did not answer, though, as Pilate himself pointed out, the governor had the authority to set him free, or to have him crucified. This confirms that, ultimately, the decision to have Jesus crucified was a Roman one. Jesus told him that the authority he had over him as governor was given to him by God and that the man who had handed him over for sentence, the High Priest, was guilty of a worse sin. Even if his ‘sin’ were seen as a lesser one, he might still incur the displeasure of the gods. Pilate tried to have Jesus released, but the chief priests threatened to have reports sent to the Emperor showing how Pilate was a friend of a rebel, and therefore disloyal. They claimed to be more loyal to the Emperor than him, getting the crowd to shout, the only king we have is the Emperor. With that, the fate of Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews, was sealed. Pilate decided on the answer to his own question to Jesus, even if Jesus himself had only really answered the question put to him by Caiaphas.

Matthew’s gospel records (27: 19) that Pilate’s wife had a dream on the night of the trial of Jesus before the Sanhedrin, which led her to plead with him to have nothing to do with the trial of ‘that just man’. Pilate usually deferred to his wife, since he owed his exalted position to he social eminence his marriage had brought. His wife was Claudia Procula, the illegitimate daughter of Claudia, the third wife of Tiberius Caesar, and grand-daughter of Augustus Caesar. Pilate knew that the Emperor, against whom he had plotted, was very fond of his step-daughter and, being an astute politician, he granted her every wish and whim. For him to deny Claudia’s urgent request demonstrates how seriously Pilate considered the possibility that news of his ‘weakness’ in this case might get back to the Emperor. Either way, he couldn’t win, but he had much more to lose from failing to appease Caiaphas, who may have known of his previous plotting against Tiberius Caesar. At heart, Pilate was not in sympathy with the demands of Caiaphas and the Sadducees, finding no basis in their charges against Jesus of Nazareth, but he dared not risk his public position because of private forebodings. So he acceded to the murderous demands of the chief priests. The dream that tortured Pilate’s wife on the previous night had foretold disaster if he judged Jesus. It came true when later, according to Eusebius, Pilate committed suicide. 

The accounts of the crucifixion in the synoptic gospels were written down later in the first century at a time when there was much bitterness between the Jewish and Christian communities. The gospel-writers, therefore, emphasise the Jewish role in Jesus’ death, that is the role of the Temple authorities. Matthew’s account goes further than this, in attributing responsibility to the crowd and having Pilate wash his hands in front of them, but even Matthew agrees that the chief priests acted as ‘cheerleaders’ among the crowd. Those who cried ‘crucify!’ outside Pilate’s palace were not likely to have included the pilgrims from Galilee and elsewhere who were entering the city that morning and who would have been directed to the Temple, neither were they Judeans from outside the city, of whom the authorities were afraid. They were more probably the same ‘gang’ or ‘mob’ whom the chief priests had sent to the Mount of Olives to arrest Jesus the previous night, mixed together with the ‘bandits’ who shouted for Barabbas’ release. If the Temple authorities were unscrupulous and desperate enough to pay Judas for handing Jesus over to them, dismissing him out-of-hand when he tried to stop the execution, there can be little doubt that they would pay the same crowd who had accompanied him to make sure that Pilate couldn’t release Jesus of Nazareth.

Can there be any doubt that Pilate made the irrevocable decision to have Jesus crucified? After all, any suggestion of a threat to the Roman ‘Pax’, especially at the height of the festival, would have forced the Governor to act quickly. The fact that some of Jesus’ followers were known to have been armed the previous night during his arrest would have left him no room for manoeuvre unless the crowd had demanded his clemency for the Galilean radical rather than the Judean Zealot. Both, as far as Pilate was concerned, posed a physical threat to Rome’s rule. Jesus was executed by the Roman governor on political grounds, as ‘The King of the Jews’. The charge of high treason against Caesar stood and was fastened to the cross. John tells us that the notice was written in Hebrew, Latin and Greek. He also tells us that the chief priests tried to persuade Pilate to change the wording to This man said, I am the King of the Jews, but that the Governor refused either to remove it or to change the words. He told them What I have written stays written.

From the beginning to the end the arrest and dual trial was a vicious frame-up, a betrayal and a travesty of justice. From the dark hour in the garden to the crucifixion, the plot was hurried to its conclusion by the High Priests and the Sadducee Party. The murmurings among the people had been growing louder and, following the fatal verdict, the whole of Jerusalem seethed with fear and unrest. Caiaphas and his fanatical collaborators had triumphed but the Romans still held the lash and would not hesitate to use it unmercifully on the slightest provocation or interference. So greatly did terror prevail throughout Jerusalem that everyone known to have associated with Jesus in even the slightest way fled into hiding. As mentioned above, most of the disciples had fled from the Mount of Olives. Of the twelve, only John is recorded by name as being present at the crucifixion. He stood at the foot of the cross with Mary, the mother of Jesus, her sister and Mary Magdalene.

The Bethany sisters, Martha and Mary, are not mentioned by name in the account of the crucifixion, but they may well have been in the crowd of women who had followed Jesus out of Jerusalem, weeping. It was only natural for them since the account of the raising of Lazarus suggests that they already knew many Judeans, including supporters of the Pharisees, who had reported on the event to the chief priests. The raising of Lazarus had attracted a great deal of attention, making the sisters vulnerable as well. The miracle had added greatly to Jesus’ popularity among Judeans, and the chief priests were jealous, so Caiaphas and his father-in-law Annas, the reigning High Priests, hatched a plot in the Sanhedrin to have both Jesus and Lazarus killed. The threat had been so severe that Jesus had gone into hiding in the Judean desert town Ephraim, with his disciples, probably tipped off by his supporters in the Sanhedrin.

The chief priests had succeeded in having Jesus executed, so it was only a matter of time before they would come for Lazarus. The two sisters were probably safer in public among their many Judean friends, rather than being seen with their Galilean guests. Luke implies that when the ‘women of Salem’ returned to their homes following his death, those ‘who knew Jesus personally’ joined the Galileans watching from a distance as Joseph of Arimathea wrapped the body in a linen cloth. Luke records the group of women following Joseph to his nearby unused tomb, carved out of the solid rock in the Skull-shaped quarry which had been transformed into a garden. They watched carefully how Joseph placed the body in the tomb so that they would know exactly how to locate both the tomb and the body within it when they came back after the Sabbath to complete the embalming process which Joseph and Nicodemus were to begin before dusk. They went ‘home’, probably to where they were staying in Bethany, and prepared the spices and perfumes for the body.

The death of Jesus, we know now, was not the end, but the beginning. The stories of his life and ministry are not cold historical accounts. They were all written in the blaze of light created by the amazing new experiences which followed his death. We need to consider the reports of these decisive experiences not as though they were something that just happened in the past, but which have an enduring contemporary quality for all who have subsequently accepted Jesus as Lord. Without them, there would have been no contemporary Christian community; only, possibly, a dwindling Jewish sect, one among many, which would most likely have been scattered and destroyed in the war of AD 66-70. Neither, of course, would there have been two millennia of Christianity, European Christendom, and a world-wide Christian faith, with its many churches. That is why, fundamentally, we cannot separate Jesus as the master-teacher from Jesus as Lord, and why we cannot suspend our belief in what is reported to have happened after his crucifixion if we seek to own the title ‘Christian’.

Sources:

Robert C. Walton (ed.) (1970), A Source Book of the Bible for Teachers. London: SCM

George F. Jowett (1961), The Drama of the Lost Disciples. London. Covenant Publishing.

Briggs, Linder & Wright (eds.)(1977), The History of Christianity: A Lion Handbook. Berkhamsted: Lion Publishing.

Alan T. Dale (1979), Portrait of Jesus. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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The Incredulity of St Thomas by Caravaggio

John 20 vv 24-29:

One of the twelve disciples, Thomas (called the twin), was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!” Thomas said to them, “Unless I see the scars of the nails in his hands and put my finger on those scars and my hand in his side, I will not believe.

A week later the disciples were together again indoors, and Thomas was  with them. The doors were locked, but Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and look a my hands; then reach out your hand and put it in my side. Stop your doubting, and believe!” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Do you believe because you see me? How happy are those who believe without seeing me!”

