Feast Day of Judas Iscariot

            With tongue in cheek, I will sometimes call Holy Wednesday the Feast Day of Judas. This sounds ludicrous, of course, because Judas is the last person we would consider for sainthood. After all, he is the one who betrays Jesus and turns him into the Jewish authorities.

Matthew and Mark quote Jesus saying, it would have been better if Judas wasn’t even born! And all three synoptic gospels tell us that Judas betrayed Jesus for money. But if we can disconnect ourselves from the synoptic gospels telling of Judas’ participation in our Lord’s death and pay attention to John’s telling, then we might reconsider the way in which we vilify Judas.

First of all, John’s gospel doesn’t tell us that Judas betrays Jesus for a sum of money. The gospel writer simply says, “Satan entered into him.” Even more, it almost seems as if Jesus gives Satan permission to enter into Judas when Jesus passes the bread to Judas. And after Judas eats the bread and Satan enters, Jesus tells Judas, “Do quickly what you are going to do.”  

I don’t know about you, but I like the synoptic telling of the story better. It is much easier to vilify Judas than it is to consider a Jesus who would allow Satan to enter into Judas simply to move the divine plan of salvation forward.

The next logical question would ask, “If Jesus reduced Judas to a pawn in this chess game of salvation, would Jesus allow the same of me?” Would Jesus allow Satan to enter into me simply to move the divine plan of salvation forward?

At this point it would be good to stop this line of questioning and remember that this story isn’t about me, this story isn’t about Judas. This story is about what God is doing in Jesus. This story is about a God who is sovereign, about a God who has power over even the forces of evil to accomplish his work of salvation in the world.  

Likewise, the story of the saints aren’t really about the saints themselves but about God’s power of salvation working through the saints. The story of the saints is about a God who can make sinners, like you and me, point to the glory and majesty of the salvation story given in Christ Jesus.  

After Jesus announces that a betrayer is in the midst, all the disciples want to know who the betrayer might be. Scripture tells us that the beloved disciple is the only who learns that the betrayer is Judas. I imagine this means all the other disciples are thinking, “I hope it’s not me.” I imagine all of you are thinking, “I hope I’m not the one who will betray Jesus.” And I, too, hope that it is not me.

But again, the story isn’t about me. The story isn’t about you. The story doesn’t hinge on the things we have done or left undone. The story is about the One who does for you and me what you and I cannot do for ourselves.

The story that we recall, enact, and participate in through Holy Week is about the One who saves us from ourselves, from our sin, from our feelings of inadequacy, from our self-destructive ways, from our pride and hypocrisy by turning our attention away from ourselves toward the self-sacrificial love of Jesus.

And it is God’s hope that we discover in the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus that it doesn’t matter if we are Judas, the beloved disciple, Peter, or one of the saints on the liturgical calendar. For in the end, all that matters is that you belong to a God who redeems all of you – the good, the bad, and the ugly – through Christ Jesus – the One who calls you to live no longer unto yourself but for the One who died and rose again. Amen.