Isaiah 50:4-9aThe language here echoes the scenes where God, through a prophet, demands Israel enter the metaphorical courtroom and put their case against God for allowing the Exile. But there God puts God’s self above human concerns, not because God is aloof, but because God is righteous, and has been (and remains) faithful to the covenant, while Israel has not. Here, however, the prophet is faithful to God; and despite the brutality of the Exile, remains so. And again, the prophet identifies with Israel; or at least presents an object lesson for how Israel should behave.
The servant submits to suffering
The Lord GOD has given me a trained tongue, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. Morning by morning he wakens, wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught.
The Lord GOD has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious; I did not turn backward.
I gave my back to those who struck me and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting.
The Lord GOD helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame;
he who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand in court together. Who are my adversaries? Let them confront me.
It is the Lord GOD who helps me; who will declare me guilty?
The prophet submits to calumny, but the prophet is not shamed. Our Anglo-Saxon (for one) culture teaches that we cannot accept shame; we must fight back to reclaim our “dignity.” Trump is the worst and most extreme example of this:
All because Springsteen was interviewed on Fox News and didn’t have kind things to say about Trump. Isaiah presents the opposite example to Israel. And here is the other difference between biblical Israel and our modern concept of the nation state.Trump says MAGA should boycott Bruce Springsteen concerts. pic.twitter.com/yHE8Sc5dLA
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) April 2, 2026
Biblical Israel exists as a lineage, the children of Abraham. One is born into it (but it is not “birthright citizenship”). Israel exists because of the covenant, so it is corporate rather than wholly individual. The nation state is corporate, but it is composed of individuals bound to a common purpose; but not bound by a covenant with God established by ancestry. So you can’t read the moral obligation laid on Israel as one that can be laid on a nation state. Niebuhr was right about that; individuals can be moral, nations cannot. An individual can sacrifice their life for a moral purpose. A nation’s obligation is to preserve and protect the nation, which is the individuals of that nation (I speak of democracies, obviously). That’s the irreducible friction we have with Isaiah, and the nation of Israel he addresses. We cannot think in terms of individual and nation being equally obligated to an ethic, because while the individual may be a suffering servant, one whose faith is in God and whose resolve is in the assurance of the justice of God, the nation state cannot do likewise, or demand that its citizens do. Even the Israel Isaiah addresses, doesn’t want to do that. The tension between what God requires, and what biblical Israel, or we modern individuals, will do, is real; and irresolvable. “Israel” still means “struggles with God.”
Psalm 70
Be pleased, O God, to deliver me
Be pleased, O God, to deliver me. O LORD, make haste to help me!
Let those be put to shame and confusion who seek my life. Let those be turned back and brought to dishonor who desire to hurt me.
Let those who say, "Aha, Aha!" turn back because of their shame.
Let all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you. Let those who love your salvation say evermore, "God is great!"
But I am poor and needy; hasten to me, O God! You are my help and my deliverer; O LORD, do not delay!
Hebrews 12:1-3Isaiah wants Israel to follow the example he preaches, even if he doesn’t embody (like some of the prophets, Hosea most notably, did) everything he teaches. The letter to the Hebrews wants to teach that lesson to individuals, mostly to the children of Abraham. It presents Christ as an example to follow, not unlike Paul did. That example is one of faithfulness, and humility. “Lord, when did we see you?,” the line from the closing parable of Matthew’s gospel, is present here. Paul recalls Abraham at Mamre, and tells us we, too, may show hospitality to angels unaware. The letter to the Hebrews echoes Isaiah’s suffering servant as our role model. Matthew tells us when we are a servant to anyone who is the least among us, we are a servant to God. And that is all that’s required of us: to follow the commandment, to love one another.
Look to Jesus, who endured the cross
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us,
looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.
Consider him who endured such hostility against himself from sinners, so that you may not grow weary or lose heart.
John 13:21-32Jesus is worried, again. Sometime earlier, as we are reading it, Jesus has just worried, openly, about his impending crucifixion and, after some enigmatic words about light and darkness, he slips away into darkness. Or at least to where he can’t be seen. Now here he is, back again, the night before the end, the last night, and he’s worried again.
Jesus foretells his betrayal
After saying this Jesus was troubled in spirit and declared, "Very truly, I tell you, one of you will betray me."
The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he was speaking.
One of his disciples--the one whom Jesus loved--was reclining close to his heart;
Simon Peter therefore motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking.
So while reclining next to Jesus, he asked him, "Lord, who is it?"
Jesus answered, "It is the one to whom I give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish." 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 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.
So, after receiving the piece of bread, he immediately went out. And it was night.
When he had gone out, Jesus said, "Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him.
If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once.
Well; he is only human.
And then Judas slips wordlessly into the night. Now it is Judas who disappears from sight into darkness. Light and shadow; hidden and revealed. The seed hides life that is only revealed when the seed is hidden.
“Reclining at table,” by the way, is literal. It’s the way people sat in 1at century Palestine. They didn’t “sit up to the table,” as my elders all instructed me, knees bent and feet beneath the groaning board in the soup and fish, as Bertie Wooster would say. They reclined, legs perpendicular to the table, propped on an elbow. And they ate with their fingers. Probably with pita bread, it occurs to me. Probably not the fat, airy loaves we think of as bread. Probably not at the time of the Passover.
I don’t know, and don’t presume, but I wonder if the original “last supper” shared something with the Seder. That meal is more ritualistic, but the ritual may have more to do with the diaspora after the destruction of the Temple. All four gospels were written after 70 C.E, but the rabbinical Judaism we are familiar with, rooted by and large in the work of the Pharisees, didn’t spring full blown into existence in 71. Passover observance would have been at the Temple. It’s why the crowds and the money changers were there, and why Jesus was, too. It’s also why the cleansing of the Temple upset Pilate enough to order the crucifixion of the rabble rouser to quell any thoughts of challenging the Pax Romana during the festival celebrating the exodus of Israel from bondage and oppression. So it probably wasn’t a Seder meal. But the bread was probably closer to unleavened than not.
Pita is raised by the way it’s formed and baked, not by the amount of yeast in it. It’s speculative, but these minor speculations enrich the story for me. After all, our primary image of this iconic meal is an Italian Renaissance one, with all 13 persons (probably where triskadekaphobia originated) on one side of the table, seated in chairs and facing the viewer who stares through the fourth wall. We take the details for granted, and miss the reality. Does it matter what kind of bread it was? No. But if it refocuses our attention, makes us start over and look anew, the challenge has served its purpose.
You’ll nothing much happens here. The action, in John, came earlier, with the sacrament that wasn’t. The meal here is shown only in the bread handed to Judas (and how Johannine is that act? Mark, the oldest gospel, has Jesus tell his disciples that the one who dips his bread in the bowl with Jesus, is the betrayer. But Mark doesn’t describe Judas doing that thereafter, so maybe Judas has been doing it all night, and nobody really noticed. But John’s Jesus is always in charge, and hands the fatal sign to Judas after dipping it in the oil. “This is my body,” indeed; and he hands it over to his betrayer.) Again, the servant accepts his fate.
The Crucified God. The power of powerlessness. Death, be not proud.
But then, neither should any of us.
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