When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.

For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.

I am not speaking of all of you; I know whom I have chosen. But the Scripture will be fulfilled, ‘He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.’ (Psalm 41:9)

I am telling you this now, before it takes place, that when it does take place you may believe that I am he.

Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.”
John 13: 12-20

I, too, stood on the sacred image … on the face of the man who has been ever in my thoughts, … on the best and most beautiful face that any man can ever know, on the face of him whom I have always longed to love.

I understand your pain and your suffering. It is for that reason that I am here.

Lord, I resented your silence.

I was not silent. I suffered beside you.
~Shisaku Endo from Silence – an interchange at the end of the book between Father Sebastian Rodrigues and the voice of the Lord Jesus

Then Judas in his hot desire
 Said, “Give me what you will.”
Christ spoke to him with words of fire,
 “Then, Judas, you must kill,
One whom you love, One who loves you
 As only God’s son can:
This is the work for you to do
 To save the creature man.“

“And men to come will curse your name,
 And hold you up to scorn;
In all the world will be no shame
 Like yours; this is love’s thorn.
It takes strong will of heart and soul,
 But man is under ban.
Think, Judas, can you play this role
 In heaven’s mystic plan?”

So Judas took the sorry part,
 Went out and spoke the word,
And gave the kiss that broke his heart,
 But no one knew or heard.
And no one knew what poison ate
 Into his palm that day,
Where, bright and damned, the monstrous weight
 Of thirty white coins lay.

It was not death that Judas found
 Upon a kindly tree;
The man was dead long ere he bound
 His throat as final fee.
And who can say if on that day
 When gates of pearl swung wide,
 Christ did not go His honored way
With Judas by His side?

~Countee Cullen “Judas Iscariot”

And then there is the love for the enemy–
love for the one who does not love you
but mocks, threatens, and inflicts pain.
The tortured’s love for the torturer.
This is God’s love.
It conquers the world.
~Frederick Buechner from The Magnificent Defeat

Even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me. Psalm 41:9

…he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. Genesis 3:15

Jesus knew Judas would “lift his heel against him” – Jesus chose him for that very reason, a close friend who had been a cherished part of the twelve.

The kick is hard, but not unexpected.

A heel crushes the image of Jesus and all that is good and beautiful.

Yet, this Lord is able to understand the pain of the betrayer and know suffering so much, He brings it onto Himself.

It was for this reason He came. It was for this reason He invites us to eat the bread of life alongside Him. We are filled and forgiven because He loves us enough to take our kicks and crushes.

What a gift to be known so well by God Himself.

I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year alongside my church family. Once a week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.