It’s awful being the bearer of bad tidings. It’s great to be able to tell good news. It’s horrible to have to tell people bad news. That’s why Joab didn’t want Ahimaaz to tell David that Absalom had been killed (2 Sam 18:19-22). That’s the stress that doctors or police or army chaplains, or commanding officers have, when they tell patients or families bad news. “I’m sorry, you’ve got cancer. I’m sorry, your husband is dead. Your father is not coming home.”
And all that is bad enough. But what if the bad news you are telling them about is about you. What’s it like to have to go and tell your wife and your kids, “I’m sorry, I’m dying.” Not only do you have to deal with the greatest emotional, physical, and spiritual challenge of your life, but you have to hold it together adequately so you can put on a brave face that can strengthen those you are about to leave behind.
And this makes Jesus’ words and actions on the night before he died more remarkable. For this is exactly the situation Jesus had to deal with. He is distress and disturbed about his own death, but he has his friends the disciples to think about.
Of all the men that shared in the last supper that night, only Jesus truly appreciated what was about to transpire after they left the upper room. Only Jesus knew the full horror of what awaited him, and what he had to deal with over the next 24 hours. He is fully aware that Satan is on the prowl and ready to harm him. He has known for some time now that one of the twelve, one of his hand picked disciples, was not only a thief, but was also about to betray him.
The Jewish leadership for a long time have been circling, looking for an opportunity to kill him. Jesus knew this already. He is fully aware that a conspiracy exists to end his life, and a contract will soon be taken out to bring about his execution. Now his “hour”, his “time”, had come. All the murderous plotting and scheming of the religious elites, all the hopes and plans of his enemies, would fall nicely into place—better, in fact, than what they had hoped for. It’s as if God is with them, on their side. God is arranging for Jesus of Nazareth to be cut down and done away with, orchestrating everything so that within a day, Jesus would be nothing more than a memory and a bloodied dead corpse, and religious life of Jerusalem would return to normal.
Jesus knows all this, but remember that John has also shown us that Jesus is fully human. You cut him, he bleeds, as we shall soon see. He grew weary at the well of Sychar at high noon (John 4). He became angry at the temple traders who turned his Father’s house into a marketplace (John 2). He burst into tears at the tomb of his friend he was about to raise (John 11). Jesus knew what it was to experience distress, anxiety, and pressure. He was truly human. He really did become flesh and pitch his tent among us (John 1:14).
And with all this enormous stress, what is Jesus found doing? He is found at the feet of twelve men, lovingly washing away the grime of the day, and wiping them with a towel. You will remember that Jesus didn’t skip any pairs of feet. He washed and wiped all those feet—even the two feet that will take one of them to the chief priests and Pharisees, and then carry off the prize of 30 pieces of silver for betraying him. He also washed two feet belonging to one who would vow undying loyalty, but would be unable to make good, and publicly deny ever knowing him. Even the one who will betray him and the one who will deny him receive Jesus’ work as a pedaiatrist and masseus, and yet he still hasn’t told them fully what is going to happen, and what the next 24 hours holds for them.
With the washing of the feet done, now comes the extended word of explanation. Yes, the washing of the feet itself taught the disciples. It was an acted out parable, which taught that true Christian leadership is servant leadership, and the love of Jesus is found in his humble service. But Jesus also will not allow the events of the night unfold without having spoken truth into it. Indeed, Jesus spends the majority of his remaining time until his arrest in thoughtfully preparing all of his disciples for everythings that is about to happened—and for what will happen afterwards. Chapters 13 to 17 are full of Jesus’ words—new teachings that Jesus will now lay on the disciples, because before this point neither were they ready, nor could they have then handled the truth of what must occur.
This section, chapters 13 to 17, will be the last opportunity for Jesus to teach his disciples before he is killed. And to begin with, while the Paschal meal is still digesting, Jesus will talk to those two particular disciples who are in need of special counsel. And so, in our passage, we find Jesus earnestly warning Judas about his betrayal, and lovingly preparing Peter for his denial.
