Thirty-Six

After Judas had left, Jesus continued speaking to them throughout the dinner, but Thomas's head was so full of what was about to happen that he heard only bits and pieces of what was said. "Now the Son of Man has shown what he really is," he began. Yes. Shown that he was freely giving up his life, that no one was going to take from him; and now he had given it up.

Thomas tried to concentrate on what Jesus was saying, but at the slightest hint, his mind would go off on a tangent, because Judas had quite clearly left with the intention of betraying Jesus to the authorities, and Jesus was not going to do anything about it.

"I am with you only for a short time. You will look for me and I now tell you what I told the Judeans: you cannot come where I am going."

There it was. It was followed by something about a new commandment: "Love each other as I have loved you." Yes, but that presumably meant that each should be willing to die a horrible death for the others. Thomas did not yet--perhaps never could--have love that deep.

Simon, who was as distracted as was everyone else, ignored the business of the new commandment, and said, "Master, where are you going?" and Jesus answered, "You cannot follow me now where I am going. You will come after me later."

"Master," the Rock answered. "Why can I not follow you now? I will give up my life for you!" Thomas did not know whether to admire his courage, or despise his rashness.

Jesus answered, in an ironically amused way, "You will give up your life for me? Amen I tell you, a rooster will not crow before you have repudiated me three times! But do not be worried. Trust in God, and trust in me."

Thomas lost the rest in thinking, "If only I could trust as much as I need to. If only I could really believe that he is the one I know he is! How absurd! He cannot be anything else but God Himself in human skin, and I still cannot believe it! But if he is God, why is he going to let himself be taken and crucified? Why? What sense does it make? What possible reason could he have? And if he lets himself be taken and if--God forbid--he is crucified, how can he be God? His mind batted both alternatives back and forth.

Jesus's words came again. "I am leaving to make a place ready for you. And if I do go and have a place made ready for you, I will come back and take you with me, so that you will be with me where I am. And at least you know the way there."

Thomas could not stand it. "Master," he said, "we do not know where you are going, so how can we know the way there?"

"I am the way," answered Jesus, looking at him with indulgent kindness. "And I am truth, and life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you know the Father also. And you do know him; you have seen him."

And then Philip blurted in his naive eagerness. "Show us the Father, Master, and that will be all we need!"

Jesus snapped, "I have been with you--all--this--time, Philip, and you still do not know who I am? Anyone who looks at me is seeing the Father! How can you tell me to show you the Father? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the

Father is in me? It is not from me the words I say come from; the father, who lives in me is using them to do what he wants done! Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me! Or at least believe it because of what I have done!"

He closed his eyes and shook his head in exasperation. Then, more calmly, he sighed and said, "Amen amen I tell you, anyone who believes in me will do the things I have done; he will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask the Father in my name."

Thomas then said to himself, "Father, I ask you--I beg you--in the name of your Son Jesus, keep him from being captured and crucified!" But then he realized that in that case he would not be "going to the Father," and so presumably the petition in his name would not be effective. His mind took this and shook it like a puppy with a shor, making no sense whatever; he merely wanted Jesus to be safe even if Jesus himself did not want to be safe; but he knew that Jesus was aware of everything and had a very good reason for what he was doing--but for the life of him, Thomas could not begin to fathom what it might be.

Then he thought that somehow, this was the way he would save everyone from their sins; he knew he could not inaugurate the Reign of God, because the people ultimately would reject him, and so the "more painful way" would have to be taken. Thomas remembered something he had read once in Isaiah: "Who would believe what we have heard?" Who indeed? And it went on about how there was nothing attractive about "him" and he was avoided by everyone--which would certainly be true if he were crucified--and something to the effect that it was our weakness he bore and our sufferings he endured, while we though of him as someone struck by God. And he was punished for our sins and the chastisement that cured us was laid on him. And he would be led like a lamb to slaughter and not open his mouth! Dear God! It was prophesied! And Thomas would witness the hideous fulfillment!

We were not worth it. No one was worth enduring crucifixion! But he knew that. He loved us, for no discernible reason, anyway; and that was the love we were supposed to have for each other. To love what was totally unlovable, merely because one loved! How could any man do this? How could Jesus do it?

