[AI translation] This passage, which I have just read from the Gospel of John, shows us the closest community of Jesus and his disciples. The Master is with his disciples, their intimate conversation undisturbed by the crowds of sick people waiting to be healed, of poor people seeking consolation. It is evening, after dinner, they are over the noise and fatigue of the day, they are talking. And when we look so closely at this most intimate, narrow circle of disciples around Jesus, we see how different faces are here together. Yet all are disciples of Jesus, and yet what a difference there is between them! They belong to the narrowest circle of Jesus, yet what a different temperament, what a different intention in one than in the other. How different a disciple Peter is from John, or Judas from all the others. Looking at their persons, I would now like to speak of how different disciples of Jesus can be.1) In the passage we read, we first discuss Judas. It is striking that he is one of the narrowest group of disciples! It is terrible that such a soul can be in Jesus' immediate environment! He had seen the holy life of his Master as well as the others, heard the words of eternal life as well as the others, lived in the Lord's electing community of love as well as the others, and yet all this had a very different effect on him from the others. That fellowship with Christ which to them was eternal life: to him it was damnation. The three years that they spent together in following the Lord: it brought salvation to the others, and damnation to him! Indeed, it would have been better for her never to have known Jesus than to have known Him, and even followed Him for a while, and faced Him! The Word of God considers it the greatest peril a man can fall into, if he comes to know the truth in Christ, and departs from it. This is the peril from which there is no escape, this is the sin for which there is no forgiveness.Of course, sin does not begin here, not in conscious, deliberate resistance, but in seemingly innocent little things, such as harbouring a thought in one's heart that one must hide from Jesus. Who knows when the thought of betrayal began in Judas' heart? Oh, if he had revealed, had unveiled, had confessed honestly what was tempting him, what was troubling him, what was in him, what was in him, what was in him, he would most certainly have found protection with the Lord! He would fall away: Lord, I am haunted by such thoughts! But in the closed heart the thought was more and more prevalent, more and more overpowering, more and more driving him away from the Lord in spirit, to the lowest sin, the betrayal of the Son of God! So it is with every sin which a man does not nip in the bud, which he does not deny before the Lord in time, which he does not seek to cleanse himself from by the blood of Christ, which he warms in his heart. It takes such a hold on him that he suddenly realizes that there is no turning back from it!
Who would have thought Judas would ever fall so low? Who would have thought it when he was following in the Master's footsteps? He was so much a part of the discipleship community that he even had a special assignment: he was the treasurer! On behalf of the community, he practised charity work to help the poor, buying the most basic necessities. Who would have dared to imagine that this disciple, who occupies such an important position among the others, would be the traitor? Well, even on that fateful evening, he was sitting across the table from the Lord. He took the morsel out of His hand, and behold we read, "And he took the morsel, and went out immediately: and it was night." (Jn13,30) But what a dark night! He still has the morsel of Christ in his mouth, and he is already in the most dreadful darkness! Alone! On the road to hell!
Do you know what that means? It means that it is not enough to go to church, to take communion, to be with Christ, to be commissioned in His presence, to pray, to read the Bible - but that you must also let Him into your heart, you must also give yourself over to His Lordship! To be with Jesus for a long time, and not to decide, not to submit to Him: this is a very dangerous game, which can be fatal! To hear the Lord, to know Him, and yet not follow Him, to belong to His environment, and yet not accept Him as Saviour - to go out into the darkness of sin with the food of Christ, is the same slope that Judas went down, and which therefore leads to hell even from Christ!
Judas among the Twelve is an eternal warning to all the disciples of Christ: beware lest the devil catch you, "work out your salvation with fear and trembling" (Phil 2,12c).
2) But the story is not only about Judas, but also about the other disciples in general. Here's what we read about them when Jesus pointed out his betrayer. (Jn 13:22) They heard a terrible statement from their Lord, and they did not know to whom it referred. He was willing to take them all upon Himself, but they hoped it might not be them. So they hesitated. They had no certainty about one of the most crucial issues of their lives: their relationship with Christ! Most of Jesus' disciples today are just as uncertain. They consider themselves to belong to Jesus, but they have no certainty about their relationship with Him. They obviously claimed to belong to Christ, otherwise they wouldn't have come to church to take their vows. I asked them what their relationship was with Jesus Christ? They were confused, they didn't know what to answer. Thinking that they did not understand the question well, I asked them if they had assurance of salvation, if they had eternal life? Then the Scripture came to life: "then they looked at each other, uncertain." They were hesitating in the same way.
