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Crushed Fruit
Constance Hastings April 22, 2024
The Trouble with Jesus is he wasn’t betrayed by just one guy.
It had been a long week, only five days into it. Crowds were everywhere, and if you hadn’t heard about him before, this week you couldn’t miss it. Before Jesus even got into town, they lined the road, spreading a carpet of coats and shouting, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord.” Expectations were high. If only he had come to fulfill them.
The First Betrayal
By Thursday, the strain was stretching him and the disciples. He had made a scene at the Temple, literally throwing out merchants who were gouging the faithful for Passover sacrifices. https://www.constancehastings.com/angry-passion He healed people right there and sparred with the lead priests over the attention he was getting, where he thought he got the right to do what he was doing. He even insinuated sinners like prostitutes would have a better chance getting into heaven before they did. Calling them hypocrites, he charged, “For you cross land and sea to make one convert, and then you turn him into twice the son of hell as you yourselves are.” (Matthew 23:15) With too much popularity and too many attacks on the powers-that-be, Jesus wasn’t making it easy on himself. Sooner or later, someone was going to put a stop to this. As it was, it wasn’t just one.
Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples, has lived in infamy as the betrayer of Jesus. Sizing up the situation, he could tell the religious leaders not only wanted him out of their hair, but even more so, permanently out of the way. He only had to seize the moment. Jesus made it easy for him. Over the Passover meal, Jesus said, “One of you will betray me...Hurry. Do it now.” (John 13:21,27) Jesus let him know he knew what Judas would do. From there, it was only a matter of hours before he would identify Jesus as the one a full battalion of Roman soldiers and Temple guards should arrest and take away.
The Shattered Rock
But Judas wasn’t the only one. Not being one to show himself by deed rather than declaration, Peter insists he was ready to die for his Lord. As he had been clear to Judas, Jesus was now just as forthright with Peter. “The truth is, this very night, before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.” Before sunrise, while the kangaroo court assembled by the high priests were condemning him, Peter refused to say he was a disciple of Jesus. But was he denying he had followed Jesus, or that the Jesus he followed was not the man he thought Jesus would be?
The Unholy Alliance
Pilate, a Roman governor, was tasked with keeping Jerusalem and the Jews under control. The system allowed for them to have their religion as long as the Romans had a say in leadership. Ultimately, though the religious authorities wanted Jesus dead, they could not execute on their own. While that morning Peter along with the rest of the disciples abandoned him, Jesus was dragged in front of Pilate by the leading priests with charges he claimed to be King of the Jews, an indication he would overthrow the Roman government. Pilate is caught in the middle. He can’t ignore such a charge, but he had a handle on what these Temple tetrarchs were scheming. Looking for a way out, he urges Jesus to make a defense, but he won’t talk. The Jews had been looking for a Messiah, but they didn’t want this Messiah. So they did what they could to do away with him. Thus, the priests, those set apart among the chosen people, turned on him.
Meanwhile, Pilate tries again. He offers them a carrot. For the holy day, the Romans would release a Jewish prisoner. Figuring he could make them choose the lesser of two evils, Pilate offers the crowd either Jesus or the notorious criminal Barabbas. The priests though work the crowd to call for Barabbas’ release. Pilate can’t see what Jesus could have done that would be so bad for them, but the crowd, some of whom had likely cheered in the parade earlier in the week, roars for more. “Crucify him!” In an act of bloody mercy, Pilate orders Jesus flogged with a lead-tipped whip. It will make his death come faster. To avoid a riot and to protect his job, Pilate orders Jesus’ crucifixion.
Torture and mockery follow. More beatings, a crown of thorns, nailed through flesh and bone, Jesus is crucified, a death designed to be slow, painful, smothering as lungs collapse and blood flows.
The Weaker Faithful
The only loyal witnesses to his demise are the women who followed and supported him, women to whom he’d given honor and status, now rendered as impotent as he. They stood watching nearby, distraught and detached at the same time. The comfort they had often given wasn’t available to him when he needed it most.
Even so, in their presence he fulfills the command to honor his mother. “Woman,” he calls her, not by her name but by that with which all females can hear his love and be known as Daughter. “He is your son.” Together, the only disciple present at his execution and Mary, will share their grief and live beyond it. “She is your mother.”
Last Acts
To his cry of, “I thirst,” he is given soured wine. “It is finished,” he gasps as he gives up his spirit, his final act of service. The King of the Jews has taken the cup of bitter wine; his speared body releases its blood and water, and final life oozes out. He dies, abandoned in the will of God to take death upon himself, death that separates, rejects, leaves him alone with all that the worst of the world could do. Secret disciples, two who would not publicly declare allegiance to him, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, quickly bury him in a nearby tomb so as to not violate the law, especially with Passover coming that night.
