John 13:21-30

Hey, friends.

Welcome back.

Thanks for being with us.

Sorry about the long intro.

We are continuing through the 13th chapter.

I've got a scene, verse 21 here as, we've had Jesus

speaking with the disciples after the foot washing.

We've said this is a kind of a way of intro.

John doesn't do a Last Supper in the way that the other three gospels do.

If you're familiar with that idea of this is my body broken for you

and that that liturgy or those verses that we use in communion.

John doesn't

for whatever reason, he tells the foot washing story

and then he mentions them at dinner, but it he uses it in a different way.

And that's what we'll go through today.

So let me just read it for you, and then we'll come back and try to unpack it.

After saying this, Jesus was troubled in spirit.

He declared, I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me.

The disciples looked at one another,

uncertain of whom he was speaking.

One of his disciples, the one whom Jesus loved, was reclining next to him.

Simon Peter therefore motioned to him to ask Jesus, of whom he was speaking.

So while reclining next to Jesus, he asked him, Lord, who is it?

Jesus answered, it's

the one who might give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.

So when Jesus had dipped the piece of bread,

he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot.

After he received the piece of bread, Satan entered into him.

And Jesus said to him, do quickly what you're going to do.

Now no one at the table knew why he said that to him.

Some of them thought that because Judas had the common purse,

Jesus was telling him, buy what we need for the festival

or that he should give something to the poor.

So after receiving a piece of bread, he immediately went out

and it was night.

So again, a modified telling,

primarily focused on the idea of being betrayed.

We don't get a Communion or Last

Supper story in the classic sense from John.

What we get instead is, a kind of multilayered.

I would say, Michael, there's several things going on here.

So Jesus is is troubled.

He's that word means kind of like rough water, agitated.

And he says, one of you will betray me.

And the disciples don't know what to do with this.

This is, probably, I think Jesus's first words about being betrayed.

And then I think this is also our first reference to something

that becomes important in the back part of the story.

Michael, the one whom Jesus loved.

And it's easy to get sidetracked there because it's a strange phrase.

It's going to come up multiple more times in this gospel.

Scholarly church consensus has typically been that John is here

referring to himself, or that John at least

is the one being referred to.

That makes sense.

I think that's been a kind of, typically agreed on thing.

I'm sure not everybody agrees on it, but I think that's been mostly accepted.

And so then you have this interesting moment

where Peter is asking whoever

that disciple is, find out who it is,

and then they dip it in the dish and gives it to Judas.

We're

told Satan enters and we've already been told that that.

So probably you shouldn't take that literally here.

That's already happened.

And then he says, go and do that quickly.

And Judas then leaves.

I, I don't know exactly how you describe this text,

Michael, but it seems to me that John is bringing multiple things

to an intersection and tying or weaving them together.

There's, I think, several interesting storylines happening.

Yeah. No doubt.

I do think that what we have at its core, obviously, is Jesus

being aware of the betrayal itself, which is a distinctive in John.

I think with the amount of time and attention given to it.

This is not about Judas getting a lot of money

and Judas, you know, pursuing his own self-interest.

In fact, the betrayal story, I think you could argue here in John,

is more about Jesus than it is about Judas at all.

In fact, when it comes to the moment of Judas

being the one who's going to go out and he's going to actually do that betrayal.

It it's attributed to the idea that, you know, Satan is is active in that.

So Judas really isn't the subject here of this story as much of this.

It is Jesus an opportunity to do some teaching.

And clearly the the way that John teaches, it gives us a few insights,

to the really important characters of the story, the first being Jesus himself.

That idea that Jesus is troubled in spirit.

I think it's actually easy to read past Clint, but a helpful note

to read the same way that Jesus wept at the grief at Lazarus, his passing.

Here, Jesus is troubled by the specter of betrayal of someone that he loves, of

the the harm that is going to be done both to him and then also ultimately,

even the harm done to Judas by Judas himself.

So there's a fundamentally human note in this story that I think is worth

noting.

And then look at these others, the disciples who are here with Jesus.

We have the one who Jesus loves.

I think you're exactly right to say generally scholarly consensus

is that's John, I'm sure, with some exception.

