On the Betrayal of the Savior (complete)

I wished to complete the contemplations of the cross to the end, not as one who has mastered the thoughts, but setting out for the faithful what is possible. For a word is not idle in explaining the divine oracles; but what is said is measured by human capacity, not as though that capacity were enough to grasp it, but because God provides not as much as the giver can give, but as much as the receiver can take … we are unable to receive the greater wisdom … can provide the perfect … so neither is it impossible for God … the perfect and above the world … For dwelling in a mortal …, we receive knowledge in proportion to our mortal nature. So God has said nothing to us according to the perfection that befits him, but he measured what is said to our weakness. That is why the Savior said: “I have many things to say, but you cannot bear them now.” And elsewhere the Savior said to Nicodemus: “If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?” Let us speak, then, as far as reaches human capacity, supplied by God. Our sermon is interrupted by the day, though we wished to bring the contemplations in order; it was interrupted by the reading of the Gospel. But that will be said in its own time; let us remember what happens on this present day. Today, on this fifth day of the week, in the evening before his passion, Christ washed the feet of his disciples, celebrated the typical Passover in the law, and handed down the saving initiation into his passion. So, to speak truthfully, the word of truth itself is not interrupted; for that narrative is about the cross, and so the rule is kept. Let us come, then, to the sequence, cutting it short, so as to give your Christ-loving souls a few tastes. How one must consider the contemplation of our holy and mystical traditions, let us give a short and clear demonstration of the word. The Savior says to the disciples: “You know that after two days the Passover comes, and the Son of Man is handed over to be crucified.” The Savior often foretold this to his disciples, showing both that he does not flee though he knows, and does not refuse though he foreknows, and at the same time smoothing the souls of the apostles beforehand, so that the thing, having been rehearsed, would not bring the disturbance that comes from suddenness. This David too foretold: “I was prepared, and I was not troubled.” This happens with thunder too: the lightning comes first and teaches the mind to expect the thunder, so that by expectation it may loosen the greater fear. So too the Savior, so that not all at once by the passion … ; so that the Savior reproached the apostles and said after the resurrection: “These are my words, which I spoke to you, that the Son of Man must suffer many things.” He reproached them because they did not fulfil the purpose for which the Savior had foretold: “I told you beforehand,” he says, “so that you would not be scandalized; and your disturbance prevailed.” “You know that after two days the Passover comes, and the Son of Man is to be handed over to be crucified.” Nowhere do you find the Savior mentioning the passion without bringing in the human person, and speaking as one about another. He did not say, “I am handed over,” but, “The Son of Man is to be handed over to be crucified.” Nowhere do you find the Savior handed over, but “the Son of Man is handed over”; and everywhere he speaks as one about another. But when he comes to the …, he says nakedly: “I and the Father are one.” He does not say, “I and the Father who sent me,” but, “I and the Father are one,” and, “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” “You know that after two days the Passover comes, and the Son of Man is handed over to be crucified.” And how securely does John speak? So that no one may think the visible moment was one of compulsion, see how he makes it secure: “Knowing that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father, having loved his own, he loved them to the end”—that is, he showed a perfect love. “And when supper was over he rose, laid aside his garments, girded himself with the towel, poured water into the basin, and began to wash the feet of the disciples.” Let the heretics be ashamed. If they hear the Savior saying, “I do the will of my Father,” they say at once: “Do you see that he is subject and obeys the Father like a slave?” At that hour one could see a fearful thing. Who rose and laid aside his garment? He who covers himself with light as with a garment; and he girded himself with a towel. And one could then see Paul’s voice coming true: he girded himself with a towel who wraps the heaven in clouds; and he poured water into the basin who pours out the nature of waters in rivers and springs and seas. Consider a disciple sitting, and the Master bending down and looking toward the knee—he to whom every knee bows of things in heaven and on earth and under the earth. The Savior’s humility extinguished all pride; that gentleness extinguished all arrogance. When I see the Savior washing the disciples’ feet, I say the words of Isaiah about our pride: “Why are earth and ashes proud?” Consider the Master stooping to the feet of the servants and washing them. How can these things be spoken, or how can they be kept silent? Speech will not suffice; silence charges us with ingratitude. And what shall we do, since we are not able to speak? “He began to wash the feet of the disciples and to wipe them with the towel.” He left out not one kind of service: he did not let others pour the water and himself wash, nor did he himself wash and others wipe. And here he appears to be introducing some … mystery to the disciples. “Having loved,” it says, “his own disciples, he loved them to the end,” says John. “And during supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas, son of Simon Iscariot, to hand him over, he rose and laid aside his garments.” He did not say this idly, but to show that, though the traitor was already planning the betrayal, the Savior did not shrink from washing the traitor’s feet; and he knew his treachery, and washed him. What then? Is there partiality with God? By no means. … Always between those who do wrong and those who are wronged there is … If the one who is wronged honors the wrongdoer, it is not partiality but humility; but if the one who does wrong works evil secretly while showing love outwardly, that is hypocrisy. Take the proof from the event itself. Judas, who was handing over the Master, knew that his … was