NOTES for Luk 22:31-53

The carefree times are over. If earlier the apostles could preach without a penny of money and without bread in a bag, now not even a sword can save them and their Teacher. There is a time when God does not grant the prayer even of the most righteous person, and when one cannot trust even oneself. Jesus must drink His cup, and Peter deceives himself, assuring the Teacher of faithfulness to the grave.

What should one do when "the time of the lawless and the power of darkness" comes? If the apostles did not know, how can we know? All they have left are Jesus' words: "I prayed that your faith may not fail..." Faith that even in the darkness everything remains in God's hands...

The path to Golgotha began even before Gethsemane, with loneliness among the disciples who did not understand Him. Very little time would pass before the apostles became entirely different people, but for now they are causing the Teacher additional suffering.

Seeing this, Christ, who came to save us, does not reject the disciples. This is precisely the meaning of His words to Peter, which contain both a warning about his coming weakness and the commission to strengthen his brothers after his fall. Christ sees Peter’s weakness, just as He sees the weakness of each of us; yet He not only refrains from condemning or rejecting Peter and every one of us, but also strengthens us. Even in the words addressed to Judas, we hear not condemnation, but a sorrowful reproach capable of awakening the conscience.

If only we were ready to accept His support. Peter will be able to do so a little later, but Judas will not want to...

The name of the Mount of Olives makes us remember the oil used for anointing, including anointing to kingship. But Christ’s Kingdom is not of this world, and He goes toward His triumph not through ritual anointing, but through sacrificial suffering.

The events we read about in the Gospel of Luke today are familiar to everyone. We constantly encounter injustice and violence, cruelty and betrayal. Sin and suffering have penetrated human nature so deeply that they seem inevitable. And so, as we prepare for Great Lent, we read how God, having become man, drank this cup to the dregs. Unlike us, He accepted our suffering voluntarily in order to share it with us. We therefore seek an opportunity to honor His suffering through some spiritual effort. Last week we read the words of the apostle and evangelist John, who told us that this can only be an effort to love our neighbor, an effort to keep Christ's commandments. In the second half of the sixth century BC, the author of the second half of the book of Isaiah also conveyed God's words to us: “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness...” And the passages about Christ's way to the Cross that we read this week tell us that loving God and loving people means standing with the Mother of God at the foot of the Cross.

The most remarkable thing about the arrest and interrogation of Jesus is that no one involved in it, except, of course, Jesus Himself, truly understands what is happening. The disciples think that they are witnessing the beginning of a failed uprising which ended before it could even begin. Peter, the most determined of them, is ready to fight and even tries to start it, but the Teacher's response leaves him completely bewildered, as it does the other disciples. They do not understand what is happening or what they should do next. In the end they simply scatter: there is nothing else left for them to do, since everything is lost.

Peter follows the Teacher, but now without any hope, simply wanting to see what will happen to Him. He denies Him so easily precisely because nothing matters to him any longer. Everything is over, so what difference does it make now whether or not he was with Jesus? It would be utterly absurd to suffer for taking part in an uprising that never happened. Only the cock's crow brings Peter back to reality: true reality, where relationships matter absolutely and where nothing is over yet, but everything is only beginning.

As for the high priest and his circle, they understand little more. For them too, Jesus is merely the leader of a failed messianic uprising who remains dangerous as long as He is alive. All the charges are transparently fabricated and judicial procedure is not observed. Clearly, they simply want to get rid of Him.

But He goes about His work: bringing into the world the Kingdom that He must bring. Caring for His disciples without relying on them. Paying no attention to mockery and abuse. And making no attempt to defend Himself at the “trial,” not only because it is indeed a “trial” in quotation marks, but also because in this case He could have defended Himself only by abandoning the fulfilment of the one supreme task for which He came into the world. And He goes on, to the cross. In a fallen world, there is no other path for Him.

What happened was what had to happen, as Jesus had repeatedly foretold to His disciples. The world under the power of Satan could not endure its meeting with the Righteous One. It had either to die to sin itself, to change radically, to be reborn, or to pass a death sentence on this Man.

Having become disciples of Jesus, we must not forget this incompatibility of Christ and sin, not only in Him Himself, not only in our hearts, but also in the world. If we have truly found faith in Christ, then the choice inevitably stands before us: to die to ourselves and live with Him, or to join those who condemned Him to death two thousand years ago. Peter's denial shows that this choice does not change a person automatically, that his fears, weakness, and cowardice remain with him. Yet there is still an enormous difference between Peter, who wept bitterly over his denial, and the members of the Sanhedrin.

