The Passover was near

First preached as a sermon at Choral Evensong for Passion Sunday (Fifth Sunday of Lent) at Croydon Minster. Luke 22.1-13.

‘Now the festival of Unleavened bread, which is called the Passover, was near.’

(Luke 22.1)

With that phrase there is a change of gear in the narrative of St Luke’s gospel, which mirrors the stage of this season of Lent that we have now reached.

We have now entered Passiontide, which moves us, as it were, from the focus of self-denial and the facing down of temptation, which is seen through the lens of Jesus’ forty days and forty nights in the wilderness, and, through the change of gear, into the impending betrayal, passion and death of Jesus Christ.

In the Slavic language there is a phrase, ‘the devil helps’. Well, the devil helps this change of gear. The adversary – Satan literally means ‘adversary’ - the Enemy of our Human Nature, as St Ignatius of Loyola calls the devil, came to Jesus in the wilderness (4.1-13), and now - for only the second time in Luke’s gospel he is named – this time as entering into Judas, surnamed Iscariot, who he reminds us, ‘was numbered among the Twelve’.

The previous change of gear happened at Caesarea Philippi when Jesus directly spoke of what awaited him as he came to Jerusalem, ‘The Son of Man must undergo great suffering and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised up’ (Luke 9.22).

What unfolds as the Passover draws near is precisely what Jesus anticipated and declared at Caesarea Philippi, and to which, in both St Mark’s and St Matthew’s accounts, Peter took such great exception such that he is told, ‘get thee behind me Satan’, you adversary (Mark 8.33; Matthew 16.23). When you refuse the way of the cross you are an adversary, acting contrary to the ways in which the Son of Man must reveal God’s glory.

The journey from Caesarea Philippi was a journey to Jerusalem, and along the way Jesus healed, taught and prayed and spoke repeatedly of what was to come in the Holy City, the city that kills the prophets and over which he would weep.

Now, in Jerusalem, Christ’s disciples are to be drawn more into his inner life through their participation in the Passover of Christ’s body and blood.

Yet one of them could not bear to participate in the Divine Life. Judas.

There has been a certain attempt at the rehabilitation of Judas in recent years. It is of course the case that without his betrayal the route to the saving death of Jesus would not have opened up in the way it did; in that sense Judas’ betrayal of Jesus is indispensable to our salvation.

There has been considerable analysis given to Judas’ psychological condition, and a portrayal of Judas a victim not perpetrator. It’s an old question, really. In the fifth century St Cyril of Alexandria identified two motives for Judas’ betrayal of Jesus. The first of these is ‘envy…which always leads to the guilt of murder (Homily 140), the second, which is much less weighty, is greed suggested because Judas is the keeper of the common purse and is suggested to have siphoned off the funds of the band of disciples.

In the spirit of the French-American theologian and anthropologist, René Girard, we might reflect that Judas’s motivation is around adulation and disappointment. Judas was deeply attracted to something in Jesus which he did not himself possess, and rather than wait to receive Jesus’ life in the Passover meal he sought to take away Jesus’ life through betrayal.

Christ drew others into his life; Judas drew others into his plans for death.

Even in the face of betrayal Christ resolutely faces the cross, and knows that for the meaning of the cross to be sustained throughout the ages the Eucharist, the Christian Passover, will be the vehicle for bearing and bringing the reality of Christ’s saving death to his people by drawing us into his life.

The Passover meal that Christ celebrated with his disciples is the very meal that Paul describes having handed on to him, and what is handed on in turn to us:

For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. (1 Corinthians 11.23-26)

So the day of Passover drew near, and as we read, the day came, ‘the day of unleavened bread, on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. John the Baptist declared Jesus to be the ‘Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world’. Everything is converging such that St Paul can say: ‘Christ our Passover, our paschal lamb, has been sacrificed for us: so let us celebrate the feast’ (1 Corinthians 5.7b).

But first we are drawn to the passion, the suffering that precedes resurrection: ‘So Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and prepare the Passover meal for us that we may eat it”’ (Luke 22.8). That is the commission to the Church this Easter and what begins to unfold, most intensively, next week: Holy Week.

May we now prepare for this Passiontide, for our Passover, and draw afresh from the life of Jesus Christ.