agape

it will be a long night
with this feast
of fish, olives, wine and bread;
their sweet aromas are mingling with
the smoke of the flickering candles.

good to sit with my brothers.

jesus, our holy fool,
is on his knees before me
washing my feet, gently.
i do not know why he bothers to
humiliate himself this way.

as usual, he is being
opaque in his words. the wine
makes it yet harder. would that he
would just once say what he means.

parables!

he dries my worn, tired, dirty feet
as if there were nothing more precious.

the meal is amazing. i do not know who
baked this bread, but she must be celebrated.

jesus lectures us on what we must do when he
is gone. he speaks of love.
all i know is we are itinerant preachers, poor as dust, followed
by rabble that wouldn’t know a torah from a sandal.
just why exactly am i this man’s disciple?

down the table i see thomas nodding off.
james and john are arguing about that
damnable pilate. rome did us no favors with
that buffoon.

still, i feel content. but
judas is petulant -
looking like he wants to smack
jesus for those foolish words
of betrayal. the next time i look, he is gone.

and, after that crowing cock crack
from jesus, peter has become sullen
and sits by the fire alone.

the musicians have left. the servants as well.
the dishes will be cleared away tomorrow I guess.

jesus puts his cloak on
and announces we must go to gethsemane.

we grumble. why we have to
go to the garden in the middle of the night,
when decent men should be in their beds,
is anyone’s guess.

outside it is dark and cold
and no one can find judas.

Bible Verse Fave Of The Week

While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. - John 17:12 (NRSV)

I always feel bad for Judas.

He was "destined" to be lost to fulfill scripture.

30 pieces of silver was a trifling sum; the mere cost of compensation to one whose slave has been killed.

For the author Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo, it is Judas who gives the greater sacrifice. In the story "Three Version of Judas" Borges' says: "The ascetic, for the greater glory of God, degrades and mortifies the flesh; Judas did the same with the spirit. He renounced honour, good, peace, the Kingdom of Heaven, as others, less heroically, renounced pleasure."

Did Judas act without desire for personal gain, I mean thirty pieces of silver - come on - and sacrifice everything for the Logos? Body? Spirit? Soul? Is that possible? He dies in a variety of ways depending on which Gospel account you read, and likely is damned for either his betrayal or suicide...which hardly seems just in either case... or did he?

Was Judas simply made up out of whole cloth?

Theologian Aaron Saari contends "Mark 16:14 and Luke 24:33 state that following his resurrection Jesus appeared to "the eleven." Who was missing? After all that had transpired one would just naturally think it was Judas. Apparently not, because in John 20:24 we learn that the one missing was Thoms. Therefore the eleven had to include Judas. To further confuse things,, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:5 that following his resurrection Jesus was seen by “the twelve.” This had to include Judas because it wasn't until after the ascension, some forty days after the resurrection (Acts 1:3), that another person, Matthias, was voted in to replace Judas (Acts 1:26). So, apparently Judas neither committed suicide nor died by accident. In Acts 1:25 we are told that Judas "turned aside to go to his own place." [copied from Wikipedia "Judas Iscariot"]

If he is simply cut from the cloth of the Old Testament, why bother? If he is a historical disciple, why the various modes of death and Gospel ambiguities? And if he was necessary to fulfill the scriptures - why is this sacrifice a sin? Why would Christ's death not atone for even this?

I'm not saying the Gospel isn't true...

I'm just sayin'...


Namaste.