What caused Peter's betrayal? Apostasy? Fear? Hardly: after all, only recently he had promised Jesus that he would die with Him if necessary. Peter was certainly a passionate and decisive man, but he was far from a boy who would throw words around and make careless promises. And he was certainly not cowardly; everything we know about him from the Gospel accounts testifies to that. Then what was it? Perhaps the suddenness and paradox of everything that was happening? Peter had certainly promised to be with Jesus to the end, as had all His other disciples. But what were they expecting? Jesus had more than once told them about His coming suffering and death, as well as His resurrection. But the apostles, it appears, never fully understood Him; everything became more or less clear to them only after the Resurrection, and finally clear, it seems, only after Pentecost. Even on the day of the Ascension they expected that now, at last, their Teacher would restore the "kingdom of Israel" and become the "real Messiah," the King whom many were expecting then. And at that time, during and immediately after the Last Supper, they seem to have been absolutely sure that the uprising was about to begin, that their Teacher would of course be in mortal danger, and that they were ready to stay with Him to the end, whatever happened. And suddenly there is no uprising; their Teacher surrenders without resistance; everything is over, completely and disastrously over. What should they do next? It is no surprise that everyone runs away. If everything ended before it began, then what is there to remain faithful to? To a Teacher who, as it seemed, had renounced all His plans? Only Peter had enough resolve for that; he stayed to see what would happen to Jesus next. And suddenly: but you were with Him! From one side, from another, from a third... And now for Peter: whether I was or was not, what difference does it make? What does it matter now, when everything is over? "I was not! I know nothing and no one; leave me alone!" That was the first and entirely natural reaction. And immediately, like lightning, a flash lit up his consciousness: I betrayed Him! I denied Him! This is what He warned me about! And at once came deep, burning repentance. Repentance that restores hope.

The Mount of Olives is the beginning of Christ's glorification. It is His Entry into Jerusalem, the entry of the King. And He returns to the same mountain after He has eaten the Passover with the disciples. And again from the Mount of Olives begins Christ's glorification, now as Savior of the World.

And at the Passover meal Christ explains to the apostles what He Himself had been doing and what is being accomplished. He is the One who serves, and beside Him were people whose hearts had already changed. People to whom He promises a meal in the Kingdom of Heaven. And to whom, as witnesses of His deeds, He bequeaths the Communion of His Body and Blood. Communion in His death and imminent Resurrection. Communion in the glory of Christ, through which all Christians have been strengthened and saved from those days onward.

During the Passover seder that became the Last Supper, Jesus showed His disciples more clearly than ever before what Christianity is. It was the Last Supper that became for Christians the event on which the life of the Church would subsequently be founded, right up to Christ's return in glory. Every Christian breaking of bread, every Eucharist, becomes in essence a continuation of that same Last Supper which, while belonging to eternity, is at the same time refracted again and again in history, becoming what the Church usually calls a sacrament.

But what was the Last Supper? Outwardly it was an ordinary Passover seder, the traditional Jewish ritual festive meal held on the first day, or more precisely the first night, of the feast of Passover. In this respect Jesus invents nothing new. He does not intend to devise some special religious ritual for His disciples. And this is understandable: Jesus had no intention of founding a new religion. He speaks of something else, of His body and His blood. What does He mean?

In traditional Jewish usage, whether in Hebrew or Aramaic, body and blood mean the human person, human nature and human life. But life in all its fullness, both natural and spiritual. In the case of Christ this is very much indeed. One might say it is infinitely much, for He bears within Himself the life of the Kingdom in all its fullness. And Jewish ritual meals had always been a place of encounter, not only between God and the human person, but also among the people gathered at one table. God's presence united and sanctified them as one whole, one organism, one spiritual body. In Gospel times the entire Jewish people were perceived precisely in this way, as a single spiritual organism and not merely as an ethnic community. Ritual meals played an enormous part in their existence as one spiritual body: above all, of course, the Sabbath meals, but also those of other Jewish feasts, all founded on the breaking of bread as the moment when the participants in the meal met God and one another.

Jesus brings Himself into this communion. He brings the fullness of His life, and therefore the life of the Kingdom He has brought into the world. He brings it for all the ages to come, until the day when He returns as the triumphant King of His Kingdom fully revealed. Christianity is precisely participation in this life of Christ, sharing in the life of His Kingdom. Everything else is merely its setting, a historical framework which may take any form so long as it does not contradict the principal task. In an extreme case one can do without it altogether, provided that what began during the Last Supper is preserved. This, in fact, is what makes the Church the Church. Everything else will be added, if it is needed.

The feast of Passover is approaching, and the disciples are sure that in a few hours their Teacher will become the promised King of Israel, will offer in the Temple an atoning sacrifice for His people, and everyone will serve Him, and therefore also them, His closest companions. Jesus, as it were, confirms their words: everything will happen very soon - He will not taste the Passover meal until He offers the sacrifice in the triumph of the Kingdom of God, and the disciples will have twelve thrones and authority over all Israel.

And here the paradox of the Gospel reaches its highest point: everything will be exactly so, but everything will be completely different. Jesus Himself will become the Passover sacrifice for the sin of the world. He will be the least of people - He will be executed as a criminal; the disciples will face persecution and the collapse of their hopes. The sacrifice has been offered, and those who share in it have become citizens of the Kingdom, which is utterly unlike all the other kingdoms of the world.