(Good News for Modern Man)

Who was Thomas the Apostle?

In the gospels, Thomas is also named as ‘the twin’, Didymus,  in Latin to reinforce his Aramaic name, Tau’ma, from the word t’oma, which also means ‘twin’. In the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles (v 13) his name is coupled with that of Philip, which suggests he might have been, with Andrew, the other unnamed disciple of John the Baptist who followed ‘the lamb of God‘  from a village called ‘Bethany’ (not the home of Lazarus, Mary and Martha) where John had baptised Jesus the previous day, on the eastern bank of the Jordan. In the story in John’s gospel (chapter 1 vv 35-42), the two spend the day with Jesus until twilight, and are close enough to the town of Bethsaida, on the northern shore of Lake Gaililee, for Andrew to fetch his brother Peter to meet ‘the Messiah’. The next day Jesus leaves Bethsaida early to walk the twenty miles to join his mother at Nazareth before going on with her for a wedding in Cana two days later. He arrives at the feast with his growing band of disciples, including Philip and, no doubt, Thomas, Andrew and Peter, plus Nathanael (known later as Thaddeus), who is from Cana himself. After their thirsty walk from Nazareth, they find plenty of water, but no wine with which to toast the bride and bridegroom.

Therefore, it’s more than possible that Thomas was one of Jesus’ first pairs, or ‘twins’ of disciples, his partner being Philip, whom he introduced to Jesus, just as Andrew had introduced Peter the previous night. By the end of that third day, following Jesus’ first miracle, John tells us that all five had put their faith in him, two in their home town of Bethsaida and two in Cana. Despite Nathanael’s rather rude joke about Nazareth, Jesus describes him as ‘a true Israelite’, sitting under a fig tree early on a hot day. Although Israel had ceased to exist since  Maccabean rule had been ended by the Roman conquest of 63 AD, when it had become part of the Province of Syria, Nathanael identifies Jesus not only as ‘the son of God’, but also ‘the King of Israel.’ This would have been heard as a direct challenge to Roman authority in northern Palestine, identifying Jesus with the local freedom-fighters, the nationalistic Zealots who wanted to free the whole country from Roman rule and reunite with Judea, as had happened briefly from 142-63 AD. If Thomas was one of these first disciples, although he himself is silent in the gospels at this stage, he was surrounded by certainty and infectious enthusiasm about who Jesus was among his relatives and friends, and there was little doubting the miraculous signs in which the Galilean himself ‘revealed his glory’ (v 11).

Some have seen in the Acts of Thomas (written in east Syria in the early 3rd century, or perhaps as early as the first half of the 2nd century) an identification of Saint Thomas with the apostle Judas brother of James, better known in English as Jude. However, the first verse of the Acts follows the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles by distinguishing the apostle Thomas and the apostle Judas son of James. The Nag Hammadi copy of the Gospel of Thomas begins: “These are the secret sayings that the living Jesus spoke and Didymos Judas Thomas recorded.” Of course, Judas was a popular name in first century Palestine, so it’s entirely possible that, as a Galilean, he would have been known by his Aramaic name to distinguish him from the other two disciples by the name of Judas. Syrian tradition also states that the apostle’s name was Thomas. Few texts identify Thomas’ other twin, though in the Book of Thomas the Contender, part of the Nag Hammadi library, it is said to be Jesus himself, who himself is recorded as telling Thomas: “Now, since it has been said that you are my twin and true companion, examine yourself…” Again, it’s possible that Thomas, or ‘Twin’ was the nickname given to the disciple to distinguish him from Judas Iscariot and Judas, son of James, because he bore a physical resemblance to Jesus, and/or, as the quote above shows, kept very close to him.

How can we know The Way?

To have been so close to Jesus, Thomas must at least have been among the very first disciples. Jesus later comments on the questioning of the ‘Way’ by both Thomas and Philip in a way which must have stung the pair of them, since he points out that, despite being with him from the first, neither shows a very deep understanding of who he is in relation to ‘the Father’. In John’s gospel, the fact that this criticism comes immediately after Jesus’ prediction of Peter’s denial during the Last Supper, underlines its significance. Thomas is sceptical, but unlike Peter, he does not make grand gestures or promises he knows he cannot live up to, nor, like Philip, does he ask for further proofs. Judas Iscariot has already left to betray his master by this stage, so Thomas’ incomprehension seems an insignificant sin by comparison with the other three. But Jesus expects better of his earliest converts. Where is the certainty which Andrew and Nathanael revealed in Bethsaida, and in the miracles which they testified to, beginning in Cana? (John 14 vv 5-12).

A Reluctant Martyr?

In John Chapter 11 Thomas is the disciple who suggests to the rest of the disciples that they should all return to Jerusalem with Jesus, so that they could all be martyred with him. There are two ways of reading this. We can regard it as a somewhat cynical remark, fitting in with Thomas’ sceptical character, as revealed in connection with the Resurrection appearances, or we can take it at face value, as a declaration of loyalty from one close enough to Jesus to be called his twin. Of course, even then, the line could have been delivered with an air of resigned stoicism, rather than with the enthusiasm of a disciple looking for martyrdom.

Thomas’ name is also linked to Thaddeus’ early mission to Syria, but more importantly to the mission to the Jewish diaspora in India, which he undertook himself in 52 AD. From there he is recorded, in a text attributed to Joseph of Arimathea, to have returned to Jerusalem in time to be the only witness the Assumption of Mary, which, in a strange inversion of the resurrection stories, was disbelieved by the other apostles until they themselves saw Mary’s tomb.

The Value of Scepticism to Faith

Perhaps most significantly, however, in the early church Thomas was not stigmatised as a ‘doubter’ so much as being the apostle who, having seen Jesus’ wounds at close quarters, was able to proclaim the two natures of Christ, that he was both fully human and fully divine. The vivid drama of his very personal testimony would have been difficult to dispute by the Greek Gnostics in the early church who argued that Christ was, throughout his time on earth, an ethereal presence, a vision of the Divine, rather than real flesh and blood. That’s why, although his feast day is celebrated on different days in the Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Anglican calendars, his ‘doubting’ is commemorated on the second Sunday, a week after the first appearances of Jesus to his disciples. By itself, the empty tomb proved nothing, and even the sudden appearances to Mary and the disciples, in the open air and through locked doors, might have given support to the Gnostic view of an ethereal body. It is the graphic detail of Thomas’ account, a man who knew Jesus well enough to have been his twin, that remain the most difficult to disbelieve, reinforced by the way in which Thomas’ scepticism is immediately transformed in his proclamation “My Lord and My God”. Jesus immediately responds with a beatitude, ‘Blessed are they…’ which remains as a promise to his followers down the centuries that follow. Thomas is not excluded from his Lord’s blessing by his original disbelief or scepticism, call it what you will. His Resurrection experience is total – he believes with all his senses and emotions, transcended by the Lord in that by believing he, and we, may have life in his name (John 20 vv 30-31). The ‘Drama of Thomas’ is well re-told in the following extract from a book used in schools:

From ‘The Drama of Jesus’, by Paul White & Clifford Warne:

‘Heavy cloud made the night even darker. Shadowy figures cautiously climbed the outside stairs to the large room on the roof. When the door opened to admit them the merest glow of light showed and the door was immediately shut. Finally it was barred with a huge wooden beam.

‘On one side of the room two men were arguing. “I tell you Peter, I don’t want to listen.”

‘ “But, Thomas, you must. The Lord is not dead. He’s alive. It’s a fact and you have to realise it.”

‘Aggressively, Thomas burst out, “If Jesus is alive why are we all coming here furtively and hiding behind locked doors? Are we scared that the Jewish leaders are going to arrest us for body-snatching? If He’s alive why doesn’t he show himself to the world” Even in the feeble light of the small lamp they could see his face going red. “Why doesn’t he show himself to the authorities before they break that door down and throw us all into prison? If he’s alive why doesn’t he go and see Caiaphas and the Council? That would prove his claims.”

“So far, he’s only appeared to people who love him,” said John quietly.

“I loved him and he hasn’t appeared to me…” Thomas turned away. There was a break in his voice. John moved across the room towards him. “It wasn’t Jesus’ fault you weren’t here last week when he first came among us.”

