During the evening, a bitter anxiety, an awful melancholy, seized the
devoted band, whose number, thirteen, even to-day inspires superstitious
dread. In the midst of the apprehension the heart of the Master was so
deeply wrung with agony that He turned to those about Him and said:
"Verily, verily, I say unto you that one of you shall betray me." This
prediction only intensified the sadness that had already begun to fall
over the Sacred Meal and the loving disciples began to ask: "Lord, is it
I?" Even the betrayer himself joined with the others, and, with
inconceivable heartlessness and effrontery, asked: "Lord, is it I?" At
the moment of greatest dread and consternation, Peter, bolder than the
rest, leaned across the table and whispered to John, who was resting
upon the bosom of Jesus, and suggested that he ask the Master who it
was. Accordingly, John whispered and asked the Savior: "Lord, who is
it?" "Jesus answered, He it is, to whom I shall give a sop, when I have
dipped it. And when he had dipped the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot,
the son of Simon. And after the sop Satan entered into him. Then said
Jesus unto him, That thou doest, do quickly." Judas then arose from the
feast and vanished from the room. When he was gone, the Master began to
deliver to His "little children,"[228] to those who had loved and
followed Him, those farewell words which St. John alone records, and
that are so "rarely mixed of sadness and joys, and studded with
mysteries as with emeralds."
There, too, doubts and fears began to burst from the hearts and lips of
the members of the little company. The knowledge that the gentle Jesus,
whose ministry had thrilled and glorified their simple peasant lives,
and promised to them crowns of glory in the world to come, was about to
leave them, and in a most tragic way, filled them with solicitude and
dread. Their anxiety manifested itself by frequent questioning which
excites our wonder that men who had been with Him so long in the
Apostolic ministry should have been so simple-minded and incredulous.
"They said, therefore, What is this that he saith, A little while? We
cannot tell what he saith." This verse is a simple illustration of the
continued misapprehension, on this night, upon the part of the Apostles,
of everything said by the Master. Peter was anxious to know why he could
not follow the Lord. Thomas wanted to know the exact way, evidently
failing to comprehend the figurative language of the Christ. Judas
Lebbæus also had his doubts. He became muddled by mixing the purely
spiritual with the physical powers of sight. "Lord, how is it," he
asked, "that thou wilt manifest thyself to us and not to the world?"
Philip of Bethsaida desired to see the Father. "Lord, show us the
Father," he said, "and it sufficeth us." Philip seems to have been so
dense that he had no appreciation of the spiritual attributes and
invisible existence of the Father.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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