Taking this line of argument farther, Thomas Aquinas observed: “The new law is the grace of the Holy Spirit” (Summa Theologiae I—II, q. 106, a. 1)—not a new norm, but the new interiority granted by the Spirit of God himself. This spiritual experience of the truly new element in Christianity was what Augustine succinctly expressed in the famous formula: “Da quod iubes et iube quod vis” (give what you command and command what you will; Conf. X, 29, 40).
The gift—the sacramentum—becomes an exemplum, an example, while always remaining a gift. To be a Christian is primarily a gift, which then unfolds in the dynamic of living and acting in and around the gift.
The mystery of the betrayer
The account of the washing of the feet presents us with two different human responses to this gift, exemplified by Judas and Peter. Immediately after the exhortation to follow his example, Jesus begins to speak of Judas. John tells us in this regard that Jesus was troubled in spirit and testified: “Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me” (13:21).
John speaks three times of Jesus’ being “troubled”: beside the grave of Lazarus (11:33, 38), on “Palm Sunday” after the saying about the dying grain of wheat in a scene reminiscent of Gethsemane (12:24-27), and finally here. These are moments when Jesus encounters the majesty of death and rubs against the might of darkness, which it is his task to wrestle with and overcome. We shall return to this “troubling” of Jesus’ spirit when we consider the night spent on the Mount of Olives.
Let us return to our text. Understandably, the prophecy of the betrayal produces agitation and curiosity among the disciples. “One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was lying close to the breast of Jesus: so Simon Peter beckoned to him and said, ‘Tell us who it is of whom he speaks.’ So lying thus, close to the breast of Jesus, he said to him: ‘Lord, who is it?’ Jesus answered: ‘It is he to whom I shall give this morsel when I have dipped it’ ” (13:23-26).
In order to understand this text, it should be noted first of all that reclining at table was prescribed for the Passover meal. Charles K. Barrett explains the verse just quoted as follows: “Persons taking part in a meal reclined on the left side; the left arm was used to support the body, the right was free for use. The disciple to the right of Jesus would thus find his head immediately in front of Jesus and might accordingly be said to lie in his bosom. Evidently he would be in a position to speak intimately with Jesus, but his was not the place of greatest honor; this was to the left of the host. The place occupied by the beloved disciple was nevertheless the place of a trusted friend”; Barrett then makes reference to a passage from Pliny (The Gospel according to Saint John, p. 446).
Jesus’ answer, as given here, is quite unambiguous. Yet the evangelist says that the disciples still did not understand whom he meant. So we must assume that John retrospectively attributed a clarity to the Lord’s answer that it lacked at the time for those present. John 13:18 brings us onto the right track. Here Jesus says, “The Scripture must be fulfilled: ‘He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me’ ” (cf. Ps 41:9; Ps 55:13). This is Jesus’ classic way of speaking: he alludes to his destiny using words from Scripture, thereby locating it directly within God’s logic, within the logic of salvation history.
At a later stage, these words become fully transparent; it is seen that Scripture really does describe the path he is to tread—but for now the enigma remains. All that can be deduced at this point is that one of those at table will betray Jesus; it is clear that the Lord will have to endure to the end and to the last detail the suffering of the just, for which the Psalms in particular provide many different expressions. Jesus must experience the incomprehension and the infidelity even of those within his innermost circle of friends and, in this way, “fulfill the Scripture”. He is revealed as the true subject of the Psalms, the “David” from whom they come and through whom they acquire meaning.
John gives a new depth to the psalm verse with which Jesus spoke prophetically of what lay ahead, since instead of the expression given in the Greek Bible for “eating”, he chooses the verb trōgein, the word used by Jesus in the great “bread of life” discourse for “eating” his flesh and blood, that is, receiving the sacrament of the Eucharist (Jn 6: 54-58). So the psalm verse casts a prophetic shadow over the Church of the evangelist’s own day, in which the Eucharist was celebrated, and indeed over the Church of all times: Judas’ betrayal was not the last breach of fidelity that Jesus would suffer. “Even my bosom friend, in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me” (Ps 41:9). The breach of friendship extends into the sacramental community of the Church, where people continue to take “his bread” and to betray him.