‘Thomas broke in, “But..”

“Surely, man, you remember He told us what was going to happen that day on the road from Caesarea Philippi. Not only then but on two occasions He made it clear. He said He would be handed over to the Gentiles and mocked, insulted, flogged and crucified.” John spoke with deliberation, “He said, ‘Three days later I will rise to life.’ “

‘Impulsively, Peter broke in, “John’s right. He said it again and again; we all heard him.”

“Heard him, maybe, growled Thomas, “but did you believe him?”

“Believe him?” Peter put his hands to his head. “I didn’t even know what he was talking about! That’s why I said, ‘God forbid, it must never happen to you, Lord.’ I’ll never forget the look on his face when he said to me, ‘Out of my way, Satan. You stand right in my path, Peter, when you look at things from man’s point of view and not from God’s.’ To me he was the Lord of life. I saw him heal sick people and bring the dead back to life; it was incredible to me that he should die, let alone come back to life as he promised. But he did. And Thomas, you must believe it. He has come back from death.” Peter’s voice shook with emotion.

‘Thomas started to walk away. Peter gripped his friend by the shoulder and swung him round and said tensely, “Don’t turn away from me when I speak to you. Do you think we’re all imagining this? Do you think we’re lying?”

‘Andrew stepped between them. “Simon, let him be. Were you in a hurry to believe when you first heard the news but hadn’t seen the Lord?”

“Anyway,” said Peter gruffly, “when Mary broke the news that his body was gone John and I ran all the way to the tomb. Right, John?”

“Right,” said John, smiling, “but I arrived there quite some distance ahead of you.”

‘Peter was beginning to relax. There was a hint of a smile in his voice, “But you weren’t game enough to go into the tomb till I arrived.”

‘John almost shouted, “Up to that moment I didn’t realise that I was seeing, before my own eyes, what the scriptures foretold. Now Thomas, get this straight. We’re not saying that He’s alive merely because the tomb was empty. We’ve seen him outside the tomb. We’ve heard him and touched him; we’ve seen him eat food here in this room.”

“But not me.” There was a hard note in Thomas’ voice.

‘ Thomas stepped back and lifted his voice so that everyone in the room could hear, “Think what you like. But unless I see the scars the nails made in His hands and unless I put my fingers where those nails were and my hand into his side I will never believe.”

‘Peter groaned, “I give up.”

‘Andrew spoke again, “Simon, be fair. We all found it hard to believe at first.”

‘Peter ran his fingers through his hair. “But it’s not the same with square-chinned, stubborn character here. I’ve told him, John’s told him, Mary’s told him, Cleopas told him – we’ve all told him.”

‘Andrew spoke urgently, “Simon, keep your voice down. You’ll have the whole Sanhedrin here in a moment. Let Thomas alone. Isn’t it hard enough for him when he sees our joy, and his doubts fill us with misery? At least try to see his problem, brother.”

‘Peter gazed at Andrew. He saw a look he had often seen on Jesus’ face. Impulsively he put his arm round Thomas’ shoulder. “If you’d seen him, you’d understand how I feel. Forgive me.”

‘Thomas shrugged himself free of Peter’s arm and muttered, “Forget it.”

‘An embarrassed hush settled on the whole room. A deep silence. 

“Peace be unto you.” The voice startled them.

‘They looked up and saw Jesus. In a moment they were all on their feet, their faces glowing. No one spoke. Instinctively they turned towards Thomas who stood there like a statue unable to believe his eyes. He stammered, “Lord, Lord, is it really you?”

Jesus came close to him and held out his hands. His tone was warm and strong, “Thomas, my friend, put your finger here. See my hands. See the nail wounds. And my side; take your hand and put it where the spear entered. Stop doubting and believe!”

Thomas slowly went down on his knees, his hands touching the wounded feet. “My Lord…and my God.”

“Is it because you have seen me that you believe?” Jesus asked him. “How happy are those who believe without seeing.”

‘And as suddenly as He had appeared, he vanished. The disciples stood there amazed. Thomas looked up, overwhelmed. The room was full of excitement and laughter of a sort that comes from profound relief and deep joy.

‘John spoke with infectious enthusiasm, “Jesus is no dead memory. He is our living Lord.” ‘

Prayer:

‘Our Lord and God, forgive the doubting heart in each of us, which questions your resurrection. We are men of our age and want to see and touch before we believe. And yet we thank you for that blessing, reserved for those who do not see and yet believe. Grant us that faith which looks to Jesus, risen from the dead, our Saviour and our living Lord.  Amen.’

(Ian D. Bunting)

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1 Corinthians 11 vv 23-25 (paraphrase by Alan T Dale, Portrait of Jesus)

‘On the night when he was arrested, Jesus had supper with his friends. During supper he picked up the loaf of bread, said Grace over it and broke it into pieces. “This is my very self” he said. “I am giving myself up for you. Do this to remember me by.” When the supper was over, he raised the cup in the same way. “This cup,” he said, “means my death. I am dying to bring all men to God, as the Bible says, ‘from the least of them to the greatest’. Whenever you drink it, remember me.”

Following his ‘acted parable’ of clearing the tradesmen and bankers from the Court of the Foreigners on the Monday of Holy Week, Jesus resumed his teaching, attracting huge crowds in the Temple courts. He continued to challenge the central convictions of the scribes and Pharisees, who saw themselves as the upholders of the Law of Moses.

‘You have heard, in the synagogue, the Torah read aloud,’ he said, ‘but I say…’ He was making radical claims, going to the very root of the Jewish way of life and the leadership of the Jewish people. He was not contradicting their Law, but reviving, reinterpreting and fulfilling it in a way which led him into open and bitter conflict with the Temple authorities. However, to arrest him in the Temple would have caused a riot in the most holy of places, so they planned to arrest him in the darkness of night in an orchard along the Bethany Road.

Painting of Jesus Washing Peter’s Feet by Ford Madox Brown (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What happened next is best told in the words of his friends, which they repeated every week as they met to worship and remember him. They met on the first day of the Jewish week, the day on which he was ‘raised from the dead’, to break bread, or have supper together. They passed a common cup of wine around the table and shared a loaf together. The earliest account of this was recorded by Paul in his letter to the early Christians in Corinth, and it was followed by the gospel accounts (Matthew 26 vv 26-29; Mark 14 vv 22-25; Luke 22 vv 14-20). John’s gospel provides a ‘prequel’ to this, reporting another communal act in the form of Jesus washing the feet of the disciples, a traditional act of a host for his guests invited by him to share supper, since Palestine was an even more sandy place than it is today, with only paths between the houses in the towns, villages, and even in Jerusalem. Even a journey to a near neighbour’s house in the city would necessitate the removal of shoes or sandals upon entering, and though the guest would have bathed before setting out, it might also be necessary to wash off the accumulated sand from the feet. It was a simple act of service, but in this case, Jesus was neither the host nor his servant, since Judas, as group treasurer, would have hired the room especially, probably at an inn he knew well, as a Judean.

Mark adds that Jesus tells them to make sure that water has been delivered to the upstairs room and that the furnished room is set up properly for the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Preoccupied with Temple politics, Judas probably arrived too late to ask for a servant to wash their feet, hence Peter‘s objection to Jesus taking on this role. Jesus’ words about betrayal were possibly prompted by Judas arriving hot-foot and sweating from his prior meeting with the Sanhedrin, the Jewish leaders, while Peter and the others had arrived having washed themselves and only needed to have the sand removed from their feet.

Jesus, Judas and the rest (Photo credit: FlickrJunkie)

On his return to the table, Jesus dismisses Judas, obviously nervous to return to the Sanhedrin, and he then gives the disciples a ‘new commandment’, drawing upon the lesson of his washing of their feet. The Latin words are ‘Mandatum novum da vobis’  and it is from the first word, ‘mandate’ or ‘instruction’ in English, that the corruption ‘maundy’ comes.For many years the special service on this day included the washing of the feet of some parishioners by the priest. Aelfric, Archbishop of Canterbury from A:D: 996-1006 decided that monks should wash each others’ feet once a week, on Thursdays, but that they would not be expected to wash those of poor pilgrims on the way to the Cathedral!

