“And it was night.”
Those
words from tonight’s Gospel reading aren’t just an indication of the time of
day it took place. They aren’t just a comment on the fact that it had got dark
by the time Judas slipped out to betray Jesus. John is telling us something far
more profound than that.
Light
and darkness are always significant in John’s Gospel. John is the one who starts
by telling us that in Jesus, light came into the world which “shines in the
darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” It is the one who calls Jesus “the
light of the world” when he heals a man who has been blind from birth, and
challenges those around him who criticise him for doing it on the Sabbath. Who
was really in the darkness, he asks, the blind man or those who couldn’t just
rejoice at his healing? Light and darkness in John’s Gospel are always about
more than physical illumination, and in the reading we heard tonight the
darkness is a sign that we have reached a point of no return.
“And it was night.” From this moment, for a
while at least, it will look as if the darkness has won. Judas goes out to
fetch the soldiers who will arrest Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. He goes
out to set in motion a chain of events which will lead inexorably to Jesus’
death. Some of the Gospels say that he felt remorse afterwards, and killed
himself as a result, flinging back the thirty pieces of silver the High Priests
paid him to betray Jesus, but nothing can undo what has been done. This moment,
when he slipped out of the room, is the turning point.
We
don’t know what he thought would happen. We don’t know why he did what he did.
Maybe he was disappointed in Jesus. Maybe he thought he’d be some other kind of
Messiah than the one he turned out to be. Maybe he hoped for power and glory
for himself and realised he wouldn’t be getting it. Maybe he just thought Jesus
was heading for failure and wanted to leave the sinking ship, scuttling it as
he did so. We don’t know, but the future was sealed at this point, and there
was no going back, even if he had second thoughts.
Judas
wasn’t the only one, though, whose actions on this night would reverberate in
ways they didn’t anticipate. At this same supper, Peter pledged his support for
Jesus – he would never leave him, he said – and yet before the cock had crowed
three times in the morning, he had denied knowing him. And if it seems unfair
that the focus should be so much on Peter, let’s not forget that the rest of
the disciples ran away completely. At least Peter followed Jesus to the High
Priest’s house and was there on the fringes. The rest of them were nowhere to
be seen at all.
We
can only imagine the sense of desolation and failure they must have felt at the
time, and maybe crushing doubt too. How could they have thought Jesus was the
Messiah? How stupid had they been to hope that the world could be different,
that the kingdom of God could be coming, through the life of this carpenter, an
ordinary man like them?
In
time, after the resurrection, they learned to look again, to think again, but they
still had their guilt to deal with, their own failure as friends and disciples.
They
would have had every reason to want to suppress their part in the story of this
night, and yet they don’t, and the reason for this has to be that they
discovered lessons so precious in their
failure, that they needed to pass them on to those who came after them. This
devastating experience, and their own, lamentable part in it, shaped their
faith in ways they could never have anticipated, and because of that, it shapes
our faith too.
They
learned, the hard way, but maybe the only way, that you
could screw things up completely, fail utterly, and still be forgiven and used
by God.
This
night was a night which had all sorts of consequences, whether people had
foreseen them or not. It was a night which would change the lives of all who
were part of it. Whether it destroyed them, as it did Judas, or saved them, as
it did the rest of the disciples, really depended on what they did as a result
of it. But at the time, all that they could see was the darkness. It was night.
They couldn’t see what lay ahead.
 |
| Gauguin : The Agony in the Garden |
I
guess we can all sympathise with that to some extent. We’ve all found ourselves
in the dark at some point or other, and if we haven’t then we will. There comes
a time in all of our lives when the wheels come off, the rug is pulled out from
under our feet, the walls collapse on us, or whatever other image we want to
use. We find ourselves in situations we have no control over. It might be our
fault or the fault of others, or caused by something completely unknown, but we
go, in the blink of an eye, from being capable people who knew where we were
going, to being powerless even to help ourselves.
How
can we live in those dark times? We may look for easy answers, but the truth is
that there are none. People may try to cheer us up, or tell us that if only we
did this or that, or prayed more or believed more, it would surely all come
right, but we know better. What’s happened has happened. It is out of our
hands.
But
these our readings, I think, give us some hope, something to cling to, because
on this night, as we retell the story of the events that led to Jesus’ death,
we are reminded that, however alone we feel in our dark place, actually God has
gone into the darkness with us. Christ doesn’t just enter his own darkness as
he heads towards the shadows of Gethsemane and the cross. He also enters all
our darknesses too.
He
isn’t the light at the end of the tunnel – that’s no use to you when you are
stuck in the middle of the tunnel and can’t move. He is the one who sits beside
us in the inky blackness, who holds out a hand for us to cling to when we
stumble, who waits with us in our stone cold tombs as we long for the dawn.
How
do we know he is there? Well, sometimes we don’t – we just have to take it on
trust. But Jesus also, on this night, told his followers to build up some things
we can do which we might call “holy habits”, things which open our eyes to see
his presence. Washing one another’s feet is important, he tells us – not necessarily
literally, but in practical acts of service which make us look beyond ourselves.
As we give – and receive – love we often find ourselves opening up to the
possibility of goodness in the midst of evil. Sharing the bread and wine of the
Eucharist matters too, the symbol of love which draws us closer to each other
and closer to him.
These
things have the advantage of needing no words,
which is great when you find yourself speechless with grief or worry. You don’t need to explain acts of love and
care - you just have to do them, or
receive them. You don’t need to understand bread and wine – you just have to
eat and to drink them.
I
called them “holy habits” because they are things which we need to practice doing
in the light, so that when we need them most, they are second nature to us.
“And it was night.”
Night
falls not just when the sun goes down, but when the things which normally light
up our lives are taken away. But God goes into the darkness with us, on this
Maundy Thursday night and on every night. And there in the darkness, if we’ll
reach out for him, he holds onto us until the morning dawns and the sun rises
on a new day.
Amen
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