THE MAN WITH
THE PITCHER
The bargain was struck, the price
paid, the buyers were impatient to finish the transaction. They had said "before the Feast day." (John
13:1) The great feast day of the Passover fell on a Saturday and this was
Thursday.
Jesus had but one more day of freedom, the last day.
Before leaving His friends, those who
were to abandon Him that night, He wished once more to dip His bread in the
same platter with them. Before the Syrian soldiery should have spit upon Him,
before He should be defiled by the Jewish filth, He wished to kneel down and
wash the feet of those who until the day of their death were to travel all the
roads of the earth to tell the story of His death. Before the blood dropped
from His hands, His feet, His chest, He wished to give the first fruits to
those who were to be one soul with Him until the end. Before suffering thirst,
nailed upon the cross, He wished to drink a cup of wine with His companions.
This last evening before His death was to be like an anticipation of the
banquet of the Kingdom.
On the evening of Thursday, the first
day of unleavened bread, the Disciples asked Him, "Where wilt thou that we go and prepare that thou mayest eat the Passover?" (Mark 14:12)
The Son of Man, poorer than the foxes,
had no home of His own. (Matt. 8:20; Luke 9:58) He had left His home in
Nazareth forever. The prosperity gospel does not fit the lifestyle and teaching
that He lived. The home of Simon of Capernaum, which had been in the early days
like His own, was far away; and the home of Mary and Martha in Bethany, where
He was almost Master, was too far outside the city.
He had only enemies in Jerusalem or shame-faced friends:
Joseph of Arimathea was to receive Him as his guest only the next evening, in
the dark cave, the banquet-hall of worms.
But a condemned man on his last day
has a right to any favor he may ask. All the houses of Jerusalem were
rightfully His. The Father would give Him the house best suited to shelter His
last joy. And He sent two Disciples with this mysterious command, "Go ye into the city, and there shall
meet you a man bearing a pitcher of water; follow him. And where so ever he
shall go in, say ye to the good man of the house, the Master saith, My time is
at hand; where is the guest chamber, where I shall eat the Passover with my disciples?
And he will show you a large upper room furnished and prepared: there make
ready for us." (Mark
14:13-15)
It has been believed that the master
of that house was a friend of Jesus and that they had arranged this beforehand.
But that cannot be. Jesus would have sent the two Disciples straight to him,
giving his name, and would not have had recourse to the following of the man
with the pitcher.
There were many men on the morning of
that feast day who must have been coming up from Shiloh with pitchers of water.
The two Disciples were to follow the first one whom they saw before them. They
did not know why they were not to stop him instead of going after him to see
where he went in. His master, since he had a servant, certainly was not a poor
man, and in his house, as in all those of prosperous people, there would
certainly be a room suitable for serving a supper, and he would know at least
by hearsay who "the Master"
was. In those days at Jerusalem there was little talk of anything else. The request
was one which could not be refused. "The
Master saith, My time is at hand." (Matt. 26:18) The time which was "His" was the hour of death.
No one could shut out from his house a man at the point of death, who wished to
satisfy his hunger for the last time. The Disciples set out, found the man with
the pitcher, entered the house, talked with the master, and prepared there what
was necessary for the supper: lamb cooked on the spit, round loaves without
leaven, bitter herbs, red sauce, the wine of thanksgiving, and warm water. They
set the couches and pillows about the table and spread over it the white cloth.
On the cloth they set the few dishes, the candelabra, the pitcher full of wine,
and one cup, one cup only to which all were to set their lips. They forgot
nothing: both were experienced in this preparation. From childhood up, in their
home beside the lake, they had watched, wide-eyed, the preparations for the
most heart-warming feast of the year. And it was not the first time since they had
been with Him whom they loved, that they had thus eaten altogether of the feast
of the Passover. But for that last day—and perhaps their dull minds had at last
understood the dreadful truth that it was really the last—for this last supper
which all the thirteen were to have together, for this Passover which was the
last for Jesus and the last valid Passover for old Judaism because a new
covenant was about to begin for all countries and all nations: for this festal
banquet which was a memorial of life, and a warning of death, the Disciples
performed those humble menial tasks with a new tenderness, with that pensive
joy that almost brings tears. They were about to be taught the Lord’s Supper
with its deep rooted meaning of His threefold ministry: past, present, and
future. (John 13)
With the setting of the sun, the other
ten came with Jesus and placed themselves around the table, now in readiness.
