Judas Iscariot is the key player in today’s lectionary passages:

Isaiah 50:4-9a
Psalm 70
Hebrews 12:1-3
John 13:21-32

For today in John, Jesus predicts Judas’ betrayal. You know, there is a part of me that mourns for Judas. He’s the dog that gets kicked a lot in the Gospels—every time he is mentioned, the writers bring up that he will be the one to betray Jesus. Some Gospels, such as the John passage today, go so far as to say that Satan entered Judas. And you can’t help but feel pain of lost relationship, brokenness, when you read the accounts in which Judas betrays Jesus with a kiss of greeting.

Perhaps I mourn for Judas because he really isn’t some sort of demon monster, just painfully human. Even Jesus, I think, loved Judas and hurt for him—maybe that’s why he told Judas to get it over with quickly, called him “friend” in the Garden of Gethsemane in Matthew 26. And in Matthew 27, Judas hangs himself, overcome with regret for what he has done.

So why did Judas do it? If you’ve been watching your news reports of late, you’ve heard of National Geographic’s TV special on the Gospel of Judas, a non-canonical text discovered in the 1970s in Egypt. The 3rd or 4th century manuscript’s existence was mentioned in other texts as early as 180 AD, but this is the first time scholars have actually gotten a hold of a surviving copy. The text basically argues that Jesus told Judas to betray him in order to fulfill the divine plan, and that Judas was Jesus’ closest friend.

Others say that Judas could have been related to a Jewish sect waiting for the Messiah to bring the violent overthrow of Rome, and that betraying Jesus was Judas’ way of forcing the Messiah’s hand to start the revolution. He didn’t realize that Jesus wasn’t leading that kind of revolution.

But at a deeper, spiritual level, Judas symbolizes all of us. Because when we come right down to it, we often falter as disciples for a lot less than thirty pieces of silver. We’re just as guilty of misunderstanding Jesus and his work on earth. We pay lip service to faith while acting unfaithfully all the time. How can we really bash Judas when we have blood on our hands, too?

I mourn for Judas, too, because in his death in Matthew 27 he forgets the key message of Scripture—that God loves us, that Jesus loves him unto death, despite his betrayal. For without this love that is faithful through our faults and failings, would any of us stand?

And if hell is separation from God, the inability to know God’s love, then Judas’ last desperate moments of life were hell indeed. Perhaps that is why Jesus tells Judas it would have been better for him if he had never been born.

“After he received the piece of bread, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, ‘Do quickly what you are going to do.’” --John 13:27

Kelsey

Hi Kelsey,
Thanks for the blog this morning. One of my favorite theologions, Ben Witherington has a blog at http://benwitherington.blogspot.com/. On it he has some very good information about the Gnostic Gospel of Judas. He also has some very good comments about John 12 and Judas, calling us all to repentence and to Jesus Christ. I really like this comment he makes, "We must all beware when we love our vision and dream of the Kingdom more than we love Jesus-- for Jesus will require it of us. I suspect Judas was such a person."

Blessings in Christ,
Viola