HOW AM I JUDAS?

HOW AM I JUDAS?

            History has not been kind to Judas: his name has become a byword for deception and betrayal. We may wonder how Judas could possibly have betrayed the Lord. After all, he had been with him constantly for three years; had known him well, heard his teaching, seen his miracles and perceived his power. Surely this should have been enough to inspire him with a love of Jesus, and some idea of who he was. It is easy to say to ourselves that we would never have done such a thing in his position.

            We could work with the thesis that Judas was a political revolutionary who betrayed Jesus from a high rather than a base motive. He wanted to spur Christ into a confrontation that would force him to usher in a new political kingdom. He wanted to use Jesus to gain political advantage. He went wrong because he was living out of his own power and sinful nature, with no reliance on God.

            How are we Judas? How do we use Jesus for our own ends rather than asking what are his?

            Let Judas speak: “In my childhood I had been brought up to recognise what was a fair price and a just profit. When the Master had put me in charge of our common purse, some of the other disciples were not happy about this. They even went so far as to murmur among themselves that I might be light-fingered! This was probably because I knew too much about their own shortcomings, especially their dreams of greatness by using the Master. But I saw through their tricks, and it annoyed them.”

            Be that as it may, Judas must have been bound by his own limited ideas of who Jesus was and how he expected the Messiah to act. He was not open enough to receive the full revelation of who Jesus was, unlike Peter who came to know that Jesus was “the Christ, the Son of the living God”(Mathew 16,16). It is often suggested that Judas was disappointed in Jesus because he failed to live up to his expectations of a Messiah who would liberate Israel from Roman domination. Judas saw Jesus in merely earthly terms; he did not understand that Jesus’ kingdom was not of this world, that he came to free men not just from human oppression but from the power of sin and death, and that by way of suffering and death. The world that he had projected turned out to an empty skull – “Golgotha” – and he felt devastatingly isolated; no one even to point an accusing finger, which would have indicated some human connection.  He realised that what he had done left him rotten and that no one would touch him with a bar of soap; so he believed he would pass the sentence of death upon himself. “Poor old Judas. Goodbye Judas”, as the line goes from “Jesus Christ Superstar.”

            We too can have wrong ideas about Jesus, and cling to our own thoughts about him rather than ask the Spirit to reveal him to us. Devout people and especially religious leaders may make the mistake of expecting God to fit into their plans. Familiarity with the divine would tempt them to tame and domesticate the Holy Spirit and produce the illusion that they have God in their possession. We can be devout and perform religious rituals, but these could process from our egos. “We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin” (Romans 6,6). The truth is that we all have something of the traitor in us and show it when we hand over our fellow humans to suffering, somehow, somewhere, though mostly unbeknownst to ourselves. When we willingly confess that we sometimes hand those we love over to suffering, even against our best intentions, we shall more readily forgive those who cause us pain.

            Religious leaders, priests, ministers, rabbis and imams can be admired and revered but also hated and despised. We expect that our religious leaders will bring us closer to God through their prayers, teachings and guidance. We listen critically to their words to see how they tally with their behaviour. We may expect them to be superhuman and are disappointed and betrayed when they prove to be just as human as we. Unqualified admiration turns to unrestrained anger.

            According to the thesis enunciated at the beginning of this piece, Judas may have been disappointed or angered by what he thought was the human weakness of his Leader. He killed himself before he could get the complete picture that we are privileged to have, that of the great Paschal Mystery.

            And there is yet another lesson, and that is we must try to love our religious leaders, forgive them their faults, and see them as brothers sisters, which will help them, in their brokenness, lead us closer to the heart of God.

Oberammergau Passion Play 2000, Act VII: “Like Cain, Judas despairs of God’s mercy and passes judgement on himself…See Judas fall into the darkness below. Why does no brother hold him tight? Gracious Lord, grant mercy to the ostracised, those without comfort and rest, those in despair and those guilty of betrayal; the victims and the perpetrators, those who live in terror and in sin, grant them your forgiveness and peace.”

In a Musical Drama of great spiritual power, Judas was portrayed as a young, impulsive idealist haunted by his inability to accept his failure and betrayal and discover the seeds of renewal in self-acceptance, and the absence of compassionate human live to enfold and remind him of his true worth despite his great failure, left him with his distorted vision of himself that crippled his ability to live. The agonising fear and resistance Jesus faced in his struggle in the garden before being enabled through his God to find within himself the strength to accept his death with compassion for his executioners, including Judas, depicted the fullness of Jesus’ humanity, and the nature of the divinity which shone within it.