As I mentioned in one of our previous sessions Judas was only one side of the story of the events that took place. He left that night before any of the heavy stuff really took place. Also, I am surprised that you have yet to ask me about my part in those events. Surely you have heard from the others not to bring up those events in fear that it will conjure up bad memories, however, if I don’t you will never truly get the full story.
Do I regret what I did? Yes, it still haunts me every day, yet I relish the grace and forgiveness that my Lord and Savior granted me. My hope for you is that you will someday as well.
My brother Andrew and I were among the first to be called into Jesus’ inner group of disciples. We had started out as followers of John the Baptist, until John revealed who Jesus was during his baptism. Over the next three years we would witness countless healings, demons being cast out of people, and other miraculous things. The things he taught were unlike anything we had heard before, many times contradicting the traditional way of thinking. There was also this aspect of authority in his teaching, as if he had interacted with the original authors and had been given a deeper understanding of Scripture than most of the religious leaders at the time.
As I mentioned in that first session the entrance into Jerusalem was one of those moments one never forgets. The air was filled with excitement, not only for Passover later that week, but that the Messiah that would cleanse Israel from Rome and set up a new kingdom in its place, had entered the governing seed of Israel. I guess in that sense we were only half right. No one expected how the end of the week would tun out.
The day Passover came, and we asked Jesus where we were going to celebrate this time around. He told us to go into the city, find a man and tell him that we would celebrate at his house that night. The man would then lead us to an upper room that was all set up and ready to go. We followed his instructions and just as it had been with the donkey and cult, so it was with our Passover location. At that time, I do not think any of us realized just how important that room would become in the coming weeks.
That night we celebrated in the traditional way, unleavened bread, bitter herbs, the singing of hymns. All together a really great time of fellowship. That is until Jesus tells us that by the end of the night one of us would betray him. This was complete shock for many of us, so much so that we all started to question Jesus as to who.
Something else about that night. Jesus took us all off guard when he announced that this would be the last time that he would be eating bread and wine with us. Now he had said things like this before and we had not really taken Him seriously. This time there was something different in his voice. He took bread, said a prayer over it, then completely changed the symbolism of this annual meal. His words went something like “This is my body, broken for you, take and eat.” He then passed around a cup of wine with the words, “This is my blood shed for you. This blood has been shed for the forgiveness of sins. I will not drink wine until I drink it new with you in my Father’s Kingdom.” It was nothing new for a man of Nazareth to make such a vow, in fact Nazarites were kind of famous for it. Still none of us really grasped the full meaning of this act or his words at the time. We sang a few more hymns then departed for our camp at Gethsemane.
On the way, Jesus dropped another unsettling bit of news. Not only would one of us betray Him, but we would all run away. Now at the time I was naïve, I vowed that I would stick by Jesus no matter what. Jesus knew otherwise. He predicted that I would deny I even knew him by morning. I was known to put my foot in my mouth at times, but those words stung worse than the barbed whips used in punishment for criminals.
When we reached Gethsemane, Jesus took some of us aside and asked us to pray as he went a little further on to do the same. Jesus often took time alone to pray, tonight however, there was something weighing on Him. The next thing I know, Jesus is waking us up and telling us to get up and pray. We had been exhausted from the day and staying up got more difficult as the night went on. Suddenly in the distance there was a large group of people carrying torches. Temple guards and other officials, all led by Judas.
At what point Judas had left our group is unclear, none of us can pinpoint the exact time and the events of what had happened between the time he left and the time he returned only became known to us later. Jesus did not seem surprised, only in the fact that Judas kissed him was the act of betrayal. The chaos that ensued is still a blur. I know that somehow in the dark I managed to cut a guy’s ear off. Hey it was dark. I am a fisherman not a soldier. Jesus rebukes all of us and heals the man’s ear. He goes peacefully with them, and the rest of us scatter just as Jesus said we would. I tried to follow at a safe distance as did John. Jesus was led to the Sanhedrin, which was odd at this hour of the night. John, through his connections, managed to get in to see the trial or whatever was happening inside. I tried to warm myself at one of the fires scattered around.
One of the people around the fire thought she recognized me. I quickly told her no. A while later someone else thought the same. Again, I denied it. The last time however, someone recognized my accent as one like Jesus. Apparently, we Galileans have some weird ways of pronouncing things. Like the other two times, I denied it. Almost immediately a rooster crowed, the sign that Jesus had given that I would deny him three times before this happened. It was at this same time that Jesus was being transferred to some other location. We made eye contact and this sense of I told you so swept over me.
This is the moment that has haunted me to this day. I did not know then what I know now. That in just a few short hours the man I had come to know as Lord, would be dead. As far as I knew, my last act toward someone I had come to respect and was honored to call friend was one of denying that any of it had been real.
Look at me I still get teary eyed when I think about that night. So much uncertainty. So much shame. The world as I knew it was about to get flipped upside-down. More about that later. I am sending you to meet up with John who can fill you in better than I can about the trials. He’s only in Ephesus for a few days before his ship departs and I feel that it is crucial that you talk with him. After you have met with him, I will fill you on the rest of the good news that you will need to take the teachings of the Way to the masses.
May Yahweh be with you always. Shalom.
A Path of Living Stones 