A Practical Lesson On Loving Your Enemies
Mark 14:10-25
Who remembers the Scooby-Doo tv show? That cartoon about Shaggy, Fred, Daphne, Velma, and of course their dog, Scooby-Doo. “The Gang,” as they were called, were always getting themselves into trouble – getting robbed, scared, lost. In each adventure, their job was the same: discover and catch the villain behind it all. Whether the villain was a ghost, a witch, or any other ghoul, every episode would end the same – the Gang would catch the villain, and in every single episode, the villain turned out to be a person you’d never expect.
We’d always assume the villain would be that really mean tour guide, or the obsessive park ranger, or the mean gasoline attendant from the beginning of the episode. But as the Gang ripped off the mask of the villain, it was always quite the surprise. The villain was always the really nice janitor, the sweet teacher, or the seemingly “good guy.”
In a weird way, Scooby-Doo points us to something important, something the Holy Spirit wants us to understand: when it comes to Jesus, the ones who resist him – the villain and the monster – aren’t who we think they are. In the Gospels, everyone fails – even the best disciples, even the “good guys.” In the end, the villain is us.[i] Turn with me to Mark 14:10-25. We’ll start with Vv. 10-11.
Something happens in the heart of Judas that turns him against Jesus. And we’re never told why. All four gospel writers, obviously, tell us that Judas betrayed Jesus. Some offer more details, some less. But none of them tell us why he betrayed Jesus. And I think that’s significant. You see, the WHY doesn’t matter. All that matters is that he turned his back on Jesus and betrayed him, turning him over to those who sought to eliminate him. But the why doesn’t matter.
All that matters is that for the past two years at least, Judas had walked with Jesus. He’d seen every miracle. He was there when Jesus multiplied food to feed the masses. Both times. He was there when Jesus, and then Peter, walked on water. He saw the blind, the mute, the deaf, the lame, and the leper healed time and time again. In fact, he’d gone out and done it HIMSELF.
He’d heard every word Jesus spoke as he taught the crowds who gathered to hear him. He knew Jesus’ favorite parables. He could probably quote most of them verbatim from memory. And he’d been there for the private teaching Jesus reserved for his disciples, those times when he explained things more fully, without stories and parables. Those times when he spoke plainly. He’d been mentored directly by Jesus himself.
And yet, somehow, Satan got a foothold in his heart and mind, and he turned his back on Jesus. The why doesn’t matter. All that matters is that it happened. Now, Jesus’ destiny was the cross. Nothing was going to stop that. Jesus was headed to the cross. But Judas didn’t HAVE to be a part of it. Sadly, he was.
But Judas wasn’t the only one who would betray Jesus that night. Oh, his betrayal was of a different kind, to be sure. But he wasn’t the only one who turned his back on Jesus that night. Peter would deny even knowing Jesus three times. And the rest of his disciples would flee in terror when Jesus was arrested. In one way or another, each of the twelve turned their backs on him. But where the others eventually found grace and forgiveness, Judas didn’t. If he’d really repented, if he’d sought forgiveness, might he have found it? There’s no reason to expect that he wouldn’t have.
But where the others repented and sought forgiveness, he didn’t. When Jesus looked into the hearts of the other disciples, he saw a desire to follow, even if the ability to follow wasn’t there. When he looked into the heart of Judas, all he saw was enmity. All he saw was Satan. The adversary. Remember, Judas realized he’d messed up and cast the money he’d been given to betray Jesus aside. But where the others sought mercy from Jesus, Judas was either too proud to seek it or didn’t believe he was worthy of it, and so he dealt with his treachery himself, by taking his own life. Instead of seeking forgiveness, he either stubbornly or in shame sought to end his suffering apart from forgiveness.
In John 17:12, Jesus is praying for his disciples and says this about Judas without naming him: “While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.” Scripture predicted a betrayal by one close to the messiah.
But Judas was not a robot, programmed to only do one thing. If that were the case he would have no choice, no agency, and thus no guilt. But that isn’t the case. Judas DID have choice. He DID have agency. And thus he DID have guilt. Judas was not preprogrammed to do this. But he was marked by lostness. His inability to grasp the message of Jesus, his unwillingness to consider that his perspective might be wrong, together led to a condition of lostness and a heart so hard that Jesus knew repentance would not be forthcoming. Jesus knew he would die in his lostness.