Jesus’ agony, his struggle against death, continues until the end of the world, as Blaise Pascal said on the basis of similar considerations (cf. Pensées VII, 553). We could also put it the other way around: at this hour, Jesus took upon himself the betrayal of all ages, the pain caused by betrayal in every era, and he endured the anguish of history to the bitter end.
John does not offer any psychological interpretation of Judas’ conduct. The only clue he gives is a hint that Judas had helped himself to the contents of the disciples’ money box, of which he had charge (12:6). In the context of chapter 13, the evangelist merely says laconically: “Then after the morsel, Satan entered into him” (13:27).
For John, what happened to Judas is beyond psychological explanation. He has come under the dominion of another. Anyone who breaks off friendship with Jesus, casting off his “easy yoke”, does not attain liberty, does not become free, but succumbs to other powers. To put it another way, he betrays this friendship because he is in the grip of another power to which he has opened himself.
True, the light shed by Jesus into Judas’ soul was not completely extinguished. He does take a step toward conversion: “I have sinned”, he says to those who commissioned him. He tries to save Jesus, and he gives the money back (Mt 27:3-5). Everything pure and great that he had received from Jesus remained inscribed on his soul—he could not forget it.
His second tragedy—after the betrayal—is that he can no longer believe in forgiveness. His remorse turns into despair. Now he sees only himself and his darkness; he no longer sees the light of Jesus, which can illumine and overcome the darkness. He shows us the wrong type of remorse: the type that is unable to hope, that sees only its own darkness, the type that is destructive and in no way authentic. Genuine remorse is marked by the certainty of hope born of faith in the superior power of the light that was made flesh in Jesus.
John concludes the passage about Judas with these dramatic words: “After receiving the morsel, he immediately went out; and it was night” (13:30). Judas goes out—in a deeper sense. He goes into the night; he moves out of light into darkness: the “power of darkness” has taken hold of him (cf. Jn 3:19; Lk 22:53).
Two conversations with Peter
In the case of Judas, we encountered the perennial danger that even those “who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit” (Heb 6:4) can perish spiritually through a series of seemingly small infidelities, ultimately passing from the light into the night, where they are no longer capable of conversion. In Peter we encounter another danger, that of a fall which is not definitive and which can therefore be healed through conversion.
John 13 recounts two exchanges between Jesus and Peter, in which two aspects of this danger become visible. Initially, Peter does not want to have his feet washed by Jesus. This goes against his understanding of the relationship between master and disciple and against his image of the Messiah, whom he recognizes in Jesus. His resistance to the foot-washing has ultimately the same meaning as his protest against Jesus’ prophecy of the Passion after the great confession at Caesarea Philippi: “God forbid, Lord! This shall never happen to you” was how he put it on that occasion (Mt 16:22).
Now, from a similar standpoint, he says: “You shall never wash my f
eet” (Jn 13:8). It is the response to Jesus that we find throughout history: You are the victor, you are the strong one—you must not lower yourself or practice humility! Again and again Jesus has to help us recognize anew that God’s power is different, that the Messiah must pass through suffering into glory and must lead others along the same path.
In the second exchange, which comes after Judas’ departure and the teaching on the new commandment, the theme is martyrdom. It is expressed in terms of “going away”, “going across” (hypágō). Jesus had spoken on two occasions in John’s Gospel about “going away” to a place where the Jews could not come (7:34-36; 8:21-22). His hearers had tried to work out what he meant by this, and they had arrived at two different hypotheses. On the first occasion, they asked: “Does he intend to go to the Dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks? ” (7:35). And the second time: “Will he kill himself?” (8:22). In both cases, they have an inkling of what is meant, yet they completely miss the truth. Yes, his going away is a going unto death—yet not through suicide: rather, he transforms his violent death into the free offering of his life (cf. 10:18). And in the same way Jesus did not actually travel to Greece, yet through the Cross and Resurrection he did effectively come to the Greeks, and he revealed the Father, the living God, to the Gentile world.
