What Don’t We Understand?

After saying this Jesus was troubled in spirit, and declared, “Very truly, I tell you, one of you will betray me.” The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he was speaking. One of his disciples — the one whom Jesus loved — was reclining next to him; Simon Peter therefore motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking. So while reclining next to Jesus, he asked him, “Lord, who is it?” Jesus answered, “It is the one to whom I give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.” So when he had dipped the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas son of Simon Iscariot. After he received the piece of bread, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, “Do quickly what you are going to do.” Now no one at the table knew why he said this to him. Some thought that, because Judas had the common purse, Jesus was telling him, “Buy what we need for the festival”; or, that he should give something to the poor. So, after receiving the piece of bread, he immediately went out. And it was night.

At the end of this most horrible paragraph in John’s Gospel, when we are told that it was night, the writer’s purpose was not to indicate the time of day.[1]

In John there are seven occurrences of the word night and every one is negative. In two places (3.2 and 19.39) we are told Nicodemus, a member of the Jews’ ruling Sanhedrin, came to Jesus by night, that is, in secrecy, fearful he might be discovered. In John 9.4 Jesus says, “we must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work” and in 11.10, “but those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.” In John 21.3, before the risen Jesus had appeared to the disciples, Peter said he was going fishing. We’re told that “they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.”

You see, the night is for secrecy and stumbling and when nothing good happens. That is the night into which Judas tried to escape. John says it was night not to tell us the time of day but to indicate the condition of Judas’ soul. Night had overtaken that poor disciple’s soul. So let’s ponder Judas for a few minutes tonight.

Judas Iscariot is identified as the betrayer of Jesus in all four gospels.[2] But John’s Gospel paints him in especially sinister colors. Earlier in John, Jesus himself calls him “a devil” among the apostles (6.70-7l) and John is the only one who tells us that Judas was in charge of the common purse from which he pilfered money (12.1-6; 13.29).

All the Gospels tell how Judas led a band of Roman soldiers to arrest Jesus. In Matthew (26.49), Mark (14.45), and Luke (22.47), he identifies Jesus for the authorities by kissing him. Only Matthew mentions the thirty pieces of silver paid by the chief priests for the betrayal (26.15). Matthew alone recounts Judas’s “repentance” and then suicide by hanging (27.3-10). According to Acts (1.16-20) Judas died, apparently unrepentant, having purchased with his thirty pieces of silver a plot of land called “Hakeldama,” (which means “field of blood”) where “falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out.”

That’s about all we know of Judas from the scriptures themselves. But there has been no end of reflection on Judas down through the centuries.

Some of the early Christian theologians,[3] refer to a book called the Gospel of Judas. There were no surviving copies of that book until just a year ago this week when a recently discovered manuscript was published. Remember all the fuss about that last year?[4] Some said it contradicted everything about Christianity. But we know the Gospel of Judas was written at least 150 years after Judas died. It does portray him, however, as the enlightened secret agent of Christ. Judas’ “treachery” foiled the evil designs of demonic powers called the “Archons” who wanted to prevent the salvation of humankind. In other words, the Archons didn’t want Christ to die and bring salvation. So they were trying to prevent his death but Judas foiled them.

But most writers assert that Judas was driven by avarice and betrayed Christ of his own free will. All too often repugnance at his actions has become repugnance towards Jewish people. To its abiding shame the Church has often tolerated anti-semitism, much of which was associated with Judas. (Anti-semitism is ungodly and unchristian and must be resisted in every way possible.) It was commonplace in medieval times to associate the name and character of the avaricious and traitorous “Judas” with the name and qualities of the “Jew.” Even back in the fourth century, according to St. Jerome (348-420) who was one of the great Bible translators, “The Jews take their name, not from that Judah who was a holy man, but from the betrayer. From the former, we [Christians] are spiritual Jews; from the traitor come the carnal Jews.”[5] That is a damnable lie and there is no truth in it whatsoever. But it shows what people thought and too many still do.

In the Middle Ages, a writing called the Voyage of St. Brendan (ca. 1121) includes an elaborate account of the meeting between the saint and Judas. The biblical traitor describes in detail his torments in hell and explains that he is granted respite on certain Sundays of the year as a reward for small acts of charity he had performed. Judas’s piteous laments, Brendan’s grief, and the terrible torments which Judas describes are intended to evoke sympathy for Judas, or at least to teach a terrifying object lesson.

There is no sympathy in Dante’s Inferno. In the ninth circle of hell Dante gives Judas pride of place in a trio of traitors which also includes Brutus and Cassius.[6] Judas’s feet dangle while his head and upper torso are chewed eternally by the front mouth of Lucifer’s three faces. It may be the most gruesome image in all of literature.