But even in his treatment of Judas, Jesus is only slowly revealing things to his disciples. He only gives them as much as they can bear. Jesus quotes Psalm 41:9 in verse 18:
13:18I do not speak about all of you, for I know those whom I have chosen, but so that the Scripture might be fulfilled, “the one eating my bread has lifted his heel against me”. [Psalm 41:9]
Jesus now divides his disciples. There are eleven who I’ve chosen. But there’s one who will “lift his heel” against me. One of those heels that I washed tonight, will be used against me.
Of course, Jesus chose all twelve of the disciples, including Judas (John 6:70). But he chose one of them knowing that he would betray him, to fulfill the Old Testament Scriptures.
The fact that this was all part of God’s plan does not stop it from being appalling and a tragedy. The fact that it is not all of them but one of them, does not render it anything but a betrayal. But Jesus wants the remaining eleven to see it was all predicted and prophesied in Scripture, verse 18, so that they can see the Scripture being fulfilled. The eleven chosen ones need to know that when the worst happens, God is there, predestining, predicting, prophesying, and eventually, bringing his good purposes out of it.
But not only with Scripture be fulfilled and vindicated, but so will Jesus’ words, and so Jesus says in verse 19:
13:19I tell you this now before it happens, so that you might believe when it happens that I am.
The Scripture speaks about it before it happens. And Jesus speaks about it before it happens. Just as the words of Scripture must be fulfilled in the events that come to pass, so must the words of Jesus be fulfilled with the events that come about. For the words of Jesus have equal authority with the Old Testament Scriptures. Both are the word of God. Moreover, Jesus does not just speak the word of God, but he is the Word of God. He is God the only begotten, the Word who was with God, and was God, and became flesh (John 1:1, 14, 18). Jesus is showing them, again, that he is the great “I am”, God himself who revealed himself in Exodus 3:14 as the “I am who I am”, and God who revealed himself by saying “before Abraham was born, I am” (John 8:58).
To be forewarned is to be forearmed. And when everything has happened, the disciples will have the ability to mentally process it, and yet again to have their faith strengthened in knowing that Jesus is God the only begotten, who was with God and was God. The great “I am” came down to earth and supped with them, and made God known.
But the fact that a betrayer is among them does not change the relationship between Jesus and the remainder. They were chosen to be his envoys and ambassadors, and Jesus is not rescinding that purpose, even though with one of their number that purpose proved abortive. Their ministry will still serve the purpose of Jesus, despite the betrayer.
13:20Truly truly I say to you, the one who receives anyone who I will send receives me, and the one who receives me receives the one who sent me.
The way for us to receive the Father is to receive Jesus. And the way, the only way, we can receive Jesus is to receive the apostles. We believe in one ‘apostolic’ church. And the apostles come to us in the pages of the New Testament. We receive the ones Jesus sends by receiving the Bible which brings to us the apostolic word and message. And this is not negated by Judas’ betrayal.
But now is the time for Jesus to bring to light the treachery and betrayal that has laid dormant among them for so long. Betrayal from a friend has its own quota of pain. Yet, even here there is some reserve, and a great deal of self-composure and self-control. Verse 21:
13:21Having said these things, Jesus was troubled in his spirit, and he testified and said, “Truly, truly I say to you, that one of you will betray me.”
Jesus is emotionally disturbed—John can tell that much by his observations—but Jesus is not out of control. He never ‘loses it’ but regulates his emotions, and keeps them in check. Despite the internal turmoil that comes upon him, and which he like every human is subject to, he speaks measuredly and tells the disciples what they need to know. Jesus “testified”—he doesn’t ‘shout’, though in other places he ‘cries out’ and ‘shouts’, that people might be saved. That is, there is a solemnity about the way Jesus speaks, and he regulates his own emotions out of the desire to prepare the disciples.
No matter how calmly, or solemnly, or measuredly, Jesus communicates the news, nothing can really soften the blow. Jesus has controlled his own emotions, but nothing can take away the horror of what he has just dropped on them. Verse 22:
13:22The disciples began looking at one another, at a loss about what he was saying.