Jesus had continued talking all this time, but Thomas heard not a word of it, only the sounds, until toward the end of the dinner, Jesus held up a round of the unleavened bread, and after he had thanked the Father for it, he broke it apart and said, "Take this and eat it. This is my body, which will be given up for you." Thomas took the piece which was handed to him, and thought, "So this is the way he is giving us the "meat of his body" to eat! Does this mean that I am actually eating his body? Or is it another metaphor? But he insisted that we had to eat the meat of his body, which was real food. Then is this somehow actually his body?

As he was puzzling over this, the dinner came to an end, whereupon Jesus took a cup of wine, thanked the Father, held it up and said, "Take this--all of you (he looked over at Thomas)--and drink from it. This is the cup of my blood, the blood ratifying the new Treaty, which will be shed for you and for many, many others for the forgiveness of sins."

So his death was to forgive the sins of mankind, Thomas thought as the cup came in his direction. His hand trembled as he received it, and he looked over at Jesus, who nodded. Would it be--or taste like--water again? He took a mouthful, and it tasted exactly like wine. As he handed the cup on, he looked again at Jesus as if to ask if he should swallow it. Jesus nodded again.

And the warmth ran down hi throat to his stomach, and he was eight years old again. He almost reached for the cup again to take another mouthful. But, presumably, this was not wine, but the blood of the man lying down at the head of the table and then rising and saying, "Come now; let us go out."

Thomas followed, dazed at what had happened to him, with the wine still warming him and with the fierce longing for more, as his mind whirled in the question of whether this was all words, or whether he had actually eaten a man's body and drunk hiss blood. "I cannot believe this!" he said to himself. But there were so many, many things he could not believe, but had seen with his own eyes, from curing him to bringing a man back to life after he had been dead four days.

The question was not whether he could believe it, but whether he would. If God to turn himself into a real man while remaining God, somehow, then he could do anything he said he could. And if Jesus were speaking literally, then that was blood that he drank, no matter what it tasted and acted like.

The question, of course, was whether he was speaking literally or somehow figuratively, meaning that this represented his blood somehow. But then, what of his statement that if we did not eat the meat of his body and drink his blood, we would not have life in us, and his insistence that the meat of his body was real food and his blood was real drink? Everyone, including the Twelve, had ached and begged for an explanation, as he had explained his other analogies; but he gave none. There was no hint that it was anything but literal. And this was certainly food and drink.

So instead of speaking metaphorically, he had apparently enacted a metaphor, so to speak--no, not a metaphor, but something like one. The wine, after he said the words, still looked like wine and tasted like wine, but in reality it was not wine; Thomas had literally drunk his blood, but in a way that was not repugnant. That must have been what had occurred to Jesus as he spoke in the synagogue; he realized that just as he had "emptied himself" into being a real human while really being God, he could "empty his humanity" into what was apparently bread and wine. If he could do the one, why could he not do the other?

But who could believe it? Well, he had answered that also. "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him." Thomas prayed to the Father to help him believe. It was so easy--so horribly easy--to think that this was all illusion, especially if Jesus was going to be captured and crucified. How could he allow himself to be crucified? How could the Father allow it?

They arrived at the garden. As they went through the gate, Jesus told them to wait and try to sleep while he went over farther with John, big James and the Rock, where he prostrated himself on a large stone, and prayed, obviously in agony himself.

Thomas was sure he would not be able to sleep, but found that he could not keep his eyes open. But in his half-sleep, half-wakefulness, he noticed that at least twice Jesus came to the three that he had with him, and asked them--pleaded with them--to keep him company, and they started shamefaced from their slumber, but then after a short time dozed again.

During the night sometime, David came up, threw aside his cloak and put a linen cloth over himself--he was hot from running--as he lay beside Matthew, whispering, "They are going to come, Master. I saw--him!--go out from your place alone, and instead of coming here, I followed him. And he went to the High Priest, and they began to collect a group and go for some Roman soldiers! Tell the Master."

That must be where Ezra was. Thomas had not seen him since he left the room where they had eaten.

"He knows, David." Matthew whispered back. "He is going to let it happen."

"Let it happen?" David almost spoke aloud.

"Shh! I do not understand it." Matthew whispered. "But I know that he knows. See him over there, praying. If you could see his face when he comes back to us!"

