In these days, some read of the Mosaic ritual as if it were a dead language, far too hard for us to understand. Yet the Passover can never be for us mere history, for it was our Lord's last meal before He died, and on the great day of Atonement He lay in His grave. This feast is modern as well as ancient, because it is eternal. Originating in the Exodus, it has survived the turmoil of the Judges, the glories of Solomon, the Captivity, the Maccabean Wars, and even the final destruction of Jerusalem, and it is still observed by Jews--a race growing ever more numerous--wherever they dwell. In these ceremonial records there lurks the very secret of our salvation, and out of it sprang the Lord's Supper or Holy Communion.
Public worship, as celebrated at Jerusalem, was among the wonders of the world. The Apostles had to seek out the Gentiles, and win them, one by one; but in John 12, we read of Greeks gathering in the Temple of their own free will to worship at the Passover feast. It was a historic scene. The Passover was the festival which marked the beginning of months, the new life, the fresh start, the regeneration of men's souls. Yet it was not to Annas and Caiaphas that the Greeks made their appeal. They knew well enough that from the Temple they were excluded. Some other victim than these inaccessible bulls and goats seemed to be needed, and the pagans turned to that Lamb--the Lamb of God--which was slain from the foundation of the world. Years before, at the Jordan, Andrew and Philip had been men who liked to talk about the Christ. They now met the Greeks, who said, "We would see Jesus," and Jesus was told about it. "Him that cometh unto Me," He had declared, "I will in no wise cast out." The Greeks filled Him with a sudden joy.
Lifted Up to Die
In those men, our Lord saw the promise of world-evangelization. Here at last was the hour when He would be glorified--the streak of dawn amid the darkness. He might have left Jerusalem and turned, like Paul, there and then, to the Gentiles. With His healing wisdom, what a missionary He would have been! But He did not leave Jerusalem. We do not know that He actually met the Greeks. With a trouble of soul that He did not conceal, the corn of wheat, He said, must first fall into the ground and die (ver. 24). The life must first be lost--nay, hated. What He came for, was to endure the cross. Only as lifted thereon would He draw men unto Him. As Paul had to learn, there is no Christ to be preached except Christ crucified.
Some have compared the approach of these Greeks from the West with the approach of the Wise Men from the East. The Wise Men were offered the Cradle, where life is granted. The Greeks were offered the Cross, where life is laid down. The trouble with the East has been a deficiency of life; there is oppression, lethargy, acquiescence. And the East receives the Babe. In the West, the trouble is not a deficiency of life, but a barbaric and undisciplined vigor. To the West is granted the Crucified One. To all of us, He thus comes as what we specially need. He corrects our despair with His Childhood; He tempers our confidence with His Sufferings.
Yet--as He turned from those Greeks to die--He was tried by misgivings. What if--by His death--God should be obscured? He did not dally with doubt or hesitate. He killed it with a prayer at once, instant and audible. "Father," He cried, "glorify Thy name"--do not let that be disgraced by the Cross. The people heard what they took to be thunder. Little as they realized it, here was thunder which still reverberates round the world, never louder than to-day--the roar of artillery, the crash of empires, the ruin of thrones. Some vaguely discerned a voice amid the noise--an angel's voice, louder than man's; but what Christ heard was the speaking of God. "I have glorified it," said the Father, "and will glorify it again."
There was a reason why the priests did not care to explain the Passover to the Gentiles. It was a humbling ordinance, that reminded the proudest of his sin. The Israelites were saved from the destroying angel, not because they were better than the Egyptians, but because a little lamb, only a year old, was slain. However fine the house, the angel only passed over it when the blood of this lamb was sprinkled on the lintel and side-posts of the door. They who would be safe had to enter by that shed blood, as a Roman soldier, when conquered, had to pass under the yoke. The sprinkling must be by hyssop, a mere weed in the wall, in itself worthless--showing that here is a matter where money and art and intellect are of no avail--all 'of us have equally come short, all must be saved freely, or not at all. The will alone counted--did they or did they not take the hyssop, equally available for rich and poor, and obey the command? And salvation was not an ecclesiastical but a domestic, a Personal event. It was a deliverance of the home. It was from the home that leaven--the leaven of unrighteousness--had to be scrupulously removed. The outward confession on the "doorpost and lintel" must correspond with inward amendment in cupboard and kitchen! Moreover, the lamb thus slain for atonement remained in the home for sustenance. But they must eat it, not with the luxury of leeks and garlics and onions, but with the bitter herbs of a sincere sorrow for sin, and with loins girded, shoes on the feet, staff in hand, as for a long journey eastwards to a better country, where lies the dawn. To obtain strength for that pilgrimage, each must partake for himself. None must rely on his own resources--else would he fall by the way.