If you get shocked and appalled by awful news, so did the disciples. Is this some sort of practical joke? Am I being punked? Is this some sort of bad dream? Is this happening? Can somebody pinch me, or slap me, or something? No message like that could be laid on people, let alone close friends, and it not take some processing. And Jesus just lets the news sit heavily in the air, in all its appalling nakedness.
Who of the disciples will break the ice? Why, Peter of course. In verses 23 to 25, we read:
13:23One of his disciples, one whom Jesus loved, was reclining at Jesus’ belly. 13:24So Simon Peter nodded to him to enquire whom it might be about whom he spoke. 13:25So that disciple, leaning thus upon Jesus’ chest, said to him, “Lord, who is it?”
This description has all the marks of an eyewitness account. We see John’s humble yet grateful self-designation, “the disciple whom Jesus loved”. He got the place at Jesus’ left or right hand, but only for the night. Not one to die wondering, Simon Peter motions with his head. John knows what to do. And like a child coming to sit upon a father’s lap, John invades the personal space of the Word incarnate, God in the flesh. He intimately leans back his head on the chest of the one who was in the bosom of the Father (John 1:18), smelt the manly smell of the Son of God, and while he uses the creator and sustainer of the universe’s chest as a pillow, asks him “Who?”
Jesus will give an answer, but he doesn’t just blurt it out. Actually, Jesus doesn’t name and shame Judas at all. He doesn’t mention him at all. Agonizingly but lovingly, like a nurse peeling back the dressings to reveal a festering wound, Jesus goes through a symbolic and ritual process to reveal the identity of his betrayer. Verse 26:
13:26Jesus answered, “That man is he to whom I will give the piece of bread I will dip.” So he dipped the piece of bread and gave it to Judas, son of Simon Iscariot. 13:27And then Satan entered him after [he took] the piece of bread.
What a horrible thought—not merely a demon, but the prince of darkness himself, the devil, not merely tempting a human, as he did with Adam, Eve, and Jesus, but in some sense invading a human and entering that person to do his will. In John 13:2, we read that the devil had already “put into the heart of Judas Iscariot” to betray him. That seems to be at the level of suggestion and temptation. Now John is describing an even more comprehensive takeover of Judas to work the evil.
We must confess to an element of mystery here. God has certainly here delivered Judas over to Satan. The book of Job shows us that God limits Satan’s intervention in the human world—this far and no further! Indeed, later, in John 17:12, Jesus says that while he was with the eleven that he kept and guarded them—and lost none except the son of perdition, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled. Presumably, if Jesus guarded and kept Judas, he too would have not perished. But that way, the Scriptures would not have been fulfilled. So God predicted long before Judas’ birth that Judas would perish. He revealed this in scripture, and it certainly came about in human history.
And all this was in one sense in conformity with God’s will. So Jesus says to him, verse 27, “What you are doing, do quickly”. Jesus wanted Judas and Satan to do this act of betrayal quickly. The desire to do something quickly is usually because it is a painful thing. Get it over and done with. Rip off that bandaid quickly. Don’t play with me, as a cat plays with the mouse it catches.
So does Jesus want Judas to do this act? The answer to that is ‘yes’ and ‘no’. Yes, do it, because this act of betrayal has been predicted in Scripture, and because it is the will of God the Father that I suffer as the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. But no, you shouldn’t do this, because Judas, if you do this, it would be better if he had not been born—and, in fact, Jesus warned Judas with those same words, as recorded elsewhere (e.g. Mark 14:21). [See further https://sites.google.com/site/mattolliffe/articles/does-god-have-two-wills-in-relation-to-human-salvation.]
But again, even with this revelation, none of the disciples really have any idea what’s going on. Verse 28 says that, “none of those reclining knew what [Jesus] had said to [Judas]. It is probable that only after the event that Peter and John fully understood what had happened. For Jesus is the one who is in control of his own betrayal.