And then you got Simon Peter named both of these

being really important characters in the story,

and they're naturally inquisitive themselves.

Well, Lord, who is it? Right.

If you're saying that someone's going to be the betrayer, who's that person?

Jesus gives this sign.

He he takes the bread, dips it in a dish, and John does this.

Clint.

There's a lot of bread stories in

John that are not explicitly communion stories.

They're not framed with that table exactly being named or called out,

but they're at least in the background, they're at least coloring the story.

And here we have it again, right.

We have in the faith tradition, this practice that has been done

by every generation of Christians going to the table, practicing the table

we're bonding to, and returning to the story of the night

when Jesus broke bread with the disciples.

What is John do with that?

Will John, as a gospel, has already had numerous encounters

where we've talked about John making assumptions about the story

already being known, and then, you know, fleshing out details on the side.

I think something like that is happening here.

I think John expects that we know the story of the Last Supper,

and it's interesting when John tells this with that knowledge in the background,

I think John is showing us that the bread is not just a revelation of the

the human Jesus Christ, who is God as it is in all of the Gospels.

But it's also a way that Jesus is demonstrating

foreknowledge, demonstrating even a kind of agency

by pointing out, hey, here's the one who's going to betray Jesus in.

This is not just offering a practice of the church, but in some ways,

he's demonstrating miraculously control, an awareness

of the very events that are going to transpire in his death.

Jesus is in that way, I think, connecting the communion

of the breaking of the bread.

He's he's connecting it directly to the person who's going to be

instrumental in his broken body, which is not explicit in its text.

I want to just admit that to you.

But in a gospel like John,

I think it's easy

to see how these motifs get work together in a very busy intersection,

and there's a lot of background and foreground that comes together

for some really interesting, teachings, I think in the text like this.

Yeah, I would agree. I think,

you know, we can talk about it when we get there.

But if you look at stories late in this gospel, bread is going to come up again.

Bread came up early in the gospel in it represents many things.

I, I am the bread of life.

The idea of sustenance, daily bread,

the kind of prayer that we make.

I think there is an earthiness to that that is well used by

John as a, as a storytelling device where it,

it, it

builds on each reference, builds on the other ones.

And ultimately that will take us to a, a story late in this gospel.

And we'll try to do our best to remember when we get there.

Michael, you said something that I think is important here.

Jesus was troubled in spirit and not on the surface.

I think that could

we've said a number of times that one of the distinctive

of Jesus in John is that he's unafraid.

He's not confused.

You're not going to find, you know, why have you forsaken me in this gospel,

this this picture of Jesus is one of strength and confidence.

And yet it's also the gospel that tells us Jesus wept and then wept,

and then tells us that Jesus is troubled in spirit.

And what what I think is fascinating is to put those two realities

of this gospel in conversation with one another.

Jesus is unafraid of his mission, but he's not unaffected by it.

He is not untouched.

He is not a robot simply programed to go to the cross.

Jesus is

empathetic, empathetic, and is

able to embrace

the the reality of human emotion.

So he's moved by the grief around him. Here

he's troubled by the idea of betrayal,

the breakdown of the one I don't think,

I think it would

be very difficult to read this as as Jesus being afraid.

I don't think that fits

the character of this gospel.

And yet Jesus is troubled by the things that happen around him

and the lack of faith that just Jesus is not unaffected.

He is not, Teflon that everything bounces off

the the strength, the confidence

and the the faith that he

that he portrays in the Gospel of John.

He is.

It's poignant.

It's deep.

It's profound.

But it's not.

It's not a barrier through which nothing else can get through. It's

Jesus is aware of the world around him.

And I think that this is a good a good evidence of that.

I think another way of say that is that John does

strike at tension and and maybe even the balance, you might say,

between the portrayal of Jesus, who is the all powerful, all knowing,

Son of God, and also the reality that

Jesus Christ is truly the Son of Mary, the one who

who experiences life in the fullest sense as a human with the church.

That we've said this before, is indebted to John in many ways

for our understanding of the incarnation and theology and all of these things

that have transpired over thousands of years.

A lot of that finds its source here in John.

I also want to point out here,

I, I think there's some defense of the disciples built into this text.

And the case I want to make on that is,

here at the end.

No one knew why he had said this to Judas.

