Last Sheaves

And when Jesus had dipped the sop, He gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. And after the sop Satan entered into hiui. — John xiii. 26, 27.

A CASUAL onlooker would have seen nothing in Christ’s giving, and Judas’ taking, the moistened morsel but an ordinary act of courtesy or kindliness done by a host to his guest. But below the trivial act there was going on a struggle, a momentary hesitation, a grim resolution, and a tragedy — the tragedy of a soul. It was all done in a minute. Not a word was spoken; and yet the moment before, Judas might have abandoned his purpose, — perhaps he half abandoned it while he stretched out his hand, — but ere he had swallowed the bit of bread, he had pulled himself together, and said once more, “I will!” With his own hand he slammed to the door, and the reverberation of it soimded hollow in his soul. A man may ruin himself in a moment, and a little turn in the direction of a life may influence all that comes after it, however far the line is produced.

There are two figures, isolated from all the world,

M.S. 1 1 in the picture of my text — Jesus and Judas; one radiant with more than mortal whiteness and lustre; one dark — as we sometimes think, though wrongly — with more than human blackness. They had a common secret that separated them from the others. Judas understood what Christ meant by the sop; and Christ understood what Judas meant by the look with which he took it. If we go beneath the mere surface of the act, we find lessons very solemn and of universal application, and perhaps we shall best gather and harvest them if we simply study these two figures, silhouetted against the sky: Jesus making the last appeal of patient, wounded love, and Judas steeling himself against it. Let us look at the two.

I. — Jesus making the Last Appeal of Patient,
Wounded Love.

Remember the sequence of the preceding scene, for it throws light upon the incident with which we are more immediately concerned. Our Lord had been sitting silent, absorbed in thought of the near end. He broke the silence, suddenly, with the pained announcement that the traitor was “one of you.” Then came a universal shock of surprise, and each man scrutinised his neighbour with suspicion, and all s ssailed Jesus with the question, “Who is it?” He answered, and did not answer; for to the general interrogation He simply replied with what was tantamount to, and no more than. His previous declaration, “one of you.”

For all the token given to the twelve was: “he that dippeth with Me in the dish,” and according to the habits of Easterns, all the hands went into the dish at one time or other together. So that the answer was no answer, in so far as their curiosity was concerned, but fixed once more their attention on the sad fact that “one of them” was to be the traitor. Then came John’s whispered question, which evidently was unknown to the others, with the exception of the prompter of it, Peter. The answer, too, was whispered, for even after Jesus had said: “he to whom I shall give the sop when I have dipped it,” none of those sitting at the table suspected why Judas had rushed out of the apartment. Christ did not give the sop in order to satisfy John’s curiosity, but He had made up His mind to do it before John’s question, and for a far deeper reason than to supply a means of identification.

What, then, was the meaning of it? What was the meaning of it in ordinary intercourse? It meant kindUness and friendliness. It was a token of special regard and interest. It meant a reminder of past famiHarity. It meant all these, when Christ gave the sop into the trembUng hand that received it. He was not indicating Judas for John’s benefit; He was not acting; but He was giving way to the deep emotions of His heart at the moment, and meaning infinitely more than the common-place act meant in ordinary hands. For Christ infuses a deeper significance into conventional courtesies. He gave His love when He gave the sop, even to His betrayer, whom He knew as such. If one, therefore, thinks for a moment of Who it was that gave, and how entirely He knew the tortuous treachery of the man to whom He gave it, the conventional act towers up into a strange significance and pathetic beauty; and carries with it not only a glimpse into the heart of Jesus, but, because it does give a gUmpse into His heart, it thereby reveals the heart of God.

If we try to realize to ourselves what was the human emotion which prompted the Lord’s act, we shall read in it, I think, pain and disappointment indeed, that love had been repelled and teaching misunderstood, and that all the blessed familiarities and friendliness of those three years of discipleship had only come to this. But we shall not find one faint, transient flush of anger in His calm cheek, nor one momentarily quickened throb of indignation in His patient heart. Christ pitied, and was not angry. The same tone of compassion for the man that was doing himself so much more harm than he was doing his apparent victim, runs through even the solemn words which He had spoken at a previous time: “Woe unto that man! Good were it for that man if he had never been born!” That is a groan of sympathy, far more than a denunciation of wrath.

So, dear brethren, believing, as I suppose most of us do, whatever metaphysical explanation of the fact may lie behind it, that in Jesus Christ and His human emotions and acts we have the clearest revelation of the heart, and the authoritative explanation of the acts, of God Himself, may we not see here, in that sop, the token of amity given to the traitor — the great and blessed message that no sin, no transgression against love and gratitude, can turn away from a man the love of God? Most of us, I suppose, are accustomed to think that “Heaven heads the count of crimes” with that traitorous act. I question that. But though Judas were the worst man that ever lived — if there is a worst — the love of God in Jesus Christ hovered round that man in the moment of his supreme sin. Sin is mighty; it can do awful things in the way of disturbing the relation between man and God. But there is one thing it cannot do; it cannot make Him who loves us, not because of anything in ourselves, but because of what He is in Himself, cease to love us. The sunshine falls equally on a dunghill and on a diamond. The great ocean washes over the blackest and the barrenest rock as lovingly as it kisses the smiling strand of fertile lands. The air and the light stream into foetid alleys of the city as willingly as they sweep over the purity of the mountain side. And the love of God is not turned away by transgression, howsoever the manifestation of that love must be modified thereby.

Keep reading