Why did Jesus die for you on the cross? Was it to shame you into being good? In the movie, Private Ryan, as Captain Miller (played by Tom Hanks) is dying — just having saved Private Ryan — he says to Private Ryan, “Earn this.” And then, he breathes his last. But we’re not sure if that’s a curse or a blessing.

Did Jesus say, “Earn this,” then breathe his last? Why did the veil in the temple rip from the top to the bottom? What was behind the curtain in the Holy of Holies? What was “uncovered”? What has God been hiding? What are the intentions of His Heart?

John 13:1-9, “Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them into the end. And becoming supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, [‘is raised from the’] supper. He laid aside his garments, and taking a towel, he girded himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel in which [‘he was having been girded’]. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, ‘Lord, do you wash my feet?’ Jesus answered him, ‘What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.’ Peter said to him, ‘You shall never wash my feet.’ Jesus answered him, ‘If I do not wash you, you have no part with me.’ Simon Peter said to him, ‘Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!’”

I think I understand Peter. He’s saying: “Oh, I get it now! If it’s about humility, I’ll win the humility contest; I’ll earn your love.” He still doesn’t understand. He’s projecting his psyche on to Jesus, who is literally the Psyche of the Lord. Peter gets religious.

John 13:10-12, “Jesus said to him, ‘The one who has bathed does not need to wash (except for his feet) but is completely clean. And y’all are clean, but not all of y’all.’ For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, ‘Not all of y’all are clean.’

“When he had washed their feet and put on his garments and reclined again, he said to them, ‘Do you understand what I have done to you? ...If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. I am not speaking of all of you; I know whom I have chosen.’ [He’s already told us that he has chosen all 12]. ‘Nevertheless, the Scripture will be fulfilled, “He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.”’”

Jesus must be saying, “My close friend has lifted his heel against me as if I am the serpent.” This close friend is projecting his own psyche onto the Psyche of the Lord. It’s the psyche of the snake.

John 13:21-26, …“’Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.’ The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he spoke. [Jesus washed everyone’s feet, and Judas looked just like everyone else.] One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was reclining at table at Jesus’ bosom, so Simon Peter motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking. So that disciple, leaning back against Jesus, said to him, ‘Lord, who is it?’ Jesus answered, ‘It is he to whom I will give this morsel of bread when I have dipped it.’ So when he had dipped the morsel, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot.”

He gave this morsel to Judas, just as His great-grandfather, Boaz, had given the morsel to His great- grandmother, Ruth, who then dipped it in his cup, before she uncovered his feet, and Boaz became her kinsman redeemer. Christ was born of their communion. Now Christ offers this morsal to Judas.

John 13:27, “Then, after he had taken the morsel, Satan entered into him.”

Paul wrote that if we drink the cup in an unworthy manner, without discerning the body, we drink judgment on ourselves. Judgment can be very painful, but the Judgment of God is always good.

In Corinth, Paul tells the church to deliver (betray) a man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh in order that his spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord.

John 13:30-31, “And it was night. When Judas had gone out, Jesus said, ‘Now is the Son of Man glorified.’”

Quite a story! For me, two questions emerge:

#1. Why did Jesus take off His garments... and why did He have them on?

Last time, we remembered why we wear clothes. We wear clothes to cover our shame. And we need to wear clothes because we abuse the nakedness of others to gratify our own desires, which only leads to more shame. But Jesus does NOT abuse the nakedness of others to gratify His own desires. Jesus never sinned. If He has something to hide, it certainly isn’t sin.

#2. Why is Judas not “blessed,” but “cursed”?

It seems that Judas did not “know these things” (13:7), and so was cursed when “he tried to do these things.” Perhaps “these things” were the very things that God has been hiding — “The Mystery.”

“This mystery” is a profound one, writes Paul, “And I am saying that it refers to Christ and his Church... ‘Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.’” In Colossians 1, Paul writes that we are “now reconciled in Christ’s body of flesh.” The Risen Christ has flesh, but it’s a different kind of flesh; it’s not isolated to one point in space. It travels through time, and in Him are all things.