The washing of such soiled and smelly feet still causes controversy in churches along the pilgrim’s way into Canterbury to this day! However, Sir Thomas More wrote that Henry VIII washed the feet of as many poor men as he himself was years old, also giving them gifts of food and money.

Bishop John washes the feet of Eleanor, who walks to St. Giles, Wrexham, in bare feet, on Maundy Thursday 2007. Photograph by Brian Roberts, Wrexham (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Queen Elizabeth I also washed the feet of paupers, but only after they had first been scrubbed clean in scented water! The ceremony of washing by the Sovereign was discontinued in 1754, though it has recently been suggested that the custom should now be revived, with the real modern-day power in the land, Her Majesty’s Prime Minister, taking up this act of humility towards her subjects.Maundy Money continues to be distributed by the Monarch to this day.  This money fetches high prices as collectors’ items, if the recipient ‘commoners’ decide to sell it. The Yeomen of the Guard accompany the Sovereign, bearing the purses, while the other members of The Royal Party carry little ‘nosegays’ of sweet-smelling flowers, a reminder of the days when precautions were necessary to prevent infection by the Plague, then believed to travel in ‘miasma’ or bad air!

The day has also been known in the past as ‘Shere’ (Clean) Thursday, referring both to the washing ceremonies and the clearing of the altar, symbolising the table in the Upper Room, since there is no consecration of bread at the Good Friday ceremony. The Maundy Thursday service often ends with a procession to a specially prepared altar where wafers of bread are left to be watched over through the night, recalling the solemnity of the night of the betrayal, Peter’s denial and the flight of the disciples, after failing to stay awake with Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. Many medieval churches had a special ‘altar of repose’ or ‘Easter Altar’, before which the vigil could be kept.

The early Christians in Rome used Mark’s account (Chapter 14, vv 12-50) of the unfolding account of the dramatic events of that evening and night:

‘It was dark when Jesus and his friends came into the city. “I tell you,” said Jesus, when they were having supper together, “that one of you will betray me – one who is having supper with me now.”

‘His friends were hurt at this. “It can’t be me?” they each said to him. “It’s one of the ‘Twelve’ , ” said Jesus. “He is sharing this very meal with me….What is going to happen is just what the Bible said would happen. But it will be a terrible thing for the man who betrays me; it would have been better for him if he had never lived.” 

‘When supper was over, they sang a hymn; then they walked out to the Olive Hill outside the City, on the road to the village where he was staying. “You will all let me down”, said Jesus, as they walked along. “The Bible says: ‘I will strike the shepherd and the sheep will run away’. But after I am ‘raised’, I will go before you to Galilee.”

“Everybody else may let you down,” said Peter, “but I won’t.”

“I tell you Peter,” said Jesus, “that this very night, before dawn, you will say more than once that you’re no friend of mine.”

“Say I’m no friend of yours?” said Peter hotly, “I’d die with you first!”

Everybody else said the same. They got as far as the Olive Orchard. Suddenly, Judas came with a gang armed with swords and clubs. They had been sent by the Jewish leaders. Judas had arranged a secret signal so that there could be no mistake. “The man I kiss, that’s Jesus,” he told them. “Get hold of him, and take him away under guard.”

He went straight up to Jesus. “Sir”, he said, and kissed him – as if he was just meeting him. The men grabbed Jesus, and put him under guard, and took him to the High Court.’

PRAYER:

The following prayer verses, taken from a variety of hymns, go with the five scenes described in Mark’s account above.

StJohnsAshfield StainedGlass Gethsemane (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Preparation (vv 12-21):

Thy foes might hate, despise, revile,

Thy friends unfaithful prove;

Unwearied in forgiveness still,

Thy heart could only love.

The Last Supper (vv 22-26):

Jesus, Bread of life, I pray thee

Let me gladly here obey thee:

Never to my hurt invited,

Be thy love with love requited:

From this banquet let me measure

Lord, how vast and deep its treasure:

Through thy gifts thou here doest give me

As thy guest in heaven receive me.

The Mount of Olives (vv 27-31):

Protect me, O my saviour

And keep me close to thee:

Thy power and loving kindness

My strength and stay must be:

O Shepherd, though I follow

Too weak is human will –

But if thou walk beside me

I’ll climb the steepest hill.

The Agony of Jesus (vv 32-42):

Lord Jesus, think on me,

Nor let me go astray

Through darkness and perplexity

Point thou the heavenly way.

The Arrest (vv 43-50):

Lord Jesus, think on me

When flows the tempest high:

When on doth rush the enemy

O Saviour, be thou nigh.

AMEN

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English: Judas Iscariot The face of Judas Iscariot peers from carved foliage whilst carvings of the other 11 disciples adorn the pulpit in St.James’ church http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/740582 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

In Christianity, Spy Wednesday (also called Holy Wednesday, and in the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches, Holy and Great Wednesday) is the Wednesday of Holy Week, the week before Easter. It is followed by Maundy Thursday, the first day of the Paschal Triduum. This day is known as Spy Wednesday as a reference to the betrayal of Jesus Christ by Judas Iscariot, indicating that it is the day that Judas Iscariot first conspired with the Sanhedrin to betray Jesus for thirty silver coins. This event is described in the three Synoptic Gospels: Matthew 26:14-16, Mark 14:10-11, Luke 22:3-6. The Sanhedrin was gathered together and it decided to kill Jesus, even before Pesach if possible. In the meantime, Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper. Here he was anointed on his head by a woman with very expensive ointment of spikenard. In John’s Gospel, this woman is identified as Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus. Some of the disciples, particularly Judas, were indignant about this. Judas went to the Sanhedrin and offered them his support in exchange for money. From this moment on, Judas was looking for an opportunity to betray Jesus. On Spy Wednesday, and sometimes during other days of Holy Week, a Tenebrae service (“tenebrae” meaning “shadows”) is held. During the Tenebrae service, there is a gradual extinguishing of candles while a series of readings and Psalms is chanted or recited.

 

 

Judas’ ‘surname’, Iscariot, derives from the place-name, ‘Kerioth’, which was in the far south of Judea, beyond Mount Hebron, looking east to the Salt Sea, Or ‘Dead’ Sea, across the wilderness of Judah. Like Jesus himself, through Joseph, Judas was also descended from the tribe of Judah, through his father Simon, and was the only one of the twelve not from Galilee. His speech and manners would therefore have differed substantially from the other disciples, who would have regarded him as more of an outsider than Jesus himself, who spoke with the same accent as them and, as far as they were concerned, was a Galilean, a member of the northern tribes of Israel. The Aramaic dialects would have been as different as the sixth century differences between Mercian and Northumbrian ‘English’, though they would have shared the ancient Hebrew of the scriptures, plus a smattering of Greek.

Mark’s gospel (14: 1-2, 10-11) gives us the earliest account of Judas’ betrayal of Jesus, paraphrased here in Alan T Dale’s Portrait of Jesus:

It happened two days before the Great Feast.

The Jewish Leaders were trying to find some way of getting hold of Jesus and killing him. They didn’t dare do this openly, or when the Great Feast was on, for they were afraid of a riot.

They were delighted when they heard that one of ‘the Twelve’, Judas Iscariot, had come and offered to put Jesus into their hands. They promised to pay him, and Judas began to look for the chance of doing it.  

 

Matthew adds the detail of the thirty pieces of silver and Luke cites the primary cause of Judas’ betrayal as his mental condition; in first-century terms, demonic possession. He also adds the involvement of the officers Temple Guard in the plot to arrest Jesus. These are interesting additions. Luke, a doctor, is concerned to stress Judas’ psychological condition, suggesting that the financial reward was accepted, but not sought, by Judas. The disciples’ anger at Mary of Bethany for ‘wasting’ the expensive ointment, attributed in John’s gospel to Judas as ‘Treasurer’ to ‘the Twelve’, suggesting Judas’ love of ‘filthy lucre’ as his primary motivation, is not even mentioned by Luke, whereas both Mark and Matthew, like John, place it ‘centre stage’ in their accounts of Judas’ act of betrayal. John calls  Judas ‘a thief’, regularly helping himself to the disciples’ funds. Although John agrees that Judas’ plan to betray Jesus was pure evil, he does not attribute it to sudden mental illness on Judas’ part. John’s account places that event of demonic possession very specifically as taking place during the Passover meal. However, he suggests that Judas had already formed his plan before the Wednesday of Passover week, perhaps jealous of Andrew and Philip, who had provided access to Jesus to Greek Jews through their Bethsaida connections, Jews whom many ‘pure’ Judeans, like Judas, would have regarded as gentiles, though Jesus welcomed them as inheritors of the Kingdom of God. There is also a clue to Judas’ motives in John’s report of the fact that, although many of the Jewish authorities believed in Jesus, they feared the power of the Pharisee Party in the Sanhedrin to ban them from the Temple and its courts, so they would not speak openly of their belief, preferring the approval of men to that of God (Jn 12 vv 20-26, 42-43).

