Surely You Don't Mean Me?

Read Matthew 26:17-35.

It's supper time. You know how that goes. It's the time for family conversation—or it should be. (How many times in the last week has your family gathered around the table, all at once, for a meal? If you're like our family, the number is embarrassingly low.) For these twelve men and Jesus, this is not just any ordinary dinner, though. This is Passover, and there's a strict liturgy to follow. But when it comes to the actual meal, there is relaxed time for conversation before the liturgy resumes.

Matthew doesn't tell us what they were talking about. Only one at the table knew it was the "last" supper. We know from the other accounts that at least one of the topics of discussion was which one of them was the greatest. It's possible they were remembering the events of the day or the week. It's possible Peter was trying to get Judas to pay him back out of the treasury for the evening meal he had purchased. Whatever the discussion, Jesus seems to be listening to it all, taking it all in. But then he stops all of the conversation with a single statement: "Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me" (26:21).

Yeah, that pretty much brings whatever else might be going on to a halt. I can imagine the surprise, the shock, the questions that now begin to surface. "Surely you don't mean me?" they all ask. And while the movies usually show them asking one at a time, I have always imagined that they were all asking over each other. All, perhaps, except Judas. He asks on his own, knowing what he has planned to do. And Jesus only says to him, according to Matthew, "You have said so" (26:25). In other words, "It's up to you whether you betray me or not."

This story always brings up the age-old question, "Did Judas have to betray Jesus?" In other words, was he somehow predestined for this betrayal? I don't know the full mind of God, so I can't say for sure, but my gut instinct is no. Judas had a choice, just as we all have a choice. He had a choice when he went to the priests. He had a choice now. Jesus would have still been arrested and murdered. The religious leaders would have found him. Judas' involvement just made it easier for them. There's no indication in the text that Judas' free will had somehow been taken away from him here.

But, beyond that, perhaps the bigger question (whether he "had" to betray Jesus or not), is this: could he have been forgiven? Absolutely. How do I know that? Because, in the end, all of those who asked, "Surely you don't mean me?" did, in fact, betray Jesus. They ran. They disappeared. As predicted, by the end of the evening, they were pretending they had nothing to do with Jesus. And all of them found forgiveness on the other side of the empty tomb. So could have Judas. Even Judas.

So...again...the question that comes to us in this story of the Last Supper...where do you see yourself in this story? If Matthew is writing about our identity, who we are in Christ, then we each are in this story somewhere. Where are you? In what way(s) have you betrayed Jesus? And have you sought and found forgiveness?

Where are you in the story of the Last Supper?

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