So when he had dipped the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas son of Simon Iscariot. After he received the piece of bread, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, “Do quickly what you are going to do.” Now no one at the table knew why he said this to him. Some thought that, because Judas had the common purse, Jesus was telling him, “Buy what we need for the festival”; or, that he should give something to the poor.
John 13:26-29
Imagine that you are taking your family to Disney. Maybe the kids are 12 and 9, and your spouse is worried that the older one won’t want to go next year. The timing is not great though. The guy that hired you just got fired, and your job’s expired but they just haven’t told you yet. Not an ideal moment to take on a few thousand dollars worth of debt, once you figure in the gas, the hotels, the tickets, and the food. But how much is the experience of a lifetime worth?
Maybe you have tried to tell them, in a roundabout way, that this is expensive. Not as a guilt trip, but just so they know this is special. “Be sure to soak this time up,” you want to say. “We’ll never be quite like this again.” Then on Tuesday you find out for sure that things are definitely going to change because your bosses boss left you a voicemail saying that you need to check your email, but you don’t have to check your email because your work bestie already texted to say that the whole department got laid off.
Just when the kids got on Space Mountain by themselves, the older one taking care of the younger one and both of them reveling in their blossoming independence. There’s a Polaroid of the two of them smiling broadly, hands in the air on the ride’s steepest drop. It’s only $25, and it comes with a foam rubber frame. You could tell them that the picture is too expensive. You could tell them that, if you left now and packed quickly, you could be out of the hotel by check-out. You could tell them that their world has already irrevocably changed, or you could pay 18% over prime for the next four years to give them 48 hours of joy.
There is a prayer in the Evening Office that is pretty well know by fans of the Evening Office. It includes a petition for God to “shield the joyous.” Finding joy is hard, and holding onto it is impossible (given how the act of grasping at joy negates the experience of that joy). Who then, if they have it within their power to protect a space in which joy is shared, would willingly crack the crystal dome over the joyous before circumstances lift it of their own accord.?
Not Jesus. At least, I hope not. In the middle of dinner, Jesus knows what’s coming next. He tries, in his way, to impress upon his disciples that they should treasure this moment and remember it. Every time they gather and break bread, each time they share a cup of wine, they should think about him and this night. In the simplicity of their joy at being together, not even his bestie can imagine that one of them might shatter the glass. Looking at the ones he loves, experiencing their joy, Jesus is not about to tell them how a good man is so hard to find.