In all of this, Jesus doesn’t name and shame Judas. The other disciples think Judas has gone to give something to the poor, or gone out to buy something else for the Passover at a local convenience store. They don’t yet know that he’s gone out to sell their Lord, with their Lord’s full acquiescence and encouragement. So verse 30, “Judas took the piece of bread and left immediately. And it was night.”
Night time—the time when Nicodemus came, and the time when a thief and betrayer goes out to do his shameful, evil act. This is the hour when the dominion of darkness reigns (Luke 22:53).
And so the tide has turned against Jesus. At the beginning of the week, Jesus was welcomed to Jerusalem as a conquering Jewish king. Now, Satan has snuck into the upper room and shared Jesus’ table, and Judas has slunk off to back stab Jesus.
And this is just the way Father and Son want it to be. John has been preparing us for this from his very first chapter. Verses 31 and 32 shows us that this moment is Jesus’ glorification.
13:31So when he had left, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in him. 13:32[If God is glorified in him], God will also glorify him in himself, and immediately he will glorify him.
There is a lot of glorification going on in these two verses. In fact, there are four statements about glorification here. The first is that the Son of Man is glorified, because he is about to be lifted up on a pole (John 3:14-15). This is the paradoxical glory of God’s upside down kingdom, where the eternal Word washes his disciples feet. Second, God is glorified in the Son, because Jesus only does his Father’s will, and the Father’s will is that Jesus be the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. But third, God will also glorify Jesus the Son in a particular sphere or location—the sphere of God the Father himself. So just as God is glorified in the Son, so the Son is glorified in the Father, and God the Father is doing the glorification of God the Son. It is a mutual glorification that will occur. And fourth, God will also immediately glorify the Son. This seems to refer to the glorification of the resurrection of Jesus on the third day. Jesus will be lifted up from the ground on the cross, and paradoxically glorified in his humiliation that will give all of creation a song of eternal praise. But Jesus will also be lifted up from the grave in his resurrection, and glorified by being brought through death into resurrection life. He will thereby be vindicated in the sight of all who didn’t believe in him. None will be able to withstand the undeniable justification he will receive by his resurrection life. He wasn’t a sinner in healing on the Sabbath, or a Samaritan and demon possessed in saying that he was “I am” before Abraham or equal with the Father. He was telling the truth. And so he will be glorified in his resurrection.
Well, that’s what’s going to happen to Jesus. It’s going to start in the next few hours. It will be accomplished within the next 24 hours—at least, his suffering and passion and death will be. So now Jesus has some instructions for all the disciples—not just for those in the upper room, but every disciple who ever lives—that they be worthy of the name ‘Christian’ and ‘follower of Jesus’.
Jesus starts with a reminder that he really is going away. Verse 33:
13:33Little children, I am still with you for a little while. You will look for me, and just as I said to the Jews that “you cannot come where I am going”, now I also say it to you.
Jesus did pitch his tent with humanity for only a brief period of time. Jesus will really truly leave the apostles, but they won’t be alone. And while he is away, he has an abiding and defining command for them. Verse 34:
13:34A new command I give to you, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, so also you must love one another.
Anyone who has read John’s First Letter will see what an effect this command had on the disciple whom Jesus loved. Indeed, the following story is told about him.
The blessed John the Evangelist lived in Ephesus until extreme old age. His disciples could barely carry him to church and he could not muster the voice to speak many words. During individual gatherings he usually said nothing but, “Little children, love one another.” The disciples and brothers in attendance, annoyed because they always heard the same words, finally said, “Teacher, why do you always say this?” He replied with a line worthy of John: “Because it is the Lord’s commandment and if it alone is kept, it is sufficient.” (Jerome, Commentary on Galatians, on 6:10: The Fathers of the Church Vol 121, (ET: Andrew Cain: Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2010), 260)
Let’s tease out this command in verse 34 to see what is required for us to keep this command:
First, Jesus says that it is a new command that he is giving to his disciples. But at one level, it is hardly that new at all. God had told the nation Israel 1400 years before that they must love their neighbour as themselves (Lev 19:18). So what’s new about loving your neighbour?
