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Lynchpin
Judas. Some words are just hard like that. Judas.
I’ve heard it put forward that in doing this he wanted to propel Jesus forward, to force a confrontation that would bring his reign into the open. It’s the only way I know to make sense of his motivation, and it still does nothing to make it right.
It’s been an emotional week. His teacher keeps talking about death, arguing with the civic authorities, not seizing on his moment of fame in a swollen Jerusalem. But the same holds true for the other eleven, doesn’t it? And they’re not any closer to grasping the absolute otherness of Jesus than he. Judas. One whom Jesus chose and loved and taught and encouraged and empowered. Someone desperate for his image of Jesus to be realized. Someone seeking to motivate and manipulate the Most High God.
I don’t know if it’s caught anyone else this way, but it feels strange to be encountering this text out of season. But how wonderful is it not to find the well rehearsed rhythm, to simply meet this story head on. Judas goes to the priests and the officers of the guard even as Jesus is preaching in the temple complex. Talk of money comes later. All we know is that Judas had his heart and mind set on betrayal from the outset.
And Jesus loved him. I know that’s a true statement, but it’s one shrouded in darkness. I want to be careful with the tidy “and we’re hard to love too.” I know my own non-loveliness rather well, and the depth of Judas’ sin and confusion is laid bare in the text before us. It’s the unbearable rightness and priority of God that’s in focus though. Jesus was on a path toward death from the moment of conception or he was no man at all. That this moment should set the final approach in motion is immaterial except as a stark, Job in the whirlwind reminder that Jesus’ love for Judas, for all of us, is dependent only upon his own perfection.
May we know it.
Entirely unrelated, but several folks were asking about the preservice music Sunday. Buddy Miller’s one of my favorite artists, and his site with his wife, Julie, can be found here:
http://www.buddyandjulie.com/
Several of those tracks came off his record “United Universal House of Prayer.”
Thanks Michael. Appreciate the honest way you handled this passage and as always your writing. Oh the deep, deep love of God in Christ Jesus…who can fathom knowing ahead of time that in three years someone in your inner circle is going to turn you over (knowing their motive and intent) and yet continue to hold them close, train them, etc. It is a fierce love and severe mercy that hold us and as Rich Mullins said it is a “reckless, raging fury..the Love of God”. I pray he is merciful to us as sinners. May His grace be sufficient.