If these had been the thoughts of the Jews, they also, like the Greeks, would have desired to see the Saviour. But their minds, not being repentant, could not teach repentance to others. They were otherwise occupied. Nicodemus, having made his protest in the Sanhedrin, was now silenced; and despite the influence of Joseph of Arimathea, there was no open dissent from a resolution definitely condemning Christ to death. Even at that eleventh hour, our Lord did not leave these men unwarned of the consequences. He told them that after His death nation would rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom; that wars and rumors of wars would curse the world; until, amid the clouds of fire and smoke, the Son of Man would return to reign in power and great glory. But His voice was not heeded. The Sanhedrin was composed of statesmen. What engrossed their minds was, not the eternal judgment of God, but a possible uproar among the people, the day after to-morrow. When Galileans became unruly in the Temple, Pontius Pilate had a habit of making short work of them. Therefore, said these opportunists, we must indeed kill Christ, only we must do it quietly, not on the feast day, but by lettre de cachet. He must simply disappear, the crowds must lose sight of Him and forget Him. It was the old delusion, that because men can do wrong, therefore they are able by ingenuity to avoid results.
The Betrayal
It meant that if nothing was done before the feastday, the crisis would blow over until the following week, perhaps for a longer period, as had happened more than once. This, then, was the moment when Judas proceeded straight from the supper in Simon's house and obtained an interview with the chief priests. They were glad to see him. It was indeed a providential coincidence that one of the Nazerene's disciples should be open to bribery. They made their terms with Judas: it was to be payment by results; thirty pieces of silver if and when Jesus should be given into their hands. And thus it was, in mysticism quite unconscious, that they bought for money-- the sacred money of the Temple--the One True Paschal Lamb, who would take away the sin of the world.
John tells us that Judas was a thief; and, taking his words in their plain sense, we learn that dishonesty of every kind is not an offense against property only--that is the least aspect of it; it may be a betrayal of the Redeemer. Far happier was the convicted thief on the cross, who sinned, not knowing Him, than the thief who sold his Friend. And here let me make a remark which brings this narrative to bear on our actual customs and habits. Without dreaming of the Iscariot's danger, the Apostles left him in sole charge of funds for which all were responsible. They were like people who leave money about where there are untrustworthy servants. They did not repeat the mistake. Although before He died, Jesus gave them leave to carry purses and swords, yet, endowed with the Spirit, they of the Early Church did not appoint one deacon only as trustee, but seven. In money matters they became as careful as any experienced man of business, to avoid needless temptation. There was no second Judas, dishonest but undiscovered. The detection of Ananias and Sapphira was instant and conclusive.
Loved to the End
To the end, Jesus held out His hand to save the Iscariot. He admitted Judas to the innermost friendship of Bethany. He made him welcome at the Last Supper. And, knowing from the first that the man was a traitor, He framed His warnings with a tender tact that appealed to the guilty apostle, without repelling him. Many months before the catastrophe, He remarked, in general terms, that there were some, even of His intimate friends, who did not believe. While He was still in Galilee, He said, still in general terms, that He would be betrayed. On the final evening, when He washed the disciples' feet, He added, as if casually: "Ye are clean--but not all."
A few minutes later--when Judas still held out--He astounded them with the terrible declaration: "Verily, one of you shall betray Me." The words were unmistakable, but how careful was our Lord not to disgrace the Iscariot! The Apostles accused themselves, not him; and even when Judas had taken the sop, they did not guess the truth. That sop was the last token of a love unto death. How could Judas play Him false after that? They two had dipped their hands in the same dish. "Good were it," added the Saviour--and we feel the emphasis of it--"for that man if he had never been born." Even then, two men only beside Judas--that is Peter and John--realized the tragedy. And they were speechless. For Judas, looking Jesus in the face, asked calmly: "Master, is it I?" to which the answer was: "Thou hast said." Judas pronounced his own doom.
His appalling courage was Satanic. He rose to go, with so cool an assurance that most of those present assumed that he was to buy something for the feast, or give alms to the poor. "What thou doest, do quickly," said our Lord; and as the unhappy man opened the door, they noticed--these little details live in the memory--that time had passed since they entered the upper room; it was night. "What thou doest," said He, "do quickly." He, like the priests, desired that all should be "finished" before the dawn of the great day of Atonement.
With Judas there, He was oppressed and troubled. With him gone, He seemed to heave a sigh of relief.
"Now," cried He, "is the Son of Man glorified." And it is an astonishing illustration of this scene that to this day millions of educated people will not sit thirteen at a table lest there be hidden treachery or some other trouble in store for them. It is the truth coming to us through the distorted medium of ignorance and superstition.