The newness is in the Jesus bit. The newness of the command lies in “as I have loved you”. For Jesus redefines the old commandment in light of his own love that he is in the process of demonstrating—which John described at the beginning of this chapter, “having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end” (John 13:1). No one is taking Jesus’ life from him, but he is laying it down freely himself. He is in the process of laying his life down for his sheep.
And so, from here on, and particularly when the death of Jesus makes sense to the disciples after the coming of the Holy Spirit, love as far as Jesus’ followers is concerned is redefined. Jesus’ love is shown supremely in his death. Every discussion of Christian love has its beginning and end now at the cross. Every time we talk about love now, it is measured in terms of the blood stained ground beneath the cross of Jesus. Love has the shape of Jesus being the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
Second, this new command is a command. It’s not a suggestion, or advice, or counsel, or a message in a fortune cookie. It is necessary, a must, a non-negotiable. We are under king’s orders. But when Jesus our king commands us to love, he does so not as a distant mighty despot from his throne on high, but as one who disrobed to wash his disciples’ feet.
Third, the command has a special focus on the love that we owe fellow Christians. It is for “one another”. When you do it unto the least of these you do it unto me (Matt 25:40). Let us do good to all people, especially the household of faith (Gal 6:10). So when we consider our giving and generosity, believers ought to rank higher in our care and concern than non believers. But regardless how we apply it, we cannot claim to follow Jesus and at the same time walk away from our brothers and sisters in Christ and their needs. The chief mark of the Christian is love for the saints.
Fourth, the newness, found as it is in the example of Jesus and his suffering servant death, then adds a new measure of the extent of the love with which we are commanded to love. The command is to love other disciples of Jesus to the extent that and as far as Jesus loved you and me. The extent is to the uttermost, to the point of death, of giving up our lives.
The footwashing in the upper room at one level was a model, an example of an application of what the followers of Jesus must give themselves to in the ordinary course of affairs, in normal, everyday circumstance. What does it look like to lay down your life for your brothers and sisters day in, day out? Well, it will not involve a sacrificial death for them. No disciple is required to die for other disciples as a propitiation, a sin bearing sacrifice. Only Jesus Christ is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Moreover, our love rarely involves a martyr’s death for our brothers and sisters. It may possibly involve the sort of self-sacrifice that requires of us running into a burning building, or drowning while we are rescuing other believers, but that is not the normal way Christians lay down their lives for each other. But it always, always involves humbly serving our fellow believers in Christ. And Jesus has given us this example that we can more easily apply, that of servant leadership.
But with the command comes an invitation to the world. The world is invited to judge Christians, as to whether they really are followers of Jesus. Verse 35:
3:35In this way everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.
God has invited the world to judge whether you are one of Jesus’ disciples. The chief mark of the disciple is the love for other disciples.
Friends, this love found in Jesus’ death for us makes a difference to us. This love for us changes us and empowers us so that we too can love like he loved us. John has also talked about this in his First Letter. 1 John 4:10-11:
10In this is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his son [as] a propitiation for our sins. 11Beloved, if God loved us in this way, we also are obliged to love one another.
First, this love prevents us from thinking that we have to earn it. It was not that we loved God, but that he loved us.
But this love, second, also prevents us from self righteousness, thinking that we have gone far enough in love, and they have gone too far, and have forfieted their right to be loved. Just as we don’t earn God’s love for us, so also those we are called to love don’t have to earn our love for them.
And allowing this love to sink into us and to do its transforming work has real and practical outcomes. For example, it is the love of God shown in Jesus’ death that allows a man to continue in a marriage where his wife has undermined him. It is the self-sacrifical love of Jesus that enables a women who cries out in desperate loneliness to remain faithful to her unloving partner. It is Jesus’ love for you that allows you to continue to do good no matter how many time they have hurt you. But friends, most all, it is the love of God which compels and drives us to share the message of this same love to a dying world that is destined for hell. Just as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:14:
For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. (NIV)
How anyone can claim to love their friends while they remain silent on Jesus’ love when those friends face the hell of a Christless eternity is beyond the realms of comprehension.