During the washing of the feet, in the atmosphere of farewell that pervades the scene, Peter asks his master quite openly: “Lord, where are you going?” And again he receives a cryptic answer: “Where I am going you cannot follow me now; but you shall follow afterward” (13:36). Peter understands that Jesus is speaking of his imminent death, and he now wants to emphasize his radical fidelity even unto death: “Why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you” (13:37). Indeed, shortly afterward on the Mount of Olives, he rushes in with his sword, ready to put his intention into effect. But he must learn that even martyrdom is no heroic achievement: rather, it is a grace to be able to suffer for Jesus. He must bid farewell to the heroism of personal deeds and learn the humility of the disciple. His desire to rush in—his heroism—leads to his denial. In order to secure his place by the fire in the forecourt of the high priest’s palace, and in order to keep abreast of every development in Jesus’ destiny as it happens, he claims not to know him. His heroism falls to pieces in a small-minded tactic. He must learn to await his hour. He must learn how to wait, how to persevere. He must learn the way of the disciple in order to be led, when his hour comes, to the place where he does not want to go (cf. Jn 21:18) and to receive the grace of martyrdom.
The two exchanges are essentially about the same thing: not telling God what to do, but learning to accept him as he reveals himself to us; not seeking to exalt ourselves to God’s level, but in humble service letting ourselves be slowly refashioned into God’s true image.
Washing of feet and confession of sin
As we conclude, we must consider one final detail from the account of the washing of the feet. After the Lord has explained to Peter the necessity of having his feet washed, Peter answers: if this be the case, then Jesus should wash not only his feet, but his hands and his head as well. Jesus’ answer is once again enigmatic: “He who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet” (13:10). What does this mean?
Jesus evidently takes for granted that before coming to the meal, the disciples have already had a complete bath, so that at table it is only their feet that need to be washed. It is clear that John sees a deeper symbolic meaning in these words, which is not easy to recognize. Let us remind ourselves straightaway that the washing of feet—as argued above—is not an individual sacrament, but it signifies the whole of Jesus’ saving ministry: the sacramentum of his love into which he immerses us in faith, his love, which is our true bath of purification.
Yet in this context, the washing of feet acquires another more concrete meaning, over and above its fundamental symbolism, one that points to the practicalities of life in the early Church. What is it? The complete bath that was taken for granted can only mean Baptism, by which man is immersed into Christ once and for all, acquiring his new identity as one who dwells in Christ. This fundamental event, by which we become Christians not through our own doing but through the action of the Lord in his Church, cannot be repeated. Yet in the life of Christians—for table fellowship with the Lord—it constantly requires completion: “washing of feet”. What is this? There is no single undisputed answer. Yet it seems to me that the First Letter of John points us in the right direction and shows us what is meant. There we read: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us” (1:8-10). Since even the baptized remain sinners, they need confession of sins, “which cleanses us from all unrighteousness”.
This word “cleanse” signals the inner connection with the foot-washing passage. The same practice of confession of sin, which originally came from Judaism, is also mentioned in the Letter of James (5:16), as well as the Didachē. There we read: “In church, make confession of your faults” (4, 14) and again, “Assemble on the Lord’s day, and break bread and offer the Eucharist; but first make confession of your faults” (14, 1). In this regard, Franz Mussner, following Rudolf Knopf, says: “In both places a short, public, individual confession is envisaged” (Jakobusbrief, p. 226, n. 5). Admittedly, one cannot equate this confession of sin, found in the life of early Christian communities in areas influenced by Jewish Christianity, with the sacrament of Confession as it was to develop in the course of later Church history: it is merely a “step on the way” toward it (ibid., p. 226).
The point is this: guilt must not be allowed to fester in the silence of the soul, poisoning it from within. It needs to be confessed. Through confession, we bring it into the light, we place it within Christ’s purifying love (cf. Jn 3:20-21). In confession, the Lord washes our soiled feet over and over again and prepares us for table fellowship with him.
