O God of love, help us to find our place in the holy drama of this week, that we might encounter anew the grace and wonder of our salvation. Amen.
As we continue to consider the characters of Holy Week, tonight we consider the one we might call the antagonist of the week: Judas Iscariot. Though, to consider him the antagonist is an interpretative move and not necessarily something that is quite as clear as we might think. It really comes down to who we see as the director of Holy Week. Does Jesus end up on the cross because that is where Jesus’ prophetic mission and the sinful nature of power-hungry people intersect, or was the cross the divine destination from the beginning of creation? Put differently, is Judas really the antagonist of Holy Week, or simply a pawn in God’s plan of salvation?
To
be honest with you – I don’t have that answer. How much of Holy Week was
determined from the foundation of the world versus how much of it was unfolding
in real-time in the year 33 AD, no one can know with any certainty. Jesus does not
seem to be surprised that this is the trajectory that he finds himself on; he
even predicts these events several times. And yet most of us would not be
comfortable with the idea that there is no free will involved – that Judas
could not have not betrayed Jesus, that it was all predestined.
It’s
an important question for us to consider because it determines what we will
think about Judas – was he an evil traitor who is guilty of perhaps the worst
betrayal in history or was he someone who got swept up into something bigger
than him and made some mistakes along the way? In truth, it’s probably a bit of
both. Judas did commit a heinous act by betraying his rabbi. What exactly the motivation
was, cowardice, greed, impatience, resentment, fear, or an evil spirit that
came over him, we can’t be certain. But it’s also a truth that we all have
known to be true in our own lives – when the door to Sin opens and we choose to
walk through it, we find ourselves in over our heads and stuck in situations we
never intended. So we should also remember Jesus’ admonition to “just not, lest
we be judged.” As we consider Judas, we recognize him as a fellow sinner.
Judas
was one of the twelve disciples of Jesus, meaning that Jesus chose and called
him. The Gospels tell us that he was something like the treasurer, he kept the
common purse for Jesus and his disciples as they traveled around Israel. This suggests
that Judas was a part of the inner circle of the disciples and was trusted. This
is what makes his betrayal so much more stunning and sadder. It is as one of the
Psalms puts it, “For had it been an adversary who taunted me, then I could have
borne it; or had it been an enemy who vaunted himself against me, then I could
have hidden from him. But it was you, a man after my own heart, my companion,
my own familiar friend. We took sweet counsel together, and walked with the
throng in the house of God.”
How
true it is that those closest to us are able to wound us deeply. As CS Lewis once
wrote, “To love is to be vulnerable.” As we know from Scripture, God is love
and so we can also say that God is open to vulnerability. We will see that most
fully on Good Friday, but we also see it on Holy Wednesday, which is sometimes called
“Spy Wednesday,” for it is the day in which the betrayal and plot to hand over
Jesus takes shape.
Judas
was a fairly common name at the time. For obvious reasons, it is not at all a
common name today – unless it’s being used as an insult. Judas’ name has become,
along with Brutus who stabbed Caesar in the back, a name that signifies that
someone is a traitor. The name Judas though has Biblical roots. Linguistically,
Judas is related to the names Judah and Jude. Judah was one of the sons of
Jacob, as in “Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” the great patriarchs of Genesis. When
the youngest son of Jacob, Jospeh, had frustrated his brothers for the last
time, they decided they would take him out into the desert and kill him. And it
was Judah who said, “What profit is there if we kill our brother and conceal
his blood? Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and not lay our hands on
him, for he is our brother, our own flesh.” On the one hand, Judah’s action
saved his brother’s life, but on the other, he sells his brother for twenty pieces
of silver. So Judas stands in a line of people with that name who have sold out
a companion for pieces of silver.
Iscariot
is not his last name, and we’re not entirely sure what it means. It could be related
to the town where his family comes from. Or it could be related to an Aramaic
word for assassin or bandit. The word in question means “dagger,” and there was
a group of terrorists who would carry out political assassinations in public by
concealing a dagger in their cloaks and then come upon the unsuspecting victim
and murder them. Sometimes this group was known as the Zealots – people who,
today, might go by a name such as a militia. They were not content to wait for
the Roman occupation of the holy land to end, they wanted to do whatever it
would take to make it happen.
