The Last Supper

179:4.1For some min­utes the apos­tles ate in si­lence, but un­der the in­flu­ence of the Mas­ter’s cheer­ful de­meanor they were soon drawn into con­ver­sa­tion, and ere long the meal was pro­ceed­ing as if noth­ing out of the or­di­nary had oc­curred to in­ter­fere with the good cheer and so­cial ac­cord of this ex­traor­di­nary oc­ca­sion. Af­ter some time had elapsed, in about the mid­dle of this sec­ond course of the meal, Je­sus, look­ing them over, said: “I have told you how much I de­sired to have this sup­per with you, and know­ing how the evil forces of dark­ness have con­spired to bring about the death of the Son of Man, I de­ter­mined to eat this sup­per with you in this se­cret cham­ber and a day in ad­vance of the Pass­over since I will not be with you by this time to­mor­row night. I have re­peat­edly told you that I must re­turn to the Fa­ther. Now has my hour come, but it was not re­quired that one of you should be­tray me into the hands of my en­e­mies.”

179:4.2When the twelve heard this, hav­ing al­ready been robbed of much of their self-as­sertive­ness and self-con­fi­dence by the para­ble of the feet wash­ing and the Mas­ter’s sub­se­quent dis­course, they be­gan to look at one an­other while in dis­con­certed tones they hes­i­tat­ingly in­quired, “Is it I?” And when they had all so in­quired, Je­sus said: “While it is nec­es­sary that I go to the Fa­ther, it was not re­quired that one of you should be­come a traitor to ful­fill the Fa­ther’s will. This is the com­ing to fruit of the con­cealed evil in the heart of one who failed to love the truth with his whole soul. How de­ceit­ful is the in­tel­lec­tual pride that pre­cedes the spir­i­tual down­fall! My friend of many years, who even now eats my bread, will be will­ing to be­tray me, even as he now dips his hand with me in the dish.”

179:4.3And when Je­sus had thus spo­ken, they all be­gan again to ask, “Is it I?” And as Ju­das, sit­ting on the left of his Mas­ter, again asked, “Is it I?” Je­sus, dip­ping the bread in the dish of herbs, handed it to Ju­das, say­ing, “You have said.” But the oth­ers did not hear Je­sus speak to Ju­das. John, who re­clined on Je­sus’ right hand, leaned over and asked the Mas­ter: “Who is it? We should know who it is that has proved un­true to his trust.” Je­sus an­swered: “Al­ready have I told you, even he to whom I gave the sop.” But it was so nat­u­ral for the host to give a sop to the one who sat next to him on the left that none of them took no­tice of this, even though the Mas­ter had so plainly spo­ken. But Ju­das was painfully con­scious of the mean­ing of the Mas­ter’s words as­so­ci­ated with his act, and he be­came fear­ful lest his breth­ren were like­wise now aware that he was the be­trayer.

179:4.4Pe­ter was highly ex­cited by what had been said, and lean­ing for­ward over the ta­ble, he ad­dressed John, “Ask him who it is, or if he has told you, tell me who is the be­trayer.”

179:4.5Je­sus brought their whis­per­ings to an end by say­ing: “I sor­row that this evil should have come to pass and hoped even up to this hour that the power of truth might tri­umph over the de­cep­tions of evil, but such vic­to­ries are not won with­out the faith of the sin­cere love of truth. I would not have told you these things at this, our last sup­per, but I de­sire to warn you of these sor­rows and so pre­pare you for what is now upon us. I have told you of this be­cause I de­sire that you should re­call, af­ter I have gone, that I knew about all these evil plot­tings, and that I fore­warned you of my be­trayal. And I do all this only that you may be strength­ened for the temp­ta­tions and tri­als which are just ahead.”

179:4.6When Je­sus had thus spo­ken, lean­ing over to­ward Ju­das, he said: “What you have de­cided to do, do quickly.” And when Ju­das heard these words, he arose from the ta­ble and hastily left the room, go­ing out into the night to do what he had set his mind to ac­com­plish. When the other apos­tles saw Ju­das has­ten off af­ter Je­sus had spo­ken to him, they thought he had gone to pro­cure some­thing ad­di­tional for the sup­per or to do some other er­rand for the Mas­ter since they sup­posed he still car­ried the bag.

179:4.7Je­sus now knew that noth­ing could be done to keep Ju­das from turn­ing traitor. He started with twelve—now he had eleven. He chose six of these apos­tles, and though Ju­das was among those nom­i­nated by his first-cho­sen apos­tles, still the Mas­ter ac­cepted him and had, up to this very hour, done ev­ery­thing pos­si­ble to sanc­tify and save him, even as he had wrought for the peace and sal­va­tion of the oth­ers.

179:4.8This sup­per, with its ten­der episodes and soft­en­ing touches, was Je­sus’ last ap­peal to the de­sert­ing Ju­das, but it was of no avail. Warn­ing, even when ad­min­is­tered in the most tact­ful man­ner and con­veyed in the most kindly spirit, as a rule, only in­ten­si­fies ha­tred and fires the evil de­ter­mi­na­tion to carry out to the full one’s own self­ish projects, when love is once re­ally dead.