Do you see it? He’s an example of all who seek to deal with this life and their shortcomings apart from Christ. Apart from Christ, there is only hopelessness. The Bible is full of people who did terrible things and yet found mercy and forgiveness – Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, David, Peter, Paul. But there are also those who refused to seek that mercy and forgiveness. Cain, Saul, Ahab and Jezebel, Judas. Hearts that were hard. None of the latter did things worse than the former. They simply refused to repent, or thought they couldn’t.
But know this – as long as there is breath in your lungs, forgiveness is being offered, if you’ll just take it. We’re all going to face the death of these earthly, physical bodies. Will your last breath be one of pride and arrogance, or one soaked in the mercy and grace God offers in Jesus?
Well, regardless of what had happened in the heart of Judas, he found himself eating the Passover meal with Jesus, along with the other twelve disciples. Look at Vv. 12-21.
In the 23rd Psalm, as he describes the love and care and concern God has for his people, David wrote, “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies” (Psalm 23:5). But those aren’t just the words of David, or of us, as followers of Jesus. They’re the words of Jesus himself too. Because on this night, he ate a meal in the presence of the one who would betray him. And the truth is, EVERY person who reclined at table with Jesus that night would betray him in some way. He would go to the cross completely abandoned and alone.
Jesus identifies with us fully in our humanity. God asks nothing of us that Jesus has not already face. Because Jesus loved his enemies, we can love our enemies. Because Jesus, in the words of David, ate in the presence of his enemies, so can we. And Jesus is now fully able to lead us through it all, up to and including the specter of death looming before us all.
Now, there’s something I want us to notice here. Jesus has in some way arranged for his group to eat the Passover meal in the upper room of the house of an unnamed man. Most houses in first century Palestine were basically a dried mud box. Some had a smaller box on top. An upper room that was accessed by an outdoor staircase, so that it could be accessed without bothering the family in the main house. That upper room could be used for storage, or for guests to stay in, or even when someone in the family just needed a little privacy or some space.
Jesus has somehow – none of the Gospel writers indicate how – arranged for he and his group to eat the Passover in this unnamed man’s upper room. And he and the man have even arranged a 007 style sign for his disciples to know who the man is without speaking to him. He’ll be carrying a jar of water. Seems like an insignificant detail, but in THAT CULTURE, it typically fell on women to carry jars of water from one of the community wells to their house. It was their water for the day. Men might carry a skin of water for personal use, but they didn’t typically carry the large clay jars of water for family use.
So basically, it was “I’ll walk down this street at this time with a jar of water.” That’s how they’ll know to follow me, and when I go into my house, they can go up the stairs. Everything for your meal will be there. They need never speak. Because after Jesus had been rather confrontational with the religious leaders in the temple, he’d taken a much lower profile, staying in the house of some friends in a small village a few miles outside the city. And the religious leaders didn’t want to arrest him in broad daylight in front of everyone. They were afraid it would cause a riot. So they needed to know where he was at night. And that is where Judas came in. They wanted to arrest him more or less out of the public eye. Jesus has planned everything so that he could have this last meal with his disciples and give them one last, very crucial lesson.
And he has foreknowledge of what is happening now. He knows that Judas will betray him. He also knows that Peter will deny him and that the others will abandon him. He is planning things in detail and has foreknowledge of the actions of those around him. He is in complete control. The cross isn’t some unfortunate or accidental event that happened TO Jesus. It is something he took up willingly with complete control of the circumstances surrounding it.
Jesus went to the cross willingly and in complete control of the situation. In John’s Gospel 10:17-18, Jesus says this. “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.” The crucifixion wasn’t some cosmic mistake, something that happened to Jesus that was outside of his control. It’s the reason he came. And he took it up willingly, because he loves you.
In Matthew’s telling of Jesus’ arrest, Jesus says, “Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?” (Matt. 26:51). But he didn’t call. He went willingly and in complete control of the situation. This was the reason he came. To die in your place. In my place.
Now, look at what Jesus does as they eat. Look at Vv. 22-25. Jesus takes the unleavened bread, as was custom for the Passover meal, but after speaking the usual blessing, he deviates from the normal words spoken and adds, “Take; this is my body.” In that culture, the word “body” encompassed the whole self – mind, will, emotions, body, all of it – not just the physical body. What Jesus was saying was, “This is myself.” Remember that.