Looking back over the whole chapter on the washing of the feet, we may say that in this humble gesture, expressing the entire ministry of Jesus’ life and death, the Lord stands before us as the servant of God—he who for our sake became one who serves, who carries our burden and so grants us true purity, the capacity to draw close to God. In the second Suffering Servant Song from Isaiah, there is a phrase that in some sense anticipates the essence of John’s theology of the Passion: The Lord “said to me, ‘You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified’ ” (49:3; the Greek word in the Septuagint version is doxasthēsomai).
Indeed, Saint John’s whole Passion narrative is built on this connection between humble service and glory (dôxa): it is in Jesus’ downward path, in his abasement even to the Cross, that God’s glory is seen, that the Father and, in him, Jesus are glorified. In a brief scene on “Palm Sunday”—in what might be termed the Johannine version of the Gethsemane story—all this is summed up:“ ‘Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? “Father, save me from this hour”? No, for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.’ Then a voice came from heaven, ‘I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again’ ” (12:27-28). The hour of the Cross is the hour of the Father’s true glory, the hour of Jesus’ true glory.
CHAPTER FOUR
Jesus’ High-Priestly Prayer
The washing of the feet is followed in Saint John’s Gospel by Jesus’ farewell discourses (chaps. 14-16), which culminate in chapter 17 with a great prayer for which the Lutheran theologian David Chytraeus (1530-1600) coined the name “high-priestly prayer”. The priestly character of the prayer had already been highlighted in the time of the Fathers, especially by Cyril of Alexandria (d. 444). Andre Feuillet, in his monograph on John 17, quotes a text by Rupert of Deutz (d. 1129/30), in which the prayer’s essential character is very beautifully summed up: “Haec pontifex summus propiator ipse et propitiatorium, sa
cerdos et sacrificium, pro nobis oravit” (the high priest who was himself the one making atonement as well as the expiatory offering, both priest and sacrifice, implored this for us; Joan., in PL 169, col. 764 B; cf. Feuillet, The Priesthood of Christ and His Ministers, p. 245).
1. The Jewish Feast of Atonement as Biblical Background
to the High-Priestly Prayer
The key to a correct understanding of this great text seems to me to be given in the above-mentioned book by Feuillet. He shows that this prayer can be understood only against the background of the liturgy of the Jewish Feast of Atonement (Yom ha-Kippurim). The ritual of the feast, with its rich theological content, is realized in Jesus’ prayer—“realized” in the literal sense: the rite is translated into the reality that it signifies. What had been represented in ritual acts now takes place in reality, and it takes place definitively.
In order to understand this, we must first consider the ritual of the Feast of Atonement that is described in Leviticus 16 and 23:26-32. On this day, the high priest is required, through the appropriate sacrifice (two male goats for a sin offering and one ram for a burnt offering, a young animal: cf. 16:5-6.), to make atonement, first for himself, then for “his house”, in other words, for the priestly clan of Israel in general, and finally for the whole community of Israel (cf. 16:17). “Thus he shall make atonement for the holy place, because of the uncleannesses of the sons of Israel, and because of their transgressions, all their sins; and so he shall do for the tent of meeting, which abides with them in the midst of their uncleannesses” (16:16).
These rituals constitute the one occasion in the entire year when the high priest pronounces in God’s presence the otherwise unutterable holy name that God had revealed at the burning bush—the name through which he had, as it were, placed himself within Israel’s reach. Hence the object of the Day of Atonement is to restore to Israel, after the misdeeds of the previous year, its character as a “holy people”, to lead it back once more to its designated position as God’s people in the midst of the world (cf. Feuillet, The Priesthood of Christ and His Ministers, pp. 49, 70). In this sense it has to do with the innermost purpose of the whole of creation: to open up a space for response to God’s love, to his holy will.
Jesus of Nazareth: From His Transfiguration Through His Death and Resurrection Page 7