There
is some debate as to whether or not Judas was really a part of this group or
not. Historians have evidence that this group was active in the 40s and 50s,
but not as far back as the 20s and 30s. So we don’t want to put too much emphasis
on the idea that Judas was acting on a politically motivated basis or trying to
start an insurrection. Maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t. We just don’t know. But we
do all know the temptation to take things into our own hands when things are
moving as quickly as we’d like. And rarely does that temptation lead to
anything good.
Jesus
knew he would be betrayed and enigmatically said “The one to whom I give this piece
of bread when I have dipped it in the dish will betray me.” I know it seems obvious,
but it must not have been because none of the disciples seemed to quite
understand what was happening. As we will receive a piece of bread given to us
by Jesus, we have to remember that, like Judas, we all betray Jesus. Peter and
the other disciples would deny Jesus and betray him to die without them at his
side. There are things that we have done and things that we have left undone
which deny the call to love God with all our heart, mind, and strength, and to
love our neighbors as ourselves.
Some
congregations use this invitation to Communion: “Come to this table, not
because you must but because you may; not because you are strong, but because
you are weak. Come, not because any goodness of your own gives you a right to
come, but because you need mercy and help. Come, because you love the Lord a
little and would like to love him more. Come, because he loved you and gave
himself for you.” How true that is. Like Judas, we all betray our Lord of love,
and yet we are given the bread of heaven by his abundant grace.
In
Matthew’s record of these events, Judas receives thirty pieces of silver from
the authorities for betraying Jesus – for giving them evidence to indict him.
Why thirty pieces of silver? We can’t know for certain, but there is a prophecy
found in the book of Zechariah. The prophet is told by God that he will
shepherd the people after the other sheep dealers have failed to protect the
flock, and he was paid thirty pieces of silver, which he threw in the Temple treasury,
just as Judas thew the silver back after he had done the deed and realized the
errors of his ways.
Did
Judas know this passage from Zechariah? Probably. He was a Jewish man of faith
under the tutelage of a rabbi. But, like us, Judas could have easily
rationalized that this particular part of Scripture didn’t apply to him, that
this prophecy was about something in the past and had nothing relevant to say
about his situation. Very few of us are surprised when we commit sins that what
we’ve done was a trespass against the way of love. It’s just we’re really good
about giving ourselves the benefit of the doubt, about making excuses and claiming
ignorance. Whether or not Judas saw the connection between his actions and the prophet
Zechariah, we can see the connection that Jesus is our Good Shepherd who was
sold and betrayed for thirty pieces of silver.
I
mentioned that Judas would come to regret his actions. He returned the money and
then hung himself. It’s another layer of tragedy in a tragic story. What I want
to say at this point is that no matter what you have done, God’s mercy is yours
and redemption is always possible. Just as Peter and the other disciples were reconciled
to Jesus, I truly believe that Judas would have, likewise, been forgiven by
Jesus. And in God’s eternal and infinite compassion, I trust that even after Judas’
death, God can make all things well. But if you are struggling, please know you
can reach out to me anytime to talk through whatever is going on. You belong
here and you are worth fighting for. Just as we all know 911 for emergencies,
we should all know about 988, which the suicide and crisis lifeline. You might not
need it, but someone you know might, so remember or put it in your phone – 988.
The
money that Judas returned was used to purchase a plot of land, still called to
this day the “Field of Blood” because it was bought with this blood money. It
was a place where strangers and those without family were buried. It’s certainly
not a fairy-tale ending, but it’s a reminder that God will squeeze out every
drop of redemption from a broken situation.
The
final detail in this story of Judas is that when he left the Last Supper, John makes
the comment, “It was night.” Yes, it was night in the sense that it was after
sunset. But throughout John, there is a motif of day and night, light and dark.
It’s a signal to us that the evening of Holy Wednesday is when the wheels of
the Passion are set in motion. The Light of the world is about to be extinguished
until it will be rekindled at Easter. These next three days are dark, dim, and
gloomy. We will see pain and rejection. And yet, in these days we also see the
unfolding drama of our salvation, the salvation that is strong enough to overcome
every mistake, every shortcoming, and every sin. As we said in Psalm 70, “You
are my helper and my deliverer, O Lord;
do not tarry.”