Was Judas the one who betrayed Jesus? Or rather, who along with Judas deserted and betrayed him? His best friends, the leaders of his faith, the fickle crowd, the prevailing political system, secret disciples, the women who had anointed his feet in adoration, each had a part. Most heart wrenching of all though must have been his God, the very part of himself that had set this in motion since the first animal sacrifice in that garden. To be covered in such shame that you can’t stand yourself is how he died. It was shame that was not of his own doing, but a shame Jesus accepted for himself isolating one from love of God and love of neighbor. In this then, Jesus knew the deepest part of hell which he wanted no one to ever know.
But what of those who won’t accept what his death meant for them?
Could this be the ultimate betrayal?
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The Trouble with Jesus: His words grow like a vine,
thin trails of thought getting thicker with meaning.
Jesus kept talking. He’d just said it was time to go. But he kept talking. The tension in the room was a weighty blend of grief, some denial, maybe even suppressed anger at what he was saying held in place by the exhaustion of the week. Tonight was not how it had started, an exhilarating parade with the crowd calling him the new king, a king who would save. (Mark 11:1-11)
Deviating Thoughts
But he kept saying things like being lifted on a cross even as he almost desperately called to the people to believe he was sent from God. Those gathered in the city for the Passover festival had heard about his miracle of bringing a friend back to life after four days dead. (John 11:1-44) But most were not buying much more of his message than that. Still, he just kept talking.
Earlier in the evening, he had done something weird, uncharacteristic for one who would be king. He’d dressed like a servant and washed their dirty feet, calling upon them to serve others likewise. (John 13:1-17)
Then he’d said the unthinkable, that one of them, these who had followed and learned of him for three years, would betray him. Maybe that’s why he’d said to Judas, “Hurry. Do it now.” Judas was the treasurer who paid for their meals and gave money to the poor. (John 13:27-30) Do you think he left to pay off any threat to their Rabbi and themselves? Jesus kept talking.
In all the confusion, Peter had declared he’d die for his Lord. Jesus silenced the room when he stated Peter would do go so far as to three times deny he even knew Jesus before that very night was over. (John 13:38) Next came some kind of talk about going away somewhere and how he would send a Counselor to teach and remind them of what he had said. (John 14:26)
Restless, Weaving Thoughts
It was too much, how he kept talking even when he said they should be going. It was as if Jesus knew when they left that room he never would have again the chance to tell them all he wanted. So he weaved in his thoughts, let them creep out and hold on where they would, seemingly just talk but growing into so much more.
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.” Jesus kept talking but hold on to that thought. A vine. The image is one similar to what he is doing now. It grows, spreads out, weaves up into and among places to which it can grasp, wrap itself, become stable-tight, and then move out again. His words have been like that all night, thin trails of thought getting thicker with meaning.
Jesus fleshes it out. His Father, the one from whom he comes, is the gardener. The work of this Gardener-God is made clear from the beginning: to produce fruit. The gardener trains the branches on the vine, how to grow so light is available to all parts of it. The parts that impede ability to produce fruit are removed, pruned.
Such it has been with these friends of Jesus. The message he has given them has cut away at their ambitions, desires, misconceptions of God’s purpose in them. It’s pruning that can be severe but necessary for the fruit of the vine. Not all will accept being part of the vine. The separation leaves a wound on the vine like something nailed deep into flesh.
Severe, sometimes necessary pruning can also be a cleansing, yielding process, as if having feet or hands washed. The health of the vine and the expected fruit must be protected from disease. Yielding to the Gardener-God’s work maintains the well-being of the branches.
Roving, Winding Thoughts
From the True Vine come branches, and from the yielding of the branches is fruit. There is an interconnectedness in the image that belies the translations. Eight times Jesus states the importance of remaining, abiding, being joined to him. “Apart from me, you can do nothing.”
You won’t know growth. You can’t be effective. You won’t have life in the abundance the Gardener-God would have for you. You won’t last because you won’t produce fruit. Abide, remain in, and be joined to the message Jesus brings.
To abide is to be not just a branch, an extra appendage, but an integral part of the vine. By an intimate conjoining of Love the True Vine connects with its branches. In this Christ-likeness, the branch is identified with The True Vine. Yet, this metaphor is not limited to individualism.
“You may ask any request you like, and it will be granted.” Not a blanket give-a-way is this. Throughout Jesus’ words the plural form of “you” is stated. You entails the interconnected, gathered believers who remain in, are joined to, and abide in the True Vine. In the altogether growing, cleansing, pruning of the branches is God’s desire in producing fruit.
Meandering, Heavy Thoughts
Jesus kept talking. His message is understood as the tenuous wisps of leaves sprouted from the tips of the branch connected to the True Vine. His discourse is cloudy in its first vision, requiring multiple re-examinations as the vine sends out more branches.
Jesus kept talking. Fruit is the desire of his Gardener-God. Fruit will be taken from the vine of Love and crushed into a cup from which Jesus soon will pour out his life. The True Vine stared into his fate.
He kept talking.