Do you know what this hesitation means? It means that there is no salvation, no living Savior for the one who wavers in Him! There is no forgiveness of sins, no living in grace, no happiness of salvation, for him who is uncertain in this matter. What I have, what I know I have, I am not uncertain of! That I know for certain, I have! For example, whether you have a wife or a husband, you know, you are certain, because you either have or you don't. You wouldn't say I don't know, you might! No man can have a wife without noticing it. Well, no man can have a Saviour without knowing it. If one is uncertain on this point, one does not! Nor can one receive forgiveness without being aware of it, nor can one receive the gift of eternal life without being aware of it. If there is an either-or question anywhere, there is one here. Either there is or there isn't! But it is not possible to have or not to have, nor to have or not to have!
We said before that such hesitant disciples are the most numerous around Jesus. Are you not one of them? Do not remain in this uncertainty. Even bad certainty is better than uncertainty, because then at least you know where you stand and what you have to do! Seek certainty, because there is certainty!
3) But not in the way Peter thought. Peter was so convinced of his faithfulness, of his love for his Master - no doubt in good faith - that he dared to make such a declaration, "I lay down my life for you." (Jn 13,37) In the rest of the Gospel it is even more detailed: "Though all stumble, yet not I." (Mk 14,29b) "Lord, with you I am ready both to go to prison and to die!" (Lk 22,39) So Peter was not in doubt, but he was living in false certainty! He had his certainty in himself: in his own zeal, in his own love for Christ, in his faith in his Saviour, that is, in the excellence of himself. How good that our relationship to Christ is not determined by our love, but by Christ's love for us! Someone once rightly remarked: Christ had to die for Peter so that Peter could die for Christ! And until one has accepted that Christ died for him, all his zeal, sacrifice, faith and love are only as worthy as Peter's great declaration. "I lay down my life for you" - what a great declaration, and what has become of it? We know!
We have seen it before! For example, when the bridegroom says to his bride: I love you, I will carry you in the palm of my hand, and two years later he is annoyed by the way his wife laughs. It's easy to say big words, to promise big things, to make touching statements, to imagine an impressive role, a heroic pose, a dramatic scene, to act it out in your imagination - but it's another thing to be a faithful disciple. Don't give your life for Christ, He doesn't need that, it's just a phrase anyway, that's not what discipleship is, it's something much less popular, much more humble: love.
(4) "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another: as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye love one another." (Jn 13,34-35) The true disciple of Christ, therefore, does not use big words, in fact: he uses words very carefully; he does not put himself in a heroic pose, he does not imagine himself in dramatic roles, but simply loves, loves quietly! This is the disciple of Christ, the true disciple, through whom the love of Christ, no longer physically present, can continue to be poured out on people. The one who shines a ray of God's love into the world, whose heart is so full of Christ's great redeeming love that he can give it to others. A disciple of Christ thus becomes a joy to one who is sad, a comfort to one who weeps, a help to one who is weak, a good deed to one who is overtaken, a warmth to one who is cold, a peace to one who is troubled. In other words, not only does it receive, but it immediately transmits God's most precious gift, His love.
Jesus calls love for one another a new commandment. Perhaps it is because it must always be relearned, it is not a routine, it must always be started again, it must be put into practice from case to case. It is not a question of taking Jesus' love as an example to follow and imitate, but of drawing from it, because Jesus' love is the source, the source of our love! So it is through the power of His love that you too can truly love another person! But it is possible! There are so many grumpy, irritable, tired, nervous, full of explosive emotions in the world! Acquaintances and strangers look at each other as if they were mortal enemies! Well, it is the true disciple of Christ who is the representative of love in this hateful, passionate world. Are you a disciple of Christ? Well: when you leave here, how and who can you show that you have some of Christ's love in you?
"By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye will love one another." (John 13:35) Christ knows us by our faith that we are His disciples. It is our faith that is decisive before Christ! The faith by which we accept all that He has done for us in His death and resurrection. But it is not by our faith that the world knows that we are disciples of Christ. The world has no eyes to see and evaluate faith! But it has the sense, the eye, the sight, the judgment of something else: and that is love! He can sense it! That is what it longs for! That is what he understands! It affects him!
Which one of us is such a disciple? But here we can only take it pleadingly, as our fine new hymn says:
Train us to be one, As one with thy Father art thou,
Till all hearts under heaven are one in thee;
Until the pure light of your Holy Spirit shall be our light and our sun,
And the world will see at last That we are your disciples!
Canto 395, verse 3
Amen
Date: 8 April 1951.
Lesson
Jn 13,21-33