And then, when it came time to drink the third of four cups of wine during the meal, he prayed this customary prayer: “May the all-merciful one make us worthy of the days of the messiah and of the life of the world to come. He brings the salvation of His king. He shows covenant faithfulness to his anointed, to David, and to his seed forever. He makes peace in his heavenly places. May he secure peace for us and for all Israel.”
It was a prayer that looked backward through history to God’s saving work through the Exodus from Egypt, that remembered God’s covenant with David, through which God promised a messiah from the line of David, but it also looked ahead to God’s saving work in the future, when God would establish his kingdom forever through his messiah, bringing peace and wholeness to his people.
And then Jesus said, “This [cup] is the blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.” What Jesus was saying was revolutionary, but not the way we think of revolutionary words. He was centering the entire Passover celebration and the events it both remembered and looked forward to in himself. He was making himself the central reality of the Passover celebration. The bitter herbs of suffering, the perfect lamb sacrificed and then eaten, blood splattered on the doorposts of the house to mark the people inside as belonging to God. Jesus was saying, “Every moment of your history to now – every act of deliverance by the Father, every law, every word of the prophets, every feast and festival and celebration dictated in the law, every sacrifice required by the law – all of it was pointing to me and finds its ultimate fulfillment in me. Those were revolutionary words.
But not in the way they, or we, think of revolutionary. Because the kingdom of God wouldn’t be established through violence and force. It would be established through the single most loving act ever performed. The eternal Son giving himself, his life, in our place, on our behalf, as our substitute. No, the kingdom of God would not be built by violence and force, but by love and grace and mercy and justice.
Oh, there would be violence. A broken body and shed blood speak to that. A broken body and shed blood symbolized in the bread and the cup in what we now call the Sacrament of Holy Communion. But the violence would not be meted out BY the Kingdom of God, it would happen TO the one whose kingdom would be established.
We would do well to remember that in our current climate today. Jesus didn’t insult. He was insulted. Human kingdoms are established and grow through power and force and violence. The kingdom of God was established and grows through sacrificial love. Not weak love. Not sentimental love. But through love nonetheless. Sacrificial love. Just love. Holy love. Merciful love. Selfless love.
And here’s the thing: Judas was there at the table for all of this. He heard the revolutionary words of Jesus, but he could no longer receive it. Jesus was talking about forgiveness and grace through his death, but he couldn’t hear it. Many scholars think that Judas was enamored with the idea of a messiah who would reestablish Israel by force. He was caught up in visions of power and force, not sacrificial love. He couldn’t pivot from his desired messiah who would defeat Rome to the messiah he know who would defeat sin and death. He was a dead man walking.
But he was there. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt. 5:44). And he embodied that through the end. He never once sought to harm those who would harm him, whether it be Judas, or the high priest, or Herod, or Pilate, or the Roman soldiers who nailed him to the cross.
As we come to this table of communion this morning, may we do so with the knowledge that any follower of Jesus is a potential Judas if we allow our hearts to be hardened. Yes, we all fall short and fail Jesus. May we be like Peter, who was heartbroken by his own failure and sought forgiveness, and not like Judas, whose heart was too hard to realize that he might be wrong.
Old Doctor John Duncan taught Hebrew in Edinburgh long ago. He was sitting one day at the Communion in a church, a Highland church, and he was feeling so personally unworthy that when the elements came ’round, he felt he couldn’t take them. He allowed the bread and wine to pass. As he was sitting there feeling absolutely miserable, he noticed a girl in the congregation whom, when the bread and wine came ‘round, also allowed them to pass, and then broke down into tears. That sight seemed to bring back to the old saint the truth he had forgotten. And in a carrying whisper that could be heard across the church, he was heard to say, “Take it, lassie, take it. It’s meant for sinners.” And he himself partook.[ii]
This table is meant for sinners. Sinners who know they need grace and forgiveness. It isn’t for those who want to sit in judgment over others, criticizing others without looking at their own hearts. Its for those whose hearts are broken by their own sin and are willing to ask for, and receive, forgiveness and grace. Let’s pray.
[i] A.J. Swoboda, A Glorious Dark, pgs. 16-17 (Baker Books, 2015)
[ii] James S. Stewart, “The Rending of the Veil,” Preaching Today, Tape No. 57.