Judas Iscariot (Photo credit: Missional Volunteer)

 

Luke’s mention of the Temple Guard shows his emphasis on Judas’ concern, shared with the Sanhedrin, to keep this as an internal ‘Temple’ matter, not something to involve the Roman authorities in, at least at this stage. However, when the arrest takes place two nights later, John’s report claims that Roman soldiers were present, accompanying Judas, the Sanhedrin representatives and the Pharisees. This account makes it difficult to believe that Judas had any motive of forcing Jesus into an armed rebellion against Roman rule, as some commentators have suggested. His followers were armed with swords at Jesus’ own bidding, but following Peter’s attack on Malchus, the High Priest’s servant, Jesus himself ordered them not to resist his arrest.

The whole situation seems to have become hopelessly confused. Judas may have been an extreme example of the confusion felt by all Jesus’ disciples. The ‘traitor’ may have thought that Jesus, whatever he said in public, was the national leader sent by God to deliver his people and that he, Judas, only had to force his hand to make him act as he ought to free the Jewish people and overthrow the Romans, and that God would give him the miraculous power to do this.  So, he betrayed him into the hands of both the Sanhedrin and the secular Roman government. But nothing happened. Jesus accepted his arrest. When Judas realised what he had done, he went out into the shadows and committed suicide, so Matthew tells us (Mt 27 vv 3-10). The point is that, in his lifetime, there was nothing about the appearance of Jesus  to demonstrate his authority, no outward sign guaranteeing who he was. He had been passionately concerned with one thing only – what God was doing, summed up in the phrase ‘God’s Way’ or ‘the Kingdom of God’.

 

Judas’ regret (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It was the truth about God, men and women, and the world we live in, that Jesus tried to make clear in word and deed. He stood for something very different from the popular political assumptions and religious convictions of the other rabbis of his age, the sorts of things they preached about in the synagogues. He challenged some of the central religious beliefs of his own people, facing them publicly and finally in the central shrine of the national religion, the Temple in Jerusalem, Zion itself. The demands he was making on both leaders and led were far more radical and revolutionary than their aggressive nationalism. So, in their eyes, he was unpatriotic, unheroic and irreligious. He could have avoided a head-on collision with them, but chose not to. When the confrontation came, the Sanhedrin knew exactly what they thought the issue would be, ‘blasphemy’.  There was no alternative for them but to get rid of him, because he represented a threat to all they stood for. He also stood for something very different from the convictions all his closest friends seem to have held, not just the muddled political motives of the traitor, Judas. It was only after his death that they began to realise and understand his demands on them.

Spy Wednesday Prayer: “God our Father, we are exceedingly frail and indisposed to every virtuous and gallant undertaking. Strengthen our weakness, we beseech You, that we may do valiantly in this spiritual war; help us against our own negligence and cowardice, and defend us from the treachery of our unfaithful hearts; for Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen.” (Prayer of Thomas a Kempis)

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Jesus‘ ride into the city was a private gesture to his friends which developed into a more public demonstration than he intended. His second ‘acted parable’ was in the full gaze of all those assembled in the Foreigners’ Court of the Temple. This was one of several open courts, where sympathetic foreigners could share in Jewish worship. However, by Jesus’ time it had become a market-place and was used as a short-cut through the Temple – anything but a place of worship. It was as if nobody bothered whether people worshipped there or not. Jesus cleared the Court in an act of righteous indignation which took the stall-keepers and bankers by surprise. Foreigners, such as the Greeks he had met the previous day on the way into the city, had a place in God‘s worship; this was his message.

God’s care was for all his people, from all over the world. He quoted some bitter words from two of the great Old Testament prophets. Here is Mark‘s account of the incident:

Mark 11 vv 15-19 (Mt 21, 12-17; Lk 19, 45-48; Jn 2, 13-22)

‘Jesus walked into the city again and went into the Temple. In the great Foreigners’ Court he drove out the shopkeepers who had their stalls there and the people who were buying. He upset the tables of the moneylenders and the chairs of the pigeon-sellers. He wouldn’t let anybody take a short cut and carry goods through the Temple.

“Doesn’t the Bible say,” he said, ” ‘My House shall be called the House of Worship for all foreign people’ ? You have made it a bandits’ den.” (Alan T Dale’s paraphrase from Portrait of Jesus)

That sealed his fate. ‘The Jewish leaders’ Mark reports, ‘now made up their minds to arrest Jesus.’ He was making radical claims about the Jewish way of life and the leadership of the Jewish people. Over the next few days, the clash between them became even more bitter and unrelenting. But they couldn’t find a way to seize him, because the people crowded round him, not wanting to miss a single word of his teaching. The next day the chief priests challenged him to tell them by what authority he had acted out this parable, and tried to provoke him into speaking out against Roman rule and taxes. When all this failed, they met secretly in the palace of Caiaphas, the High Priest, scared of the riots which might result from arresting him during the Festival, now only two days away. Their opportunity came the following day, on the eve of the first day of the Festival, when Judas Iscariot offered to hand Jesus over to them in return for a generous donation to the funds he was redirecting to the cause of the freedom fighters in his own territory nearby.

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Unmistakable Identity:

 

English: Jesus, followed by Simon Peter and Andrew (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Unlike with Thomas the Twin and Judas Iscariot, we know exactly who Simon Peter is, even though Jesus changes his name. His character and personality never changes. He is practical, loyal and humble. He’s a son of Jonas, a native of Bethsaida, a fisherman and Andrew’s brother, working out of the port of Capernaum, where they had their home, according to Mark (1: 29-31). He was married, as Jesus healed his mother-in-law of her fever.  He becomes the third of Jesus’ disciples, introduced to the Galilean rabbi by his brother. Unlike his brother and Nathaniel, however, he makes no early declaration of Jesus’ identity as Messiah, despite being himself identified as ‘a rock’ (‘Cephas‘) by the teacher. Jonas’ sons were in a fishing partnership with James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who also joined Jesus’ growing band of disciples soon after (Mt 4: 18-22). The Gospel of  John tells us below that eight of the twelve went fishing, though they may not all have done it for a living. Peter, James and John become, and remain, the closest of the Twelve to Jesus, a sort of ‘inner triangle’, or trinity.

Jesus and Saint Peter, Gospel of Matthew

According to Luke (5: 1-11), Jesus began his ministry by using their boats as a pulpit, perhaps because he thought he and the disciples might need to make a quick getaway if a Roman patrol came along, or the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem sent out its men to apprehend him. Or perhaps it was just a way of controlling the crowds who came to hear him and be healed by him.

By this time, he had done the rounds of the synagogues in the area and news of his words and deeds was spreading far beyond Galilee. On one occasion, Peter and his crew had been out fishing all the previous night, catching nothing, so he was naturally somewhat sceptical when Jesus told him to go out into deep water again and put down his nets for a catch. However, he reluctantly agreed, leaving Zebedee’s boat anchored inshore, however. The catch was so great that they had to call the other boat out to help them, or they would certainly have sunk under its weight. Peter fell to his knees, partly in awe of his ‘Lord’ and partly in shame that he doubted Jesus’ word even for a minute. Of course, never missing an opportunity for an acted parable, Jesus promises them an even greater catch, of souls.