All of the eleven have received Jesus’ instruction to love. Indeed, through John, Jesus’ command equally binds (or more accurately, frees) all of us, every disciple of Jesus who has ever had the Gospel of John in their laps. But there is a special word here from Jesus to Peter, given what will transpire over the course of this night. Verses 36 to 38:
13:36Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, where are you going?” Jesus answered him, “where I am going, you now cannot follow me, but you will follow later.” 13:37Peter said to him, “Lord, why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.” 13:38Jesus answered, “You will lay down your life for me? Truly truly I say to you, the rooster will certainly not crow until you have denied me three times.”
Peter thinks he will lay down his life for Jesus. But Peter has got it wrong. It is Jesus who will lay down his life for Peter. Peter thinks he can match the love of Jesus by offering to lay down his life. And he will be shown, over the course of this night, that his love for Jesus falls desperately short of the love of Jesus for him. Peter will actually tell the world three times that he doesn’t know Jesus and wants nothing to do with him. And in this, too, Peter will exemplify 1 John 4:10, that it is not we who loved God, but that he loved us.
With that, all the pieces are now in place for the events leading up to Jesus’ death to play out and bring about the exaltation and lifting up of the Son of Man. Judas goes out under the cover of night to perform his shameful task. If he is anything like me, Peter is now licking his wounds, smarting, waiting to show Jesus that he is made of sterner stuff than a threefold denial. And the rest of them, the ten others, recline in the upper room, distressed, confused, and without really understanding what Jesus is talking about. They are probably hoping it is all a bad dream.
But it is not. And Jesus is only getting started. The disciples might be feeling tired and sluggish after their Passover lamb kebabs, but Jesus won’t sleep again. Within 24 hours he will have been tortured to death. But there are still more things that he needs to tell his troubled and distressed disciples.
My Translation
13:18I do not speak about all of you, for I know those whom I have chosen, but so that the Scripture might be fulfilled, “the one eating my bread has lifted his heel against me”. [Psalm 41:9] 13:19I tell you this now before it happens, so that you might believe when it happens that I am.
13:20Truly truly I say to you, the one who receives anyone who I will send receives me, and the one who receives me receives the one who sent me.
13:21Having said these things, Jesus was troubled in his spirit, and he testified and said, “Truly truly I say to you, that one of you will betray me.”
13:22The disciples began looking at one another, at a loss about what he was saying. 13:23One of his disciples, one whom Jesus loved, was reclining at Jesus’ belly. 13:24So Simon Peter nodded to him to enquire whom it might be about whom he spoke. 13:25So that disciple, leaning thus upon Jesus’ chest, said to him, “Lord, who is it?”
13:26Jesus answered, “That man is he to whom I will give the piece of bread I will dip.” So he dipped the piece of bread and gave it to Judas, son of Simon Iscariot. 13:27And then Satan entered him after [he took] the piece of bread. So Jesus said to him, “What you are doing, do quickly”.
13:28But none of those reclining knew what he had said to him. 13:29For some had supposed that since Judas had care of the money bag, that Jesus was telling him, “Buy what we need for the feast”, or “Go, give something to the poor”. 13:30So Judas took the piece of bread and left immediately. And it was night.
13:31So when he had left, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in him. 13:32[If God is glorified in him], God will also glorify him in himself, and immediately he will glorify him.
13:33Little children, I am still with you for a little while. You will look for me, and just as I said to the Jews that “you cannot come where I am going”, now I also say it to you.
13:34A new command I give to you, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, so also you must love one another. 13:35In this way everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.
13:36Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, where are you going?” Jesus answered him, “where I am going, you now cannot follow me, but you will follow later.”
13:37Peter said to him, “Lord, why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.” 13:38Jesus answered, “You will lay down your life for me? Truly truly I say to you, the rooster will certainly not crow until you have denied me three times.”