Sermon – John 13:21-30 – Betrayal
Presbyterian Church of Easton
Maundy Thursday 4/14/2022
John 13:21-30
21 After saying this Jesus was troubled in spirit, and declared, “Very truly, I tell you, one of you will betray me.” 22 The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he was speaking. 23 One of his disciples—the one whom Jesus loved—was reclining next to him; 24 Simon Peter therefore motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking. 25 So while reclining next to Jesus, he asked him, “Lord, who is it?” 26 Jesus answered, “It is the one to whom I give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.” So when he had dipped the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas son of Simon Iscariot. 27 After he received the piece of bread, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, “Do quickly what you are going to do.” 28 Now no one at the table knew why he said this to him. 29 Some 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. 30 So, after receiving the piece of bread, he immediately went out. And it was night.
Jesus and his disciples have gathered for dinner. They are arranged in a configuration common for Roman meals called a triclinium. There is a central table with couches assembled in a horseshoe manner around the table. Jesus and his disciples have reclined on the couches. They are resting on their left elbows and eating with their right hands. With this arrangement the disciples clearly see people to their right, but those on their left would be behind their backs and out of sight.
Jesus and two disciples are reclining at the position of honor at the head of the table. The other disciples are in groups of five along either side of the table. They eat by picking up a small piece of bread with their right hands, dipping the bread in a bowl of olive oil, and eating it.
During the supper Jesus was very troubled. He realized that his death was at hand, and this affected him as much as the death of his friend Lazarus did earlier. Jesus told his disciples that someone would betray him.
The Greek word that is translated as “betray” in your Bibles is paradidomi. This word means that you hand over something of personal value to someone else. For example, if you go to settle on a house and you are the seller, you hand over the deed of your house to someone else.
In ancient times, if your brother was captured in battle you would redeem him and hand him over to his family. Paradidomi would be translated here as “deliverance”.
But if you handed someone on your side over to the enemy, paradidomi would be translated as “betrayal”. Bible translators have assumed that Jesus is talking about Judas handing Jesus over to the authorities in the Garden of Gethsemane. So they have translated paradidomi in this instance as “betrayal”.
But we can’t be so sure that this is correct. Jesus’ own disciples have no idea what Jesus was talking about. So how could we know if Jesus was talking about deliverance or betrayal without looking at this passage a little closer?
Peter was sitting on the right side of the table. He was in the line of sight of the disciple on Jesus' right hand. The disciple to the right of Jesus was called “the disciple that Jesus loved”. We don’t know who this was, but tradition says that this is John the son of Zebedee who had earlier asked Jesus to be permitted to sit at his right hand in heaven. And here he is at the right hand of Jesus. Tradition also tells us that John the son of Zebedee was the author of the fourth gospel, the one we are reading.
It is possible that Peter gave some kind of hand signal to John the son of Zebedee to ask Jesus what he was talking about. John leaned his head back so he could see Jesus sitting behind him and asked him to explain.
Jesus then picked up a small morsel of bread with his right hand, dipped it in the olive oil and said that he was talking about the one to whom he would give this bread. Jesus then leaned back and offered the piece of bread to the disciple reclining at his left. This disciple was Judas Iscariot, who was seated at a place of honor to the left of Jesus Christ. We are then told that Jesus told him to do his deed quickly. At this point the other disciples still have no clue what Jesus is talking about. All they could do was to speculate on what Judas might be doing.
This is a very confusing passage. It is about handing over something of personal value. But from the way it is written we don’t really know who is handing over what and to whom. We can read ahead and see Judas handing Jesus over to the authorities in the Garden of Gethsemane. This is the traditional interpretation. But remember, Jesus is under the authority of God. How could Judas take Jesus away from God and hand him over to the Sanhedrin contrary to God’s will? Judas just doesn’t have that kind of power, to hand over the very Son of God.
I believe that the author of the fourth gospel is a sort of magician. He makes you think that something is in his right hand when it is really in his left. Someone has handed over something of personal value here but it may not be who or what we think. We think that we see Judas handing Jesus over to the Jerusalem authorities. But really it is Jesus who has handed over something of personal value, his friend and disciple Judas, to the authority of Satan, by casting him out into the night. And Judas has handed over to Satan something of great personal value, his faith in Jesus Christ, the light of the world.
Like Judas, we are offered a choice between light and darkness, between belief and unbelief. If we believe in the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ, then we walk in the light and receive the blessings of eternal life. But if we walk away from belief in Jesus then we also walk away from the light and we return to the darkness of sin and death.
A few years ago, I was asked to do a funeral for Mark. Mark was a homeless man who spent most days sitting on a stone wall next to my apartment building in Los Angeles. Mark was an alcoholic and was addicted to painkillers. I got to know Mark and his wife Kathy from conversations we had whenever I walked over to the church. He came, a couple of times, to a Sunday Night dinner that we served. But he was not active in church and I saw no evidence that he believed in Jesus Christ.
Mark died one morning from an overdose of painkillers. I remained on the sidewalk with his wife, Kathy, until the medical examiner came to take away the body. I allowed Kathy to use my cell phone to call his family.
The next day Mark’s brother called me on that cell phone to talk with me about Mark. He wanted a funeral for Mark, but was very concerned for his brother because of his lack of faith in Jesus.
I did the funeral and talked a lot about God’s love that day. But sadness permeated the family because they knew that Mark had no faith. And I was sad because I could not assure them about his eternal life.
Don’t let this happen to you. Hold onto your faith in Jesus Christ. Encourage others to believe in Jesus Christ. Always remain in the light of faith. Continue in your baptismal belief in the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus. And then I can assure you of the blessing of God of eternal life. Amen.
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