Sworn to Secrecy:

Despite Peter’s humility, or perhaps because of it, he is one of only three disciples, the others being the more ambitious Zebedee brothers, to witness two major incidents. The first incident is when they accompany Jesus to the house of one of the leaders of a local synagogue, Jairus, after he learns of the death of his daughter as he is on his way to heal her. When they arrived at the house, the women mourners had already gathered outside, making their traditional wailing sounds. This shows that the girl had been dead for some time, and Jesus knew too well that, in bringing her back to life, he would be crossing a line which could only lead him into direct confrontation with the Sanhedrin. So, he orders Peter, James and John not to tell anyone what they have seen. His selection of these three reveals the trust he placed in them both to believe what they had seen, and to keep it to themselves. His words to the mourners outside, which at first they ridicule, were probably intended to conceal the miracle further, leaving it open for people to believe what they wanted to believe, rather than bringing the wrath of the religious authorities down on him at this stage. By keeping the number of witnesses to an absolute minimum, he seeks to protect his other disciples from such wrath. He chooses the strongest among his fishermen friends, including Peter.

The Transfiguration Lodovico Carracci 1594 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The second incident involves a mountain climb. Here is Mark’s account of what happened:

Jesus took his three friends, Peter, James and John, and led them up into a high mountain. They were alone.

High up in the mountains, Jesus was changed. 

His friends were still with him. His clothes were gleaming white; no bleacher on earth could make them whiter. His friends saw two other men talking with Jesus: Moses, who had led the people out of slavery, and Elijah, who had stood up to a king in God‘s name. 

Peter didn’t know what to say, so he began to talk like this:

‘Sir’, he said. ‘It’s grand for us to be up here. Do you want us to make three shelters, one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah?’

Peter and James and John were terrified.

A cloud rolled around them. God’s words came into their minds.

‘This is my only son. You must do as he says.’

 The three men looked around. There was nobody there but Jesus.

As the went down the mountainside, Jesus told them not to talk about what they had seen to anybody, ‘until I have risen from the dead.’

It was this saying they could not forget. They talked again and again among themselves about what ‘rising from the dead’ could mean.

We don’t know  exactly what happened on the mountain, but the three friends shared a tremendous experience, one which transcended even that of the raising of Jairus’ daughter. Perhaps it helped them to understand that first incident. Since then, Peter had argued with Jesus, only a week before his transfiguration, and it had been clear how little he, and they, had understood him or listened to his words. Peter had declared Jesus to be the Messiah, but failed to grasp the need for him to be the suffering servant prophesied by Isaiah, let alone what he meant by being ‘raised to life’.

On the road to Jerusalem from Caesaria Philippi, he had taken Jesus aside and rebuked him, because he couldn’t get out of his head the widespread Jewish conviction that God’s chosen leader would establish a national kingdom, with a king and government. James and John were already applying to become his chief ministers. How could the Messiah suffer in any way or die in the hands of foreigners? Until now, it hadn’t made sense. Now their understanding had been transformed by this mountain top experience, but they were still puzzled by the idea of  ‘rising from the dead’. That’s why Jesus told them not to speak about his Resurrection until after it had happened.

The Armed Man in the Garden:

In an echo of the incident at Caesaria Philippi, Mark tells of how, after their Passover Supper, the disciples went outside, singing a hymn. They walked through the olive groves towards Bethany, where they were staying:

‘You will all let me down,’ said Jesus, as they walked along. ‘The Bible says:

‘I will strike the shepherd and the sheep will run away.

‘But after I am raised I will go to Galilee before you.’

‘Everybody else may let you down, said Peter, ‘but I won’t.’

‘I tell you, Peter,’ said Jesus, ‘that this very night, before dawn, you will say more than once that you’re no friend of mine.’

‘Say I’m no friend of yours?’ said Peter hotly. ‘I’d die with you first!’

Andrea Mantegna’s Agony in the Garden, circa 1460, depicts Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The big man could hardly speak any more, but now he resolved on letting his sword do the talking, if he needed it to. No one had noticed when Peter had picked up the sword in the upper room, pushed it through his belt and arranged his cloak so it couldn’t be seen. As they climbed the Mount of Olives into the Garden of Gethsemane, they felt a chill wind that whispered cheerlessly through the olive branches as they fell silent. They had all echoed Peter’s words, but the master said nothing more until he told them to sit down and wait for him while he went to pray. Again, he called his inner circle of friends, Peter, James and John to go with him. He told them to wait, still at some distance from where he would pray alone, but within sight of him. They were to keep watch for him. He told them, his voice breaking with deep distress, that his heart was nearly breaking as well. They watched him go on a short distance and then fall to his knees. In the moonlight, they could tell from his posture in prayer that his mind was in anguish and, as he had said, his soul was overcome with grief to the point of death. Peter put his head into his hands, knowing that there was nothing he could do to help. Exhausted, in the darkness, he drifted into sleep.

He awoke with a start to a gentle touch on his shoulder. It was Jesus, and as the other two sat up rubbing their eyes, he said in a voice tinged with disappointment, “Couldn’t you three keep awake with me for a single hour?” Choking back his emotion, he added, quietly, “Watch, and pray that you may not have to face temptation; your spirit is willing, but human nature is weak.” He sat silently with them for a while and then returned to his solitary prayers. A second time Peter awoke to find Jesus standing over him, this time more composed. Peter tried to rouse himself as Jesus went back to pray alone. After a short time, Peter felt a firmer hand shaking his shoulder. “Wake up,” said Jesus, “the hour has come. In a moment you will see the Son of Man betrayed.”

Dazed, Peter jumped to his feet. Flaring torches dazzled him. In what seemed like another dream, he saw Judas step forward and kiss Jesus, and heard Jesus say, “Judas, is it with a kiss that you betray the Son of Man?” On the word, ‘betray’, Peter gripped his sword.

The capture of Christ (detail) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“Who are you looking for?” Jesus asked the Temple Guards. “Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “I am he” said Jesus calmly, turning around to point at the disciples, ” so, since you have found me, let these others go.” Peter shouted, “Don’t worry, Lord, we can take care of ourselves.” In the glare of the torches came the flash of a blade and the cry, “watch out, the big fellow has a sword!” Peter struck out wildly at Malchus, the Temple Servant, as he moved forwards to oversee the arrest of Jesus. “My head!” Malchus shouted, “he’s hacked my ear off!” He was covered with blood and dazed from the blow. The Guard rushed forwards and there was a lot of shouting and scuffling, then calm returned as the Galilean spoke quietly, telling Peter to put his sword away, that “those that lived by the sword, died by it.” Someone put a bandage around Malchus’ head, holding the almost severed ear back in place. Then Jesus put his hands over Malchus’ head and healed the ear instantly. The Captain of the Guard inspected it, but, despite the blood, found no wound. Then he carried out the arrest, and the other disciples slipped away into the night, throwing away anything that might incriminate them, including the short-swords that one or two others, besides Peter, had been carrying. The Sanhedrin wasn’t interested in the Twelve. Having captured the shepherd of the flock, they knew the sheep would scatter, just as Jesus himself had predicted.

Treachery in the Courtyard:

As Peter crouched in the darkness of an olive grove, he was stunned by a mix of feelings: Fatigue, fear, uncertainty and, above all, a sense of guilt. He was acutely aware of failing his master, of having fallen asleep three times and failed to keep watch. How many times, on Galilee, had he been fishing at night and returned to the shore to accompany Jesus in his ministry the next day? The arrest had all happened so quickly, and yet he had seen the lights in the distance and fallen back asleep. In that moment, if he had managed to rouse himself and stand guard, as Jesus had asked, he could have woken ‘Thunder and Lightning’, the sons of Zebedee, they would have had time to draw the swords Jesus had told them to bring with them, and the three of them, surrounding Jesus,  might at least have put up a better fight and even shepherded Jesus away to Bethany, to the safety of locked doors. Now his solitary, futile sword-play had landed him and his master in even more trouble. Now, in the distance, he could see the torches of the Temple Guard and Roman soldiery taking an unresisting Jesus to trial. Why had Jesus told them to bring swords in the first place, if he didn’t intend them to use them? Where was the Legion of Angels Jesus had said he could call out of Heaven to protect him? Why hadn’t he done this?