"But what shall we do?"

"I know not. Whatever he tells us."

"We can never conquer them."

"We will have to wait and see. He knows what he is doing."

"I wish I could believe that."

So did Thomas. He tried to sleep, and now could not. He must know what he is doing; but it is killing him even here in the garden!

Just then Jesus came back and said in a voice of complete exhaustion, "Sleep, now, and try to rest." and then lifted his head as he heard a noise. "Rise, let us go forward. The traitor is here."

And through the gate came Judas with a contingent from the High Priest and some Roman soldiers, armed with torches, lanterns, clubs, and other weapons.

Judas then came up and kissed Jesus. Kissed him! Kissed him! Jesus made a reply in a low voice, and then stepped forward and said, "Who is it you are looking for?"

"Jesus of Nazareth," answered the soldier in charge.

"That is the one I AM," said Jesus, and the words "I AM" rang through the garden like the tolling of a huge bell, almost deafening everyone. The soldiers, along with Judas, stepped back, and fell prostrate in terror.

After a short while of dead silence, Jesus said again, "Who is it you are looking for?"

The attackers got to their feet, and the commander answered in a small, shaking voice, "Jesus of, ah, Nazareth."

"I told you that was the one I was," said Jesus. "And if I am the one you are looking for, then let these people go."

Then the Rock, who had for some unaccountable reason a sword, drew it and slashed at the head of one of the High Priest's slaves; but the slave dodged, and all he accomplished was to cut off his ear.

"Put your sword back in its sheath!" snapped Jesus, and the Rock, trembling, complied. "Am I not to drink the cup the Father has given me?"

"Allow me to do this much," he told the commander, and picked up the man's ear and reattached it. Everyone was dumbfounded, and simply stood there, while Jesus said, "If I am the one you want, then let these people go," and waved for his students to escape, and they all ran off, Thomas among them. They had to go through the gate, which meant going through the contingent of soldiers and guards, but no one offered to stop them.

Thomas ran up the huge Mount of Olives until he lost his breath completely and had to stop. No one had followed him, and none of the others took the direction he had taken; he knew not where he was, but simply wanted to get away, and as soon as he could go on, he kept climbing, in the vague notion that no one would want to follow him up the steep hillside.

Finally, it occurred to him that the soldiers and the rest had no interest in him or the other followers, if they were willing to let them go; and if they had done it under some spell by Jesus, then he was safe; he would not be taken. He found a clearing in the wooded hillside, and looked out to the west, over Jerusalem. Somewhere around here, Jesus had also looked over the city, and wept over it. Thomas himself wept at the memory, as he saw the city--Jerusalem, the very "City of Peace," slumbering peacefully under the brilliant full Passover moon, while its King was going to be taken, and probably tried in a mock trial, and handed over to the Romans to be crucified!

And there was nothing anyone could do about it! Even the Rock's feeble attempt had been rebuffed! They would take him in the morning to the Antonia fortress, and then to the Skull Hill, a promontory halfway up the mountain upon which Jerusalem was built ("Mount Zion" was an elevation that was not at the top of the ridge on which Jerusalem existed).

He sat for a while, too exhausted even to weep, looking at the city, and then thought that perhaps he should go and see what was happening. But he knew what was happening, and it would kill him to see it. He wandered aimlessly, but found himself descending; he could not keep himself away; he had to know. Finally, he was finally back in the valley of the Kidron Brook, which divided the two mountains.

Fighting his conflicting urges to run somewhere, anywhere, but back to where he knew Jesus would eventually be, and the necessity to go in that very direction, he climbed back up into the city, entering by the Lion gate, and zigzagged through the deserted streets, now heading for the high priest's residence, and now heading in the opposite direction. If someone found him and took him captive, it mattered nothing to him. Nothing mattered to him, not even the thirst for wine that the meal had reawakened in him. If he had had the bladder, he would have drunk himself into unconsciousness then and there; but he was too distraught actually to go anywhere where he could purchase wine.

Hours and hours and hours he meandered thus, thinking nothing coherent, not even feeling. Everything was numb, and ringing through the fog of his consciousness was "He has been taken!" like a bell tolling, insistent, never-ending. It meant nothing; it was simply despair with words, but it would not leave him.