So, what’s the problem with our flesh? It’s not that it’s flesh, per se, but that it’s alone, like Adam was alone before the fall — your flesh only feels its own pleasure and its own pain.

Just imagine, if all of humanity was one body, each serving all and all serving each, and you could taste everyone’s pizza. And imagine if anyone’s pain was everyone’s pain, then everyone would rejoice in the salvation of anyone and, most of all, everyone. But because my body only feels its own pleasure and pain, I compete with other bodies for the best piece of pizza. And I use other bodies as a means to get pizza. In other words, my relationships are transactional and people are commodities. And — because we live in a world of limitations — I will actually take pizza to gratify my own desire, at the expense of another’s desire — that is, their pain.

As a newlywed, I discovered that there was this moment in which my wife’s pleasure was my own pleasure, as if we were one body but an even better body than my lonely old body. I mean that she could eat the pizza, and it would taste better to me than if I ate it myself — I don’t mean to be crude, I’m trying to point to a miracle. Two bodies actually became one flesh, and that flesh was blessed with a new psyche: this knowledge that I was no longer just me, but “me” was “we” and “we” is “me.”

In this old body of flesh trapped in space and time, I can only give myself fully to one other person in this way. “In Heaven, they neither marry nor are they given in marriage,” says Jesus. Is that because no one’s married at the wedding supper of the lamb, or is that because everyone is married and the very body of the Lamb?

Understandably, people panic and ask, “Are you suggesting that Heaven is an orgy?” And I want to scream, “Absolutely not!” An orgy is rampant unfaithfulness that leaves everyone dead and alone. Heaven is a communion of absolute faithfulness in which no one is ever alone, and the pleasure of one is the pleasure of all, and the pleasure of all is the pleasure of one. In Heaven, we have lost our psyche and found it in Jesus.

The problem that the Bible has with sex is not in the uniting, but the dividing. So, in Old Testament Law, the penalty for pre-marital sex is marriage. And the penalty for adultery is death, for by uniting with another that is already married, you break another’s body and harden everyone’s heart. So, in Scripture, sexual communion in space and time is bound by an unconditional covenant that you don’t actually make, but that you enter into with the act of sex, and then publicly acknowledge with a wedding banquet.

If you are truly bound to another person in an unconditional covenant, it means that your relationship is entirely non-transactional. You can no longer do anything to earn the other’s love, for you already have it. So, if you love, you can only love in freedom. Good things can run wild.

There are two ways that we can relate to God: #1. Harlotry, and #2. as the Bride.

Peter was a harlot becoming the Bride, for the Word had found a place in him. Judas was a harlot who did not know, for he would not allow himself to be known by the Word of Love, and so he hung himself on a tree in the valley of Gehenna. And Jesus didn’t blame him, for “being known” is a gift. We cannot “take it” like fruit from a tree; it must always be given.

So, what did Judas not know, and what had God been hiding until just the right time?

How about this? He (God) is not a harlot, nor does he play the harlot; He is our Helper. He does not gratify himself at our expense; He sacrifices himself, for our pleasure is literally His pleasure, and He suffers all of our pain. He touches us in our place of shame that we would know His Grace; He touches us in our faithlessness, for He wants to give us Faith; He touches us in our hopelessness, for He is our Hope, “the mystery hidden for ages and generations: Christ in you, the hope of Glory”;

He touches us in our lovelessness for He is Love — one hunk of burning, absolutely free and unconditional Love.

Watch the message if you disagree, but it seems clear to me: Jesus descended into hell to wash the feet of Judas. And Judas let him, for there he would finally see: He couldn’t pay for anything and so God could give him everything, including his own heart: Jesus from the bosom of the Father.

To “drink the cup in an unfitting manner” is to think you could pay for Him, your Life.

The Curtain rips. And behold, a lamb is standing on the throne, bleeding for one and for all; He is your husband. This is what God has been hiding until NOW, the Beauty of His own Heart. NOW you have left the Great Harlot; You are the Bride, Body, and Temple of the Living God.