John and James joined him in the olive grove next to the Bethany Road and they decided to split up. James would take the other, remaining disciples to Bethany and hide out in Lazarus’ house with the women. They would bar all the doors. Peter and John would run down through the olive groves, overtake the arrest party, and try to find out what was happening to Jesus. Nicodemus was near the gate to the High Priest’s House, having been summoned in the middle of the night to attend ‘a hearing’, just as Jesus was led through. John spotted him, and Nicodemus passed him off as his servant to get him through the gate and into the judgement hall. Peter stayed in the Temple courtyard outside the gate and watched the members of the Sanhedrin arriving. There were quite a few people in the centre of the courtyard, but Peter hung back in the shadows, conscious of the blood staining his fisherman’s tunic. However, someone had lit a fire, so he removed it. hid it behind an olive stump and moved closer to the fire. As he did so, he suddenly saw Judas emerging from the High Priest’s House by torchlight. He found himself muttering and cursing “that traitor” out loud, unintentionally drawing attention to himself.

Peter’s Denial by Rembrandt, 1660. Jesus is shown in the upper right hand corner, his hands bound behind him, turning to look at Peter. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

One of the serving girls sitting by the fire heard his thick Galilean accent and asked him if he was one of the followers of Jesus. She had heard the man from Nazareth preach many times and the Twelve were always with him, and he recognised him as the big man, a sort of bodyguard, who was always at his side. Peter denied even knowing Jesus. A member of the Temple Guard who had been in the arrest party also came over. He looked carefully at Peter, thinking he might be the big man who hit Malchus with his sword. “You are one of that man’s followers, aren’t you?” he said, pointing to the house where Jesus was being interrogated by Sanhedrin. Peter denied it with such a protest that the officer of the Guard grew even more suspicious.  However, there was no blood on his clothes and it had been dark in the garden. There had been a lot of confusion.

The officer went inside the House for a short time, and about an hour later Malchus himself came out to where Peter was sitting and asked him to stand. More than a head taller than Malchus, Peter was able to look down at the bloody bandages on the Temple servants’ head. Malchus asked him officiously for his name, trade and address. Peter answered that he was Simon-bar-Jonas, a fisherman from Capernaum. “I thought so,” said Malchus, “you’re a Galilean, the prisoner’s armed bodyguard who did this to me earlier when we went to arrest him in Gethsemane, on the Mount of Olives. Come on, speak up! I’m in no pain, no thanks to you, but I can’t hear so well, just now,” Peter answered that he rarely went to the other side of Galilee, let alone to Nazareth. He had heard of Jesus of Nazareth, but had never seen him and the man meant nothing to him. He had come on his own to the City for the Passover, together with his friend John, who was in the Temple, praying. He was waiting for him.

At that moment, Jesus was brought out of the High Priest’s House. He stood on the steps and looked straight over at Peter: a sad look, but nothing to prove he knew him. John was with Nicodemus, not far behind. Near at hand, a rooster crowed as the sky grew lighter. In the half-light Malchus could see tears rolling down the big man’s face. He tried to speak, twice, then turned and broke into a run across the courtyard and out of the gate, weeping bitterly. John left Nicodemus and ran after Peter.

Behind them, the Temple Guards had blindfolded Jesus and began playing games with him by the fire, beating him and asking him to guess who had hit him, and hurling worse insults at him. Nicodemus tried to stop them, but was ushered away, and Malchus turned away and went back inside. The guards were far too preoccupied with their prisoner, whom they had been told to hold until the full Sanhedrin could be assembled in daylight, to bother about chasing after his Galilean fishermen friends. They could run all the way back to Capernaum, as far as they were concerned, and the Romans or Herod’s men could deal with them there, like they dealt with all the other troublesome northerners. Not their problem. They had their man.

From Bethany to Galilee: 

But John and Peter did not return to Galilee. They ran to Bethany and joined the other disciples, who had decided to stay together, close to Jerusalem, at least until the worst was over. They kept the door locked, except for the women coming and going with other relatives, escorted by John and Joseph of Arimathea. Two days later, when Mary Magdalene brought news of the empty tomb. Fearing that the body had been stolen, Peter and John set off on one of their runs again, to Joseph’s garden cave, where Jesus had been placed after his crucifixion.

John got their first and waited for Peter, and when they saw the linen clothes lying there, they began to believe, John better than Peter, that the scriptures really had come true. But they didn’t really understand was resurrection was until Peter met the risen Jesus in person on the road near Jerusalem later that same afternoon. Two other disciples also met him on the road to Emmaus in the evening and when they returned to Bethany to tell the others, Jesus suddenly appeared to all of them, except Thomas.  A week after that, he had appeared to all of them again, this time including Thomas. After this, they followed the instructions of the angel and Jesus himself, who had first appeared to Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany outside the tomb, to return to Galilee to meet him there.

However, nothing had happened for weeks now, so Peter decided to go back to doing what he knew best….

John 21, 1-19:

After this, Jesus appeared once more to his disciples at Lake Tiberias. This is how it happened. Simon Peter, Thomas (called the twin), Nathanael (the one from Cana in Galilee), the sons of Zebedee, and the two other disciples of Jesus were all together. Simon Peter said to the others, “I am going fishing.” “We will come with you,” they told him. So they went out in a boat, but all that night they did not catch a thing.

As the sun was rising, Jesus stood at the water’s edge, but the disciples did not know it was Jesus….

….A third time Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter became sad because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” and so he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you!” Jesus said to him, “Take care of my sheep…..”….Then Jesus said to him, “Follow me!” 

The Drama of Jesus, by Paul White & Clifford Warne:

The late afternoon breeze was rippling the water of the Lake of Galilee. John and six of the disciples were walking along the shore. “Where’s Peter?” asked John.

“Whenever he wanted to think something over,” said Andrew, “he’d go down to the boats and mend the nets.”

“But we agreed we’d stay together while we waited for the Lord to arrive.”

Andrew shrugged. “An impatient man is our Peter.”

“Come on. Let’s find him,” said John….They found Peter sitting morosely on a pile of nets, looking over the lake. Gruffly he greeted them and said, “I’m going fishing”.

“Jesus told us to wait on the hillside,” answered John. Peter pulled irritably at his beard. “You can wait there. I’m going to the boats and nets and the lake, to work.”

“But what about His work?” asked John. “I’m sure the Lord has plans for our future.”

Without looking up, Peter muttered, “You can also be sure that He wants reliable men to carry it out. Not weaklings; not those who panic and are afraid. He called me the Rock and I turned out to be this….” He picked up a piece of rotten driftwood and broke it over his knee.

“You told me that He forgave you.”

“Forgave, yes,” Peter sighed. “But trust me – depend on me in the future – that’s different. Would you put your work in the hands of a person who openly denied he even knew you?”

“Is that all you remember of that terrible night? A night when we were all bewildered and afraid. We all failed him.”

“That may be,” said Peter, “but I gave him my word that I would never let him down.” He thumped his palm with his fist. “I said I’d die for him.”

“True,” agreed John, “we all said we’d die for him.”

“You didn’t swear you’d never seen him before and that anyhow he meant nothing to you.”

“So you feel ashamed and guilty,” said John gently. “It shocked you to catch a glimpse of the real Simon – weak, scared and unreliable. The truth took you by surprise, shook you and bruised your pride.” He put his hands on Peter’s shoulders. “Tell me, you miserable, short-memoried fisherman, did it take Him by surprise?” John spoke slowly and forcibly. “Did the truth about you shock him?” He turned to the others. “Andrew, do you remember what the Lord said to this bag-of-self-pity you call a brother, when he told us that Satan would sift us all like wheat?”

Andrew nodded. “He said, ‘Simon, Simon, I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you come to yourself you must lend strength to your brothers.’ “

Peter turned away. What John said was true. Jesus had known the worst even before it happened. He knew Peter better than Peter knew himself and he still loved him, cared about him and prayed for him.

Peter kept looking towards the lake. He didn’t want them to see his tears. He strode down towards the water, muttering, “I’m still going fishing.”

They sat in silence and watched him check the fishing gear. Then he put his shoulder to the boat and slowly pushed it into the water. Once aboard, he set about hoisting the sails. The disciples jumped to their feet and ran after him, shouting, “wait for us.”

They cast their nets all night and caught nothing. Slowly, they rowed back in the dawn mist…

A voice called from the shore, “Fellows, have you caught anything?”

Peter shouted back, “No.”

