It was my great privilege to be asked to give one of the Holy Week addresses at Derby Cathedral this week. Below is the text of my address. The service can be viewed here on youtube:

Holy Week Address Derby Cathedral – “Troubled in Spirit”

This week we will often hear the refrain from the book of Lamentations: Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?
    Look and see
if there is any sorrow like my sorrow.

We journey with Jesus and his sorrow, we walk through what we know as the ‘passion of Christ’, that is, the suffering of Christ. Often, when we think of the agonies of Christ we picture his time in the garden of Gethsemane as he faces the great task ahead of him. In John’s gospel, Jesus’ agonies are characterised by the phrase ‘he was troubled in spirit’. John uses this phrase three times in his gospel.

The first time he uses this phrase is when he sees the grief of his friends at the death of his dear friend Lazarus. John writes that Jesus is greatly disturbed. The word he uses means literally to emit a groan and it is also related to an anger response.

Anger and grief are close bedfellows aren’t they? When we hear the news someone has died, especially if it is untimely, we feel anger at the injustice of it all. This is what Jesus feels when he sees Mary and Martha in their grief.

And then we come to the shortest verse in the Bible – Jesus wept. This is quite a weak translation, the Greek implies Jesus literally burst into tears, we’re not talking about a single tear running down his cheek, we are talking wracking sobs.

I can remember as a child the first time I saw my Dad cry, I think it was at my grandmother’s funeral. I was totally shaken by it. Dads don’t do that! Seeing this important figure in my life crying really scared me. Imagine what it must have been like for the disciples to see Jesus cry like that.

The message of this passage is that when we cry, Jesus cries with us. He literally has compassion on us, he feels alongside us. He knows the pain and anger of grief. So Jesus’ first agony in John’s gospel is seeing his friends grieving at death – and of course he knew that the same grief would be felt at his own death on the cross. When we grieve, Jesus grieves with us.

The second instance of Jesus’ spirit being disturbed is when some Greeks ask to see Jesus. I remember once having to change my ringtone on my phone after I had had a series of phone calls with bad news. Every time I heard that ringtone it triggered me into a fear response. My suspicion is that this is the kind of feeling Jesus had when he was told that some Greeks wished to see him, he knew that the time had come for him to fulfil his mission. He says words similar to those in the garden of Gethsemane in Luke’s gospel: ‘Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—“Father, save me from this hour”? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour.’

Jesus knows the time has come for him to give up his life.

And so, the final agony, the final time John uses the phrase ‘troubled in spirit’ comes in our gospel reading for this evening and it is at the point of Judas’ betrayal. Jesus experiences the pain of betrayal of a close friend. Jesus quotes Psalm 41, “The one who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me”. This final agony is the agony of a broken relationship. Something that many of us can relate to. Jesus knows the pain of a relationship being broken, trust being betrayed and he knows this betrayal will result in his death. As John writes earlier in this chapter, “he loved them to the end”. This includes Judas.

As I read the passage for this evening I was reminded of Paul’s words in the letter to the Romans: But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.

Perhaps we could read it as ‘while we are still sinning, Christ died for us’. Judas is shown Jesus’ love while he is in the act of betraying him. Jesus washes all the disciples’ feet, there is no hint here that he leaves anyone out. He washes Judas’ feet even though he knew what he was about to do to him.

Then Judas is a part of the sharing of the bread and wine. Jesus directly hands a piece of bread to Judas as he has also shared the bread with everyone else. Even in his sinful state, Judas is included in this holy meal. Jesus gives of himself to Judas despite knowing what he is going to do.

In a way, Jesus shows his love for Judas by giving him an opportunity to bail out, to go a different way. To use a modern phrase we are hearing a lot in the news at the moment, Jesus gives Judas an off-ramp. But sadly, Judas chooses the dark over the light. He can’t remain in the light any longer and he goes out and it was night.

In this passage of John’s gospel, John gives us 3 examples of disciples, a repentant sinner, a close friend and a betrayer. Peter is the first example, he is someone who swears fealty and then lets Jesus down, but in contrast to Judas, comes to repentance and restoration at the resurrection. At this moment in John’s gospel, a new character is introduced, the great contrast figure to Judas and this is the famous ‘disciple whom Jesus loved’. Many assume this is referring to John. I feel that it is made unclear on purpose. Perhaps the ‘disciple whom Jesus loved’ is actually us. And here, that disciple shows us what Jesus wants from a disciple. This disciple is described as reclining next to Jesus – this is a weak translation, he is literally resting his head on Jesus’ chest, his bosom to use the old word. This is the same word used in the prologue to John’s gospel to describe Jesus: No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known. – close to the Father’s heart being the same idea of intimacy as we see between the disciple Jesus loved and Jesus. He is leaning onto Jesus’ chest, close to his heart, perhaps close enough to hear his heartbeat.

Here we see a stark contrast between Judas and the disciple Jesus loved. Both are bosom buddies with Jesus but one breaks that relationship and breaks that bond.

As the commentator David Ford writes:

Judas violates the love of Jesus, which, in the love between him and his Father, is at the heart of all reality, and which is also, through being loved and loving, at the heart of human fulfilment.

So we are given a picture of a disciple who repents, in Simon Peter, a disciple who betrays, in Judas, and in the one who Jesus’ loved, who is closer to Jesus than anyone else.

We are invited to identify with the disciple Jesus loved, into a relationship with Jesus which is close enough to hear Jesus’ heartbeat.

Judas immediately went out. And it was night. The darkness into which Judas goes is then at once contrasted with the glorification of Jesus. As Paul writes to the Philippians:

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

⁶ who, though he was in the form of God,
    did not regard equality with God
    as something to be exploited,
⁷ but emptied himself,
    taking the form of a slave,
    being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
⁸     he humbled himself
    and became obedient to the point of death—
    even death on a cross.

⁹ Therefore God also highly exalted him
    and gave him the name
    that is above every name,
¹⁰ so that at the name of Jesus
    every knee should bend,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
¹¹ and every tongue should confess
    that Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father.

And as John writes:

Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. 

You are the disciple who Jesus loved. Jesus longs for a close relationship with you. Rest your weary head on his chest and receive that love. And give thanks that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Amen.