Today’s gospel is full of unforgettable characters doing unforgettable things.
Judas, a disciple, betraying Jesus. Peter, a disciple, denying Jesus.
The rest of the disciples, disappearing as soon as Jesus was arrested.
Caiaphas, the high priest, handing Jesus over to Pilate.
Pilate, despite his hesitations and his wife’s warnings, washing his hands of Jesus and assuring his death.
Another Jesus, Barabbas, freed rather than crucified.
The terrified centurion and the guards crying out as the earth quaked when Jesus breathed his last, “Truly, this man was God’s son!”
But at the beginning of this gospel, a nameless man plays a small role and then disappears from the drama.
When the disciples ask Jesus where they should make preparations for the Passover, Jesus says to “go into the city to a certain man, and say to him, ‘The Teacher says, My time is near; I will keep the Passover at your house with my disciples.’”
This man must have agreed to the request of the disciples, because the next verse says that the disciples did as Jesus had directed them, and they prepared the Passover meal.
The man that the disciples sought out could not have been more than a tiny piece of the story of Jesus’ journey to the cross or we would have heard more about him.
He must have been some ordinary person like anybody else, with joys and sorrows, likes and dislikes, friends and enemies, hungers and desires, strengths and weaknesses. He had a house, but who knows, at some point he might have been homeless.
We learn a little bit more about the man from Jesus himself, in the request that he sends to the man through his disciples.
“Go into the city to a certain man, and say to him, ‘The Teacher says, My time is near; I will keep the Passover at your house with my disciples.’”
Apparently, this man thinks of Jesus not as the coming Messiah, but as the teacher. Maybe he has heard Jesus proclaiming the good news and has struck up a conversation with Jesus at some point and liked what Jesus had to say.
Jesus believes that this man has empathy. “Tell him that my time is near,” Jesus says. Something is getting ready to happen to Jesus in a short amount of time. Jesus offers this as a reason for the man to agree to share his house.
Jesus believes that this man, whoever he is, just a regular person, is a worthy person. Because Jesus is going to his house—just like Jesus went to the house of Zacchaeus, a despised tax collector, just like he had just spent some time at the home of Martha and Mary and Lazarus, his friends, just like he had been criticized for eating with sinners. Friends, tax collectors, sinners, Jesus saw all of them as worthy people.
We have just heard the story that provides our road map through Holy Week, the journey of Jesus to the cross. This week we will get to hear more about Peter denying Jesus, more about the disciples sleeping in the garden while Jesus prayed in agony, more about the trial, more about the crucifixion. But we won’t hear anything else about this certain man.
That’s because each one of us is that very man.
Jesus comes to us today, at the beginning of his last days on earth.
And Jesus says, “My time is near.”
And then he says, “I’m coming to your house to keep the Passover.”
Jesus invites each one of us to realize that time is short, to open our hearts, to welcome him in, to make space. We may only know Jesus as a Teacher and we don’t yet know him as the Messiah, but still, Jesus is coming to our house. He’s bringing his disciples with him, and the whole story of what’s ahead will unfold around our tables. A betrayer rushing out, serious conversation, the breaking of bread and sharing of wine, singing and then all of them leaving the table and going to the Mount of Olives.
This is no ordinary time—this is not the time to clean up behind the guests, to put the house in order and then to go about business the next day as if nothing had happened in your house other than a big dinner party. This is not the time to stay safely at home with busy work while the streets of Jerusalem are in a dangerous uproar.
Over two thousand years later, we are in another extraordinary time. Time feels short, because of the dangers of the pandemic. The safest thing to do is to stay at home, to bury our fears by continuing our familiar lives and keeping what routines we can intact.
And yet, like that certain man, we have welcomed Jesus into our house, welcomed him around our table, and now that he has kept the Passover with us, nothing will ever be the same.
Keep Jesus near in this Holy Week. Leave the cluttered table behind. Follow along with the disciples to the Mount of Olives, and continue on the way with Jesus.
Go to the foot of the cross.
Watch Joseph of Arimathea wrap the body of Jesus in a linen cloth. Follow Joseph as he lays Jesus in Joseph’s own new tomb as the sun sets. See him roll the stone to the door of the tomb. See the Marys in their grief.
Face into the finality of death.
There you stand, just a certain person, full of fear and sorrow, avoiding the soldiers when they show up to guard the tomb.
Jesus is dead. Did his life have any meaning beyond what he taught?
Nothing left to do but to turn your back on that heartbreaking sorry sight and go home and clean up the mess that Jesus and the disciples left behind on their way out the door.
You turn to make your way home in the darkness.
But then, in the silence you hear him speak, just as clear as the first bird song at dawn,
You hear him say, “My time is near.”
“And I will keep the Passover at your house with you, my beloved.”
And you realize that all of time is about to begin again.
And that all will be well.