Civil Rights March
Photo by Library of Congress on Unsplash
It is a sad delusion to imagine that history’s crimes are committed only by the people who swing the hammer or sign the warrant. Most horrors proceed not with the thunder of violence but the hush of consent. This is no less true in scripture than in Auschwitz or Selma. Though draped in candles and cloaked in sanctimony, Maundy Thursday is the perfect case study in this moral phenomenon. It is a drama of betrayal, but also of evasion, euphemism, and polite complicity. However, it is not the tale of a singular villain or a few wayward disciples; rather, it serves as a trial run for every act of silence and self-preservation that followed.
In its long love affair with scapegoats, the Church has ensured that Judas Iscariot bears the heaviest chain. Convenient. Blame the man with the purse, who kisses Jesus on the cheek and walks away with silver. Easy enough, isn’t it, to hiss at him from the comfort of centuries? As though the whole edifice of polite society isn’t built on the quiet transaction of conviction for comfort.
Peter is the designated fool, the coward caught off guard by the cold. Three denials before sunrise, and we tut-tut as if we’ve never ducked a tricky question in a meeting, never laughed nervously at a racist joke, never let truth wither on our tongues when it might cost us standing, friendship, career.
The silence of the unnamed disciples is damning. They fade into the night, offering neither kiss nor curse, just absence. They are present, yet useless. Watch them closely, for they embody us. They are the well-meaning masses, the “not my problem” crowd, lighting candles and singing hymns while the world grinds another innocent into the dirt.
If Jesus stood trial today, we’d do no better. We might retweet a hashtag, share a pious quote, or attend a vigil. But speak up when it matters? Step in when the boots start marching and the police dogs start barking? That takes more than sentiment. That takes cost.
Maundy Thursday exposes not the failure of a few men but the architecture of cowardice in the human heart. It shows how easily conviction bends to comfort, how instinctively we prioritize our skin over our souls, and how the instinct to survive becomes the rationale for everything else. The disciples weren’t monsters. They were people who did what most of us would do: disappear.
And so, the ritual repeats: the breaking of bread, the betrayal, the denial, the silence. Yes, the oldest liturgy of all is not of love but of fear.
Let's set aside any moral high ground here. We weren't the ones washing feet, standing guard, or declaring, “This is my body, broken for you.” Instead, we were searching for a way out, wishing to go unnoticed, and allowing everything to unfold because it felt safer.
We like to think we would have done better if we had been there.
But the record is clear.
We were there.And we did not.
The Rev. Richard Bryant is an elder in the North Carolina Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church. This post is republished with permission from his blog, Elevate the Discourse.