NOTES for Mar 14:10-42

When reading the Gospel accounts of the Last Supper and of everything that followed, one cannot help asking: could it have been otherwise? And if it could not, if "the Son of Man goes as it is written of Him," does this not mean that no one is guilty of anything, that all the participants in those events were merely acting out a drama, not written by them, predetermined in advance so that none of them could change anything in it? But why, then, does Jesus Himself, speaking of the inevitability of what is happening, immediately add: "but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed"? Perhaps, after all, there is inevitability and there is inevitability. Indeed, after the fall, the earthly path of the Messiah could not be without obstacles; one way or another it had to end in suffering and death. And yet, even in such a state of affairs, everyone is free to make the decision he considers right. Yes, in a fallen world every community inevitably has its own Judas; but this does not predetermine the specific choice of a specific person, and for that very reason responsibility for the choice he has made is not removed from him. Besides, none of the participants in that drama was, quite obviously, thinking about any predestination. Beautiful stories in the style of Leonid Andreyev are out of place here, and this is perhaps the most frightening thing of all. Jesus simply got in the way of many people, for different but entirely earthly reasons. And if so, then however sorrowful it is to admit, any of us could potentially have found ourselves in the place of His persecutors. The choice always remains. The main thing is for it to be the right one.