All were silent as if heavy-hearted with a foreboding which they were afraid to
see reflected in their companions' eyes. They remembered the supper in Simon's
house, almost depressing, the odor of the nard, the woman and her endless
weeping, and Christ's words on that evening, and His words of those last days;
the repeated warnings of shame and of the end; the signs of hatred increasing
about them, and the indications, now very plain, of the conspiracy, which with
all its torches was about to come out from the darkness.
But two of them—for opposite
reasons—were more oppressed, more moved than the others: the two for whom this
was the last of their lives, the two who were about to die: Christ and Judas,
the one sold and the seller; the Son of God and the abortion of Satan.
Judas had finished his bargain, he had
the thirty pieces of silver on his person wrapped tightly so that they would
not clink. But he knew no peace. The Enemy had entered into him, but perhaps
the friend of Christ was not yet dead in his heart. To see Him there in the
midst of His friends, calm but with the pensive expression of the man who is
the only one who knows a secret, who is aware of a crime, a betrayal; to see
him, still at liberty in the company of those who loved Him, still alive, all
the blood still in His veins under the delicate protection of the skin—and yet
those bargainers who had paid the price refused to wait any longer, the affair
was arranged for that very night—and they were only waiting for Judas to act.
But suppose Jesus, who must know all, had denounced him to the eleven? And
suppose they, to save their Master, had thrown themselves on Judas to bind him,
perhaps to kill him? Judas began to feel that to betray Christ to His death was
perhaps not enough to save himself from the death, which he so greatly feared
and yet which was near upon him.
All these thoughts darkened his somber
face, more and more blackly, and at times terrified him. While the more active
ones busied themselves with the last arrangements for serving the supper, he
looked secretly at the eyes of Jesus—clear eyes scarcely veiled with the loving
sadness of parting—as if to read there the revocation of his fate, so close at
hand. Jesus broke the silence: "With
desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer: For
I say unto you, I will not any more eat thereof, until it be
fulfilled in the kingdom of God."
(Luke 22:15) So obviously this was a new type of supper: the Lord’s, a
feast of threefold love. (See articles on threefold communion from John 13)
Such great love had not up to that
moment been expressed by any words of Christ to His friends: such a longing for
the day of perfect union, for the feast, so ancient and destined to so great a direction.
They knew that He loved them; but until this evening their poor bruised hearts
had not felt how heartbreaking His love was. He knew that this evening was the
last break of rest and cheer before His death, and yet He had desired it fervently
as though it were a benefit, with that fervor which is the mark of passionate
souls, souls on fire, loving souls, those who battle for the love of victory,
who endure all things for a high prize. He had passionately desired to eat
this Passover with them. He had eaten others: He had eaten with them thousands
of other times, seated in boats, in their friends' houses, in strangers'
houses, in rich men's houses, or seated beside the road, in mountain pastures,
in the shadow of bushes on the shore; and yet for so long He had fervently
desired to eat with them this supper which was the last! The blue skies of
happy Galilee, the soft winds of the spring just passed, the sun of the last
Passover, the waving branches of His triumphant entry, did He think of them
now? Now He saw only His first friends and His last friends, the little group
destined to be diminished by treachery, and dispersed by cowardice. Still, for
a time they were there about Him in the same room: the upper room, at the same
table, sharing with Him the same overwhelming grief, but sharing also the light
of a supernatural certainty.
Up to that day He had
suffered, but not for Himself; He had suffered because of His passionate desire
for this nocturnal hour, when the air was already heavy with the tragedy of
farewells. And, when He had thus told them how great was His love: a threefold
love, Christ's face, soon to be battered, shone with that noble sadness which
is so strangely like joy.
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