“Shoot the net to starboard and you will make a catch.”…

…They cast the net. In a second their tiredness turned into excited action. The boat jerked to starboard, the water had sudden turbulence. Peter took immediate control. He shouted orders. “Pull – watch it – carefully now – don’t tear the net…John, what are you doing?”

John had no thought for fish. He was staring through the mist. “The man on the shore He….”

“Never mind him, help with the catch!” But John was still looking shoreward. “Peter,” he breathed, “it’s the Lord!”

“Remember how he told us to cast the net on the other side of the boat?” Peter wasn’t listening. The moment he realised who it was, he grabbed his tunic, hauled it on, dived overboard and swam to the shore.

Andrew’s face was a study. “Oh-um-then what do we do with all these fish?”

“He helped us to catch them,” said John decisively. “We bring them in.” He grasped the net calling, “Keep rowing!”

The boat was soon in the shallows. The six disciples landed and started dragging the net up the beach.  They were at once aware of the smell of fish cooking and the warmth of a fire in the chill dawn. As John dragged in the net his mind was a whirl. What could he say to Jesus?  “I’m sorry, Lord. We waited and waited on the hillside. We had to do something so we went back to the nets.” But his dilemma disappeared when Jesus said, “Bring some of the fish you caught.”…

“Come and have breakfast,” said Jesus, and began serving them.

Apart from murmurs of thanks no one spoke during the meal. John looked at Jesus but looked away again. He was unwilling to meet his Lord’s eyes. He asked himself, …”What has He said to Peter? What are his plans for the future?” Peter sat there moodily looking at the fish. Then Jesus spoke using Peter’s old name. “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?”

“Yes, Lord,” came the husky reply. “You know I’m your friend.”

Jesus looked directly at him. “Take care of my lambs.”

Then realisation gripped him. “He still wants me,” Peter thought, “that’s the end of the fishing business.”

There was a long silence. The disciples barely stirred.  Jesus spoke again.  “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” 

Peter still sat there, his hands cupping his chin. Again he said, “Yes, Lord. You know I’m your friend.”

Jesus looked at him. Peter’s eyes met his. There was love and confidence in the order. “Then tend my sheep.”

The wind stirred the water. Small waves splashed on the sand. Peter was barely aware of the familiar smells of fish and nets.

Insistently Jesus’ voice came again. “Simon, son of John, are you my friend?”

Peter flinched. There were tears in his eyes. The words wounded him deeply. He blurted out, “Lord, you know everything. You know everything. You know I’m your friend”. His wet clothing stuck to his body. He shivered.

Again came the order, “Feed my sheep.” Jesus paused and then went on, “Peter, I’m telling you the truth. When you were young you used to get ready and go where you wanted, but when you are old you will stretch out your hands and someone else will take you where you don’t want to go.”

Peter’s gaze was focused on the Lord’s wounded feet. Slowly the words he had heard took shape in his mind. He looked at his own feet and realised that one day, when Jesus’ words came true, he too would have similar wounds…Jesus looked into his troubled face and said, “Follow me.” Then he stood up and walked away. At once Peter followed him…..

 

…..The guards grasped Peter and John and pushed them down the steps from the judgement hall. “Clear out,” said the captain. “And mind you do what you’re told.”…Hurrying towards them came Matthew. “Thank God you’re free. I have splendid news. Yesterday that big crowd heard you tell that Jesus is alive, Peter. …They believed, hundreds of them.”

“So things have been happening while we were in prison and in court,” said John.

“We’ve been busy telling people about Him and what He said. Scores of us were at it till late last night, and we started again early this morning.”

“Hundreds you say?” questioned Peter.

Matthew nodded. “You know how I like figures. Since he gave us his Holy Spirit and told us to go tell the good news, five thousand have believed.”

Peter whistled softly. “Fishers of men, that’s what he promised. Shoals of them!”

 

Follow Me!

Alan T Dale has pointed out that no story can simply be a record resulting from a historical enquiry. Whilst it must be subject to the proper analysis of the sources, texts and contexts it is set in, we are not merely asking historical questions. The whole story faces us with three questions which stem from Jesus’ thrice-asked question to Peter about brotherly love:

• Isn’t love the real human adventure? The Story of Jesus puts a question mark against all our chosen ideals and ambitions…challenges us to look for the real source of fulfilment…
• Isn’t love the clue? Jesus was never dogmatic, but crafted his convictions the hard way, struggling, as mankind always has, with the business of making sense of the tangled human experience…all he said and did was a product of this process…
• Isn’t love the end? Men and women have always dreamed dreams and seen visions of a future common society in a common world. In Economics, in Science, and in Education, we seek the clue to this world. The Story of Jesus and his Disciples forces us to ask what kind of world we really want and how we expect to make it. He continues to make us scrutinise our common assumptions and encourages us to make a bolder enquiry. Isn’t love the clue to history, its meaning and its end?

Jesus’ ‘craft’ is summed up by those final words to Peter, ‘Follow Me!’ – the answers are to be found not only by thinking critically but by living boldly, experimentally and adventurously.  What if Peter, instead of breaking the driftwood and casting it away, had cut away the rotten wood and shaped the remaining soft wood into something useful or ornamental? The fishermen moved their nets to starboard even before they knew who was directing them, and that it would be as successful a catch as it had been before. ‘Tough Love’ isn’t a blueprint, it’s a ‘Rough Guide’! It’s true meaning can only be found experimentally. God’s world is a world in the making – to be explored, lived in, shared and enjoyed together. How this can be done can only be found in the doing, in following Jesus. Love is the greatest human experience, and friendship is the way we improve it. It is the attitude and emotion which forms the precondition to finding real answers to human questions. Jesus was the pioneer, and we often fall a long way behind, but He never lets us fall so far behind that we cannot see or hear him. We are his friends because we do what he commands; we love him and one another. We follow him to the ends of the earth, and from this world to the next where Love, his Love, is perfect. Easter is not just for one Sunday, or a week or two after, it’s for ever!

John’s ‘Epilogue’ is not the only Galilean appearance of the risen Jesus recorded in the gospels. In Matthew’s gospel, the eleven disciples meet him on a hill. Matthew tells us that even now, some of them doubted what they were seeing, but Jesus drew near and told them to go out and make disciples of  ‘all peoples, everywhere’. He left them in no doubt that they were no longer fishing in a small inland sea in northern Palestine, but in the wide open seas beyond, and for a catch which none of them could number.

Prayers:

Simon

What have we done to deserve your appearing? Like Simon, we have denied you in the inmost secrets of our hearts. We have denied you with our lips, and yet you have marked our tears and read our thoughts. We thank you for that love which always comes to us. Help us never to forget your mercy and keep us, like Simon, faithful to the end. Amen.

(Ian D Bunting)

Make a Catch

Sometimes, Lord, you seem to us as a stranger on the shore. Then you remind us of our calling. You challenge us with hard commandments. You draw out our trust. And then, when we obey you, you reveal yourself – not as a stranger but as a friend! Help us to discover you again today, as we do what you tell us. For your name’s sake. Amen

(Ian D Bunting)

Sources & Related articles:

Alan T Dale, Portrait of Jesus. Oxford University Press, 1979.

Paul White & Clifford Warne, The Drama of Jesus. Sydney: Hodder and Stoughton, 1980.

David Kossoff, The Book of Witnesses. Glasgow: Collins, 1971.

• Do You Love Me? (carolynpriesterjones.org)

• Gone Fishing! John’s Epilogue. (chandlerozconsultants.wordpress.com)

• John 21.1-19 “Back to Church” JUMC 20130414 (mysundaysermons.com)

• Waiting With an Empty Net (fullofrosesinspirationals.wordpress.com)

• Caught and Released (John 21:1-19 and Acts 9:1-9) (johncalvinpress.wordpress.com)

• Third Sunday of Easter 14.4.13 John 21. 1-19 (preachersfriend.wordpress.com)

• Thomas: Finding Faith (chandlerozconsultants.wordpress.com)

• Third Sunday of Easter – Mass Readings (catholicglasses.com)

• Even in Failures There is Success! (1safeharborisjesus.wordpress.com)

• Sunday Sermon: John 21 (justinhiebert.com)