Holy Wednesday

 

Daily Office

Reflection on John 13

 

​It took Leonardo da Vinci almost twenty years to complete “The Last Supper.” At first he struggled to find the right model for Jesus — a model whose face radiated strength, purity and compassion. He was similarly meticulous about finding the right models for the Twelve. This was particularly relevant as the painting would capture the moments following Jesus’ announcement that he would be betrayed by one of the Twelve.

For Judas, legend has it that da Vinci sought a model whose face bore the marks of contempt, malevolence, violence and trickery. He found it at a local jail and had the man brought to his studio. Upon the completion of “Judas,” da Vinci showed his work to the man, who, having remained reserved and stoic throughout, suddenly fell to his knees and wept. He asked the artist if he remembered him. The artist regarded the man thoughtfully and replied that he didn’t. As the man continued to weep he asked God to forgive him for the life that he had led. As he looked up at the artist he said, “Nineteen years ago I was the innocent youth you chose as your model for Jesus. The intervening years had brought horrific changes to this man.

Perhaps this story is simply a legend, but the fact remains that da Vinci chose his models with great care, so that their faces might be authentic expressions of their very souls. Never was this of greater import to the artist than in his depiction of the Twelve at this pivotal and profound moment in the Christian story: the betrayal of Jesus.

 

The event of the Last Supper became central to Christian worship in the early Church and has remained so ever since, especially in the Catholic and Anglican Churches and the Brethren denomination of our background. When the original Supper took place, the disciples’ expectations had surely been for a relatively low-key meal, one in which leavened bread would be shared, not the unleavened bread which, for all Jews, would be a feature of the supper on the following evening. The night of the Last Supper was not Passover, it was still in the period of preparation for that feast. This meal was not a seder, therefore, but rather a precious chance for some together time, a chance to relax after the turbulence of the week, to enjoy each other’s company and to share the excitement of the coming Passover. It is not hard to imagine the hubbub of thirteen male voices in crowded confines. We might think of the excitement of anticipation on this day, this Thursday, in the way we think of Christmas Eve or Easter Saturday.

Though being a time to relax and enjoy being together, the Last Supper was also accompanied by uncertainty and mystery. The room had been booked with Passover preparations in mind, but Jesus showed an unusual concern to wash his disciples’ feet before they took their places, likely at multiple tables. Peter, especially, found that awkward. And as they ate together Jesus asked them to think of his body as bread and his blood as wine. They listened uncomprehendingly, but then conversation would have picked up, until the moment that Jesus became visibly troubled. “One of you will betray me,” he said. We can imagine an uncomfortable silence for a moment, at least at Jesus’ table, before the conversation resumed. As it resumed, Peter motioned to John to ask Jesus, discreetly, whom he was talking about. We don’t know whether Jesus’ reply to John was overheard by any of the eleven others, but they did notice Jesus give directions to Judas so that he got up and left the room. Since this was the day of preparation, it was easy to assume he had been sent out to make a payment or donation out of the common purse. One thing is clear from John’s account: Jesus’ naming of Judas had little impact at the time. And after Judas had left, the atmosphere lightens, and Jesus is soon talking again about glorification.

The disciples were not ready to understand, as they reclined at table, that this Thursday evening, while being a time of preparation for Friday night’s Passover feast, would be remembered for all time not as a Christian version of Passover but as a feast that preempted Passover. When Passover took place that year, Jesus was already dead. He had died around the time that lambs were being slaughtered in the temple for the feast that would begin around six hours later. In time the Church would understand that the events of the crucifixion, symbolised in the bread and wine of the Last Supper, did not derive their significance from the Passover, but it was the other way around. The feast that came on the Friday night could no longer look forward to the cross, it came six hours too late: the real thing had already replaced it. In the upper room the Thursday passover feast — which wasn’t a passover feast — had become something so much greater. The once-a-year celebration of Passover had been replaced by a once-a-week Lord’s Supper — and this would be observed, as the embroidered text on communion tablecloths used to read: “Until He Come.”

Patricia and Tim Pope

 

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