This morning we continue our series of messages
The Way of the Cross, which will take
us through the season of Lent.
Today we come to one of the most infamous
events in all of Scripture – the betrayal of Jesus by Judas, one of his twelve
disciples. How does it happen that
a man who ministered with Jesus for three years could betray him into the hands
of his executors?
We read from Luke’s telling of this story,
22:1-6; 47-48 –
1 Now the
Festival of Unleavened Bread, called the Passover, was approaching,
2 and the chief
priests and the teachers of the law were looking for some way to get rid of
Jesus, for they were afraid of the people.
3 Then Satan
entered Judas, called Iscariot, one of the Twelve.
4 And Judas went
to the chief priests and the officers of the temple guard and discussed with
them how he might betray Jesus.
5 They were
delighted and agreed to give him money.
6 He consented,
and watched for an opportunity to hand Jesus over to them when no crowd was
present.
47 While he was
still speaking a crowd came up, and the man who was called Judas, one of the
Twelve, was leading them. He approached Jesus to kiss him,
48 but Jesus asked
him, “Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?”
When I moved to Louisville in 1981 one of my
first tasks was to get a post office box.
I went to the post office, got my box, and quickly found something
rather surprising. My middle name
is Paul. I’m David Paul
Charlton. Originally, my parents
were going to name me Paul David, but changed their minds at the last
minute. I don’t know how to
calculate these odds, but the person who had that same post office box before
me was named Paul David Charlton.
It was quite difficult to get things sorted out with the post office
when they confused our mail.
In the Scriptures, particularly the Old Testament, names are very
important. A person’s name told
something about them, such as their character, or even their calling in life.
Abraham, for instance, was originally named Abram, which means father. In Genesis 17:5 we read Abram
fell facedown, and God said to him, “As for me, this is my covenant with
you: You will be the father of
many nations. No longer will you
be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of
many nations.” Abraham means father
of many, so when God changed the name of Abram to Abraham, it was an
important reminder that Abraham would be the father not only of a nation, but
also a spiritual father for all who would come after him in following God in
faith.
When Isaac, the son of Abraham and Sarah was born, his name was
symbolic of the reaction of Abraham to the news that he