In a nineteenth-century version of the St. Brendan legend (1860), Matthew Arnold describes St. Brendan as sailing near the north pole on Christmas Eve. He comes upon a red-haired Judas with “furtive mien” and “scowling eye” sitting atop an iceberg. Judas tells Brendan how every Christmas he is granted an hour’s respite from the flames of hell because he once gave his cloak to a leper.

And the figure of Judas comes right down to our own day. Twenty-five years ago Norman Mailer wrote The Executioner’s Song (1980) which tells of Gary Gilmore, the confessed murderer, the first person to be executed after the death penalty was resumed in the United States. In Mailer’s book, when one of the lawyers said, “I feel like Judas helping you get executed,” Gilmore replied, “Judas was the most bum-beefed man in history.” Judas knew what was going down, Gilmore said. Judas was there to help Jesus tune into prophecy. In other words, Jesus wasn’t bad enough to suffer. Judas had to help him and ought to get some credit for that. So thought Gary Gilmore.

Still the stories continue. “The Last Days of Judas Iscariot” is a play by Stephen Adly Guirgis staged in many theaters around the country last year. The play asks an earnest question. If God is truly all-forgiving, why was Judas condemned for his betrayal and subsequent suicide? Playwright Guirgis set his play in a courtroom called “Downtown Purgatory,” the place where troubled souls wait (sometimes for a very long time) to be permanently assigned to either Heaven or Hell. According to the reviews I read, what is really on trial in the play are the audience reactions to Judas. In the show’s closing monologue, a member of Judas’ jury compares his own marital betrayals with Judas’ betrayal of Jesus. And the juror delivers this speech while standing between Judas and Jesus. The play ends with questions hanging in the air. Does Jesus forgive Judas? Should he? Should we?[7]

Which brings us to what we say about Judas. It’s one thing to read what fiction says or even what the Bible says. But the more important question is what we say. Because whatever evil he did, he has become a Rorschach test where we see our own sense of evil and betrayal. Judas has become the dark side of ourselves. We don’t like to look at him just as there are things we don’t like to look at in ourselves. But there he is in the text and in fiction and we cannot look away.

You see, Judas’ betrayal served as a painful reminder to the early Christians of the ever-present possibility of disloyalty and betrayal even within the community of faith. Judas was a reminder that believers should never cease asking, “Lord, who is it? Is it I?” And that’s why painting Judas in villainous colors misses the point of the text. If Judas were undisguised evil, then Jesus would not have had to point him out nor would the other disciples have misunderstood.

In fact, if Judas were perfect evil, his act would not have been so ugly. The painful truth is that Jesus called Judas and he had participated in all the benefits of belonging to Jesus’ inner circle. The text gives no indication of the disciples having any suspicion. So maybe Judas is in the text because the gospel writers and the early church knew that to understand Judas is to understand the dark side of ourselves.[8] Maybe the dark side is what we least understand.

What is the dark side? It’s when we would leave the presence of Jesus. That was Judas’ sad fate. He had set himself on a course in which he could not remain in the presence of the Lord. So when Jesus said, “do quickly what you are going to do” Judas had no choice but to leave Jesus’ presence. That took him outside the influence of grace.

The dark side would be the same thing for us. The worst thing is not that we sin. The worst thing is should we ever come to the point where we don’t think we do sin or don’t think we need God. To stay in the presence of Jesus and ask always “Lord, is it I?” is be open to grace. That’s why in almost every worship service there are elements of confession. Confession keeps us open to grace. It’s only when we stop confessing that our souls enter the dark of night.

Is there a Judas in us? Yes, in everyone. But if we understand this it will be for our blessing because, instead of fleeing the presence of Jesus, we turn ever more to him and seek his mercy, trusting that our Lord is eternally ready to forgive. Thanks be to God.

[1] John 13.30: So, after receiving the piece of bread, he immediately went out. And it was night. [labw»n ou™n to\ ywmi÷on e˙kei√noß e˙xhvlqen eujqu/ß. h™n de« nu/x.]

[2] David Lyle Jeffrey, ed., A Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1992) 418-420. All the literary references are from this most useful volume.

[3] For example, St. Irenaeus (130-200), Tertullian (160-220), and St. Epiphanius (315-403).

[4] John Dart, “Judas text adds to ‘secret’ lore,” The Christian Century, 2 May 2006.

[5] Jeffrey, 418.

[6] Both betrayers of Julius Caesar.

[7] Matthew Murray, “Talkin’ Broadway Off-Broadway,” www.talkinbroadway.com/ob/03_02_05.html, Internet, 27 Mar. 2007.

[8] Fred B. Craddock, John H. Hayes, Carl R. Holladay, and Gene M. Tucker, Preaching the New Common Lectionary, Year A Lent, Holy Week, Easter (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1986) 108.