Secrets of a traitor

The Gospel Foot Washing confronts us with two different human responses to this gift: Judas and Peter. Immediately after giving the example, Jesus speaks of Judas’s fall. John tells us that Jesus’ heart trembled and said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.” Gn J3’21. John says three times: at Lazarus’ grave (John 11:33.38), on Palm Sunday, after the words of the wheat grain that must die, at a scene that refers to a match in the Garden of Gethsemane (John 12:24-27), and finally here, at the Last Supper. These are moments in which Jesus touches the majesty of death and is surrounded by the power of darkness with which he is sent to fight and overcome it. We will return to the “trembling” of Jesus’ soul when we consider the night in the Garden of Gethsemane. Let’s return to our text. He was quite at Jesus’ chest, and Simon Peter gave him a sign to ask, ‘Who is he talking about?’ He leaned toward Jesus’ chest and asked, ‘Lord, who is he?’ Jesus replied, ‘I will dip some bread in the sauce and hand it to him; he is the man.’ So he took a piece of bread, dipped it, and gave it to Judas the son of Simon Iscariot (John 13:26). To understand this text, we must first realize that they were instructed to lie down at Easter. The quoted verse by Charles K. Barrett explains as follows: “The dinner supporters were lying on their left side. They supported their body with their left shoulder, while their right hand was used for eating. The disciple of Jesus’ right hand, therefore, had his head right in front of Jesus, so it can be aptly said that he was lying at his chest. Obviously, he had an opportunity to speak intimately with Jesus, but his position was not the most honorable because the place of honor was on the left hand of the host. Nevertheless, the place taken by a beloved disciple was a place reserved for an intimate friend.
Jesus’ answer here is obvious. However, the Evangelist warns us that the disciples have not yet understood who they are talking about. Therefore, we can assume that John made the Lord’s answer understandable only later, and that at that time his words were not obvious to those present. Verse 18 helps us understand the situation. Jesus says in it, “Scripture is to be fulfilled: ‘He who is my bread lifted his heel against me.'” (Cf. Ps 41, 10; Ps 55, 14) The classical expression, in the words of Scripture, indicates its destiny and thus places it in the context of God’s logic and the logic of salvation history. In the first moment, Jesus is betrayed by one of those at the table with him, and the Lord must endure, in every detail, to the end, the painful righteousness of the righteous. Jesus must experience misunderstanding and unfaithfulness even in the most intimate circle of friends. This is how the “Scripture will be fulfilled.” It proves to be the true protagonist of the Psalms, as the true “David” from which the Psalms come and through which they acquire their meaning. To the words of the psalm that Jesus used as a prophecy about his journey, John assigned a new dimension by choosing, instead of “eating” as used in the Greek Bible, the word “trôgein,” in which Jesus called “eating” his body in his profound talk about bread. And blood, that is, receiving the sacrament of the Eucharist (cf. John 6, 6, 5458). Thus, the words of the Psalm relate to the Church, which celebrated the Eucharist in John’s time and which celebrates it all the time: the betrayal of Judas does not end the fidelity. “Even my friend, whom I trusted and who ate my bread, lifted my heel.” (41:10) The betrayal of friendship goes back to the womb of the ecclesial community, in which people continually receive “his bread” while betraying him. Jesus’ suffering and the struggle with death last until the end of the world; Blaise Pascal wrote similarly (cf. Pensées—Ideas VII 553). But we can also reverse it: the betrayal of all time, the suffering of the betrayed all time—all this Jesus took on Himself at this hour and suffered the misery of history to the very bottom.
The evangelist John gives us no psychological interpretation of Judas’ conduct. The only indication he offers is that Judas was a treasurer in the circle of disciples, and he was entrusted with money (cf. John 12:6). In our context, the Evangelist is only laconic, saying, “Immediately after this sadness, Satan entered into him.” Qn 13:27. According to John, what is happening to Judas can no longer be explained psychologically. He has come under the power of someone else who betrays friendship with Jesus; who discards his “sweet yoke, “he will not be free and will not be independent but will be forfeited to other powers. Or, to put it more precisely, the betrayal of this friendship is the result of another power to which the person has opened himself. But the light of Jesus, which fell into the soul of Judas, did not go out completely. There is a hint of conversion: “I have sinned,” Judas says to those he sold. He seeks to save Jesus and returns money (por. Mt 27:3-5). The second tragedy of Judas—except for betrayal—is that he could no longer believe in forgiveness; his regret turns into despair. He sees only himself and his darkness; he no longer sees Jesus’ light that can brighten the darkness and overcome it Thus Judas shows us the wrong kind of regret: a regret that cannot hope but sees only its own darkness is destructive and is not true regret, and true regret is a firm hope that comes from the belief in the predominance of light that became flesh in Jesus. The passage about Judas closes dramatically with the words, “He took the bread and went out immediately,” as John the Evangelist notes. And it was night” (John 13:30). Judas comes out in a much deeper sense. He goes into the night, moving from light to dark. It was dominated by the “power of darkness” (cf. John 3:19; Luke 22:53).