“Then he dipped the crust and gave
it to Judas, son of Simon the Iscariot. As soon as the bread was in
his hand, Satan entered him.”
“What you must do,” said Jesus,
“do. Do it and get it over with.”
“No one around the supper
table knew why he said this to him. Some thought that since Judas was
their treasurer, Jesus was telling him to buy what they needed for
the Feast, or that he should give something to the poor.”
...
“As
a secret sign to John, Jesus says it is the one to whom he will hand
the bread after dipping it in the Passover relish. This would
indicate that Judas is sitting on Jesus' immediate left. In Judaism
this was referred to as the place of the intimate friend. There is a
possibility that Jesus and Judas were far closer friends than any of
the Gospels can bring themselves to say.” John: The
Gospel of Wisdom by Michael Card
 |
| Would you trust a guy who looks like this? |
Judas Iscariot. His
name is synonymous with treachery. Not one of the Gospel writers have
anything good to say of him. The asides and descriptive phrases that
John uses to describe him belie a hardness that seems out of place
for the apostle who wrote so much about the love of God. In film he
usually is portrayed as someone who has a dark, miserly look about
him presumably to telegraph to the audience that this a guy not to be
trusted. He's Grima Wormtongue of the Golden Hall only (perhaps)
better looking.
 |
| Yeah, I wouldn't trust him either |
Somewhere along the
way he had become their fellowship's treasurer delegated to dispense
gifts to the poor and buy what was needed for food and sundries. In
church circles, the person who ends up as treasurer of a church is
usually someone whom the fellowship considers “real good with
money” and who possesses a character totally above board. When that
trust is betrayed, as it happened to a parish in our area recently to
the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, the outrage experienced
by the rest of the congregation is acute. Everyone knows that thieves
steal but when you have seen them in church and made small-talk with
them only to learn later they were lining their pockets with money
you gave to God how can you not feel duped and stupid for considering
yourself their friend?
 |
| That's Judas in the middle whom Satan is devouring |
Could
it be that instead of the dark, brooding, scheming guy that he is
often made out to appear in film and literature (think Dante's
Inferno infamous Ninth
Circle denizen), he was, in fact, a pretty likable and otherwise
friendly fella that you would enjoy having coffee with? Case in point
is John's version of that moment when Jesus announces to the group
that someone in their inner circle will betray him (John 13:21-30).
The way John puts it Jesus becomes “visibly upset”. The Greek
word that John uses (tarazzo)
doesn't speak of a man quietly putting on a stoic mien as he faces
his nemesis. No, it's more like a washing machine agitating as if it
were about to be launched to the moon. What else but betrayal by a
close and trusted comrade could provoke such a response in the Lord?
After all, he knows these guys having chosen them and done life
together with them for the past few years. A knife in the back couldn't
cut as deep.
When
Peter from across the room motions to John to ask Jesus just who the
culprit is uncharacteristically Jesus answers straightforwardly: “The
one to
whom I give this crust of bread after I’ve dipped it” and
immediately he so dips his piece of flat bread into one of the common
bowls upon the table and hands it to Judas. He might as well have
pointed at him and simply said, “him.” I find it curious that
neither John nor any of the others at that moment (except, of
course, Judas) have a clue of what is going on. He hands Judas the
bread and cryptically says, “What you must do, do. Do it and get it
over with” and all that some of them can surmise is that Judas has
to run a few last minute errands on the Master's behalf before
Passover begins. No one guesses that he leaves their intimate
gathering only to make a beeline for the Sanhedrin because a guy
like Judas could never do such a thing. Later that evening when
he shows up in a procession of Temple guards in the garden and gives
Jesus the fated kiss of greeting they are all stunned at his
duplicity which is maybe why later as John tells his story of his
life with Jesus he can't help but reveal his jaded opinion of the man
he and everyone else once regarded as Jesus' close friend.
 |
| What if this was Judas and Jesus during better times? |
The lesson for me is this: don't be too
hasty to judge Judas. Walk humbly and don't put any confidence in
titles or experiences. I don't want to contemplate it but if push
comes to shove I could succumb to the same temptation he did. I want
to insist that never in a million years would I sell out the Lord of
glory because, well, I'm a good guy, a pastor, and been a Christian for
most of my life. But then I think of all that Judas saw and
experienced and heard as a member of the Twelve and yet after all
that his heart remained a stone within, unmoved and unpersuaded of
the truth that was right in front of him. Judas is, in fact, a fearful warning
to us all. As Bruce Milne puts it: “There is, tragically, 'a
road to hell at the very gates of heaven' in the sense that it is
possible to resist even the prolonged, personal appeals of Jesus
Christ and turn away at the last into the darkness. There are those
whom even Jesus cannot, and will not, save. Not that his grace is
insufficient for them. On the contrary, it truly is 'enough for all,
enough for each, enough for evermore', as Charles Wesley eloquently
declared. But they will not come to receive it. The corollary to the
stress on the crucial importance of faith in this gospel is the
seriousness of unbelief, the refusal of faith. Hell is no mere
theoretical possibility. It is an awesome and fearful reality. To
refuse the light means to choose the darkness where no light will
ever shine again” (The Bible
Speaks Today: The Message of John, pp. 203-04).
 |
| The proverbial road to hell |
Could
Judas have said no? Could he have refused the part he was given to
play in the passion of the Christ? The Arminian in me says of course
he could, he wasn't a patsy or a fall guy destined to fulfill Scripture. I don't believe for a second that there are some people
born doomed to be damned. For all time God has filled the universe
with free-will agents whom he desires will choose him of their own
volition. That being said I also think that the more we resist the
grace of God the greater the chance our character will become
permanently bent away from him. While only God knows where exactly it
lies there is a point of no return, a place to use Lewis' turn of
words where God says to a human being “thy will be done.” It's a
sobering thought. Of Judas says Milne: “he was within arm's reach
of Jesus through occupying the place on his other side, the host's
left, the place of special honor. For one last, lingering moment
Judas' destiny hangs in the balance as the love of God incarnate
shines one more time into his benighted heart. But the moment is no
sooner present than it passes, as Judas in a final act of defiance
closes his heart against the light, and turns away into the darkness
that has no end” (pp. 202-03). May God keep me - and the rest of us - far from such a
place.