Some thought maybe Judas was supposed to go out, buy stuff for the festival.

Maybe he was supposed to donate to the poor. Right?

I think within this text, there's a kind of defense of, well,

why didn't they stop him if if they knew, if Jesus called out the betrayer,

how in the world do a group of 11

let the 12 go off and make this kind of destructive choice?

And I think John, in a very clever and interesting way,

provides us with some background knowledge

to provide some justification for for what's happening here.

There's confusion the disciples don't really know.

At the end of the day, what's going on here with this story

until later when the betrayal happens and then ultimately Jesus's death

and what will come after, you know, that's when the clarity comes

for these disciples.

But up to this point, you know, the way that John tells this gospel is

just there's a lot of rampant confusion there.

There's a lot of not understanding what is happening while the story is going

on. And John's including these little tidbits,

these little drop ins to just tell us, hey, Judas goes off to go

do the thing and everybody's confused by what's happening in this moment.

Only with some context in history playing out.

That's the real reality, and the total arc of the story become clear

yet again.

I think it's interesting to see

those threads woven together here.

And there's not quite the, you know, is it?

I, Lord, but there is an openness, you know.

Lord, who is it?

It it's not a clear cut picture of what's happening here.

And then when Judas leaves.

In many ways, John has done this to us before.

We would love to ask some questions of the backstory.

What?

Why? What? He leaves and nobody asks.

Follow up question. I mean, right, some.

But one of you is going to betray me and then

we just somebody gets a piece of bread and then we just move on with the evening.

It doesn't.

There's a there's an oddness to this

that has been characteristic of some of John's storytelling.

And, and really, it's a little bit true of all of the other gospels as well.

But, it's a profound moment.

We will have an opportunity

in a, in a chapter or a few chapters, actually,

to revisit the idea of what Judas does

and the speculation as to why.

John, I will I give you a little commercial.

John's not very interested in defending Judas.

John's.

You're going if you if you want to soften

the charges against Judas, this isn't the gospel you're going to reach for.

And and I don't actually know which one you would reach for,

but it certainly wouldn't be.

John.

But Jesus, now, I,

I think what I want to say is we're about

to come into a significant portion of discourse

in this gospel, including a very long, powerful prayer, the longest recorded in

any of the Gospels, and the idea of Judas both what he's going to do.

And then when we get back to what he does, I think are the bookends

of about three and a half chapters here that are coming up.

And so

as we this story

is, is a doorway of sorts to, of a unique,

a thing that only John does in the Gospels, and then John will close that

in transition with coming back to Judas, interestingly

enough, will mention this again tomorrow when we start that section.

All of that discourse happens in Judas's absence in John.

And so,

kind of interesting way that John bookends

what he's about to do in terms of his writing.

Also and just very, very briefly,

but want to make note of this because in John, every word matters.

And so the very ending of this text and it was night, don't

you miss the significance, importance of that?

We pointed out light and dark are themes throughout this entire book.

And the the moment when Judas has resolved

to go out and to take the life of the light of the world.

What is it?

It's the darkest night. It it is not it.

It is a moment in which, not just the time of day,

but the tenor of his spirit, the reality of what's going to happen

to the world

that God created and loved, the sacrifice that Jesus is prepared to make.

All of that figures into this darkness, the that the light will overcome,

but not until the darkness has has reigned.

And there's a way in which that this is both giving us some sense of context.

But I can't imagine reading this book without also seeing in it.

John, spiritual teaching about the state of the characters

and the moment that happens when this goes to betray the Savior.

Yeah, I think that's a really good insight.

We've been told that some people prefer the darkness

and want to hide their deeds, and Judas has just

named himself among them.

And, contrast that to a character we're going to see down the road

a couple chapters.

Who is going to tell us first came to Jesus at night, but now

does an act of faith in the daylight.

So, those, those things maybe just seem like story details,

but when when a gospel writer

drops a sort of random seeming detail, it is usually not random.

And I think that's a very good.

I think that's a very good catch and a very good insight, Michael. It

John's telling us a lot more than what time of day it was.

There's a lot in this book.

Certainly hope that you found something

in this conversation that's new, interesting, challenging.

Certainly.

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Thanks, everybody.