ungodly; for he offered a kiss to the one against whom he was plotting. But the Savior, being wronged, honored the wrongdoer, which was not injustice but an excess of humility, both praised by God and admired by human beings. Do you want to see the form of it? Look at Joab, David’s commander-in-chief. He took hold of Abner, another commander, … and thrust the sword into his side; he called him brother, and killed him as an enemy. That is why hypocrisy is evil. But elsewhere, when the one who is wronged does good to the wrongdoer, the deed is praiseworthy. Jacob feared his own brother Esau, and entreated God, saying: “Deliver me from the hand of my brother, lest he come and kill me.” Yet when he saw him, he honors him and says: “I have seen your face as one sees the face of God.” Though he saw him as an enemy, as a murderer, since God knew that he did not speak in order to plot, but in order to escape a plot, God pardoned him. So if someone offers words of friendship not in order to deceive, but in order to escape deceit, God is not angry; for he himself is its teacher: “A submissive word turns away wrath.” “The devil, then,” it says, “having already put it into the heart of Judas to hand over the Savior,” the Savior, wishing to conquer ingratitude by love for humankind and to dissolve arrogance by gentleness, washed his feet. I do not so much wonder at the Master doing what was his own (for gentleness was his), as at that man full of deceit. With what heart did he stretch out his feet? How did he look at the holy hands of the Master moving about his feet? How was he not numbed? How did he not shudder? But still the forbearing nature is patient. And it appears that he even washed him first. Why? If he had not washed the traitor’s feet, but had passed him over while washing the others, that too would have been foreign to the Master, and Judas would have had a plausible pretext: “He set me apart, he estranged me; he washed the feet of all, but condemned me. With what soul could I be with him?” God saw a broken heart, and did not wish himself to break what was being broken of itself. And this was the meaning of, “A bruised reed he will not break.” Still, he washed the disciples’ feet. He came last to Peter. While the Savior was washing the others, Peter considers the dignity of the Master and the cheapness of human beings, the lowliness of human beings and the glory of the glorified one, and he decided within himself not to accept it. The Savior came to him, and he says: “Lord, do you wash my feet? You who raise the dead, who cleanse lepers?” (For the “you” has much … ) “You, to whom I bore witness, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God? If I had said it from ignorance, it might have been a human supposition; but if you sealed my voice, saying, ‘My Father who is in heaven revealed it to you,’ do you endure to wash a servant’s feet with the Master’s hand? You shall never wash my feet.” What then does the Savior do? He scattered his saying: “What I am doing,” he says, “you do not know now, but you will know afterward”—that is, “You do not know the purpose of me who am doing it.” He did not endure it, but on hearing this he says: “You shall never wash my feet.” He showed a soul harder than adamant. But the Savior brought his own fire to bear, and made the adamantine soul softer than wax. “So,” he says, “stubborn and contentious as you are, I undo your resistance: if I do not wash your feet, you have no part with me.” And the stubborn and contentious man says: “Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.” He withheld the capital, and paid it back with interest. The character of Christians is not stubborn; a Christian must not have a … character; he must not be many-sided for plotting, but versatile for virtue: for example, he must be cheerful in a time of cheerfulness, and sad in a time of grief, as Paul says, “to rejoice with those who rejoice, to fast with those who fast, to weep with those who weep.” For this is what Paul says: “Whether you eat or drink, do all to the glory of God.” Peter’s stubbornness, then, profited nothing; it was undone, as was another’s. When Christ came to be baptized by John, the Baptist says to him: “Lord, I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” The Savior says to him: “Let it be so now. Do not be contentious, do not resist, for the purpose is divine. Do not lay bare my dignity before the time; let me fulfil the order, and show truly that I have taken a man, so that through the true … I may … the true God.” He said only, “Let it be so now,” and at once the Evangelist notes, “Then he allowed him to be baptized.” He contended as a godly man, and obeyed as a God-lover. So too Jeremiah contended with God: “O Master, Lord, you know that I am too young.” “And the Lord said to me: Do not say, I am too young; for to all to whom I send you …” … stubbornness … firmness. Again Moses was stubborn, saying, “Appoint another; for I am weak in voice and slow of tongue”; but he did not give in. But let us return to what is before us. The Savior says: “If I do not wash your feet, you have no part with me.” In this we ought to know that God is the portion of the faithful, and the faithful are the portion of God. For example, the whole world is God’s, but God knows the faithful. “The whole world,” he says, “was created by me, but nothing matters to me except the portion of the faithful.” That is why the faithful cried out, like David: “My portion is the Lord in the land of the living,” and again: “The Lord is the portion of my inheritance.” And Mary, sitting at the Master’s feet, heard the teaching, and the Savior says: “But Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” Do you see that God is the portion of the faithful? It remains to show where the faithful are the portion of God. Moses says: “When the Most High divided the nations, when he scattered the sons of Adam, he set the boundaries of the nations according to the number of the angels of God; and his people Jacob became the Lord’s portion”—since the whole world was his, but only his people Jacob … So too the prophet Amos says: “… I saw, and behold, he called for judgment by fire, and it devoured the great abyss, and it devoured the portion of the Lord”—he means the people. “And I said,” he says, “Cease, O Lord, from Jacob, for he is very small,” that is, “Do not consume us.” This was said because of the Savior’s saying, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with me.” So God is the portion of the faithful, and the faithful are the portion of God. Peter says: “Lord, not my feet only will you wash, but also my hands and my head.” Peter thought that that washing was forgiveness of sins, and he wanted his whole body to receive forgiveness. But it was not forgiveness of sins, but an occasion of reverence. Then the Savior says: “He who has bathed has no need except to wash his feet; you are already clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.” But these things have this disposition. When he had washed their feet, … he took his garments and reclined. He kept the form of a servant …, and then he reclines as Master and says with authority: “Do you know what I have done to you?” That is, “You have not understood.” “Do you not call me Lord and Teacher? And you say well, for so I am.” Here he lays bare his authority. He put off the form of the servant and brings in that of God. “Do you not call me Lord and Teacher? If I, then, the Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, how much more ought you to wash one another’s feet? For I have given you an example”—I see that it was an occasion of reverence—“that as I have done to you, so you also should do to one another.” When these things had happened, his disciples came to him and said: “Lord, where do you want us to prepare for you to eat the Passover?” See God’s knowledge. He says: “Go into the city, and … where he goes, and into whatever house he enters, say to the master of the house: The Teacher says, My time is near; I will keep the Passover at your house with my disciples. And he himself will show you a large upper room furnished.” He keeps two things: he emboldens the apostles to ask the master of the house, and so that they may not think he does not know the place, he says to them: “He will show you a large upper room furnished.” If you foretell the place, why do you tell the disciples, “Ask about the place”? Before we ask, we have learned. “Yes,” he says, “it befits me to foretell as God, and you to ask as human beings.” Nowhere does Christ hand down the mystery in low places, but on the mountain or in an upper room; for nothing is below ground with Christ. That is why, when the apostles were receiving the coming of the Holy Spirit, they were gathered in an upper room. “Then,” it says, “he sent two of the disciples to prepare the Passover.” Who were these? Peter and John. Why did he send Peter and John rather than the Twelve? Peter was the one who said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”; and John was to proclaim, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” He sends the foundation of the faith and the son of thunder, so that on the foundation he might fix the mystery of godliness, and in the son of thunder he might flash forth the commandments of righteousness. Again, why does he send Peter and John? To show that the gift is spread out to both chaste marriage and virginity, and that both those who live well in chaste marriage and those who live well in virginity become sharers in the Passover. He sends virginity and chaste marriage to prepare the Passover for him; just as on the mountain he set beside himself Moses and Elijah, the one shining from chaste marriage, the other from virginity, so that chaste marriage and virginity might be seen standing beside Christ. “For with desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you.” He is not forced under compulsion; the passion is not involuntary, but the purpose is voluntary. If the Master, doing good, said, “With desire I have desired,” what shall we say? You anticipate our voices, Master, by … We ought to say, “We desire to see the Passover,” and you anticipate us? Does a spring ever desire the thirsty, or the thirsty the spring? Does a table desire the hungry, or the hungry the table? It befits us to say the words of David: “As the deer longs for the springs of waters, so my soul longs for you, O God.” But since the Savior’s initiation lies before us—the glorious passion itself, the very tradition of the passion—the sermon must give way to the occasion, so that we who are thirsty may enjoy it, the faithful may be strengthened, those who are about to be enlightened may receive the pledge, and the faithful may keep watch. Do not, on the pretext of the gift, break the course of the fast. Just as the one travelling a long road, for the care of the body, rests either in inns or in other places, and does not stop his journey, but rests to warm the body without departing from the aim of his journey: so too the Savior gave us the enjoyment of his good things, not that we might live in luxury, but that we might care for the weary flesh and soul. So do not, on the pretext of the mysteries, bring in what is foreign; do not, because you partake, think that grace is the sister of drunken excess. Let not only the faithful guard against these things, but the catechumens too. Before the gift, show the dignity of the gift. What need of words? Examine your conscience. With what boldness does one who has stolen from the fast approach? Truly you will approach tomorrow, and though no one accuses you, your conscience will accuse you. Have you ever seen anyone carrying his accuser with him? Rather keep your conscience as a guard. This present day, that is, this holy initiation, does not wish the course of the fast …, nor … in the holy … rests. … the Passover initiation; but since in it is the tradition of the passion, and in that the demonstration of the …, let us become sharers, and partakers of the resurrection. Today let us share in the passion, then in the resurrection; today, sharing, let us give ourselves not to luxury but to tears; for after the resurrection there is no grief. The Master is still in his passion, and are you living in luxury? Do you not know how many, often even of the great, have incurred blame and paid a penalty for living in luxury during a royal mourning? And you, seeing the Master’s passion still shining on the cross, not yet bearing the word of the resurrection, have you anticipated the gladness of the resurrection and given yourself up to luxury? I say this not because one must mourn the Savior himself, as though he had suffered things worthy of mourning, but because we must show our own gratitude, so that, having shared in his passion, we may become sharers in the resurrection; for to the Lord himself belong glory, honor and worship, together with the Father and the all-holy and life-giving Spirit, now and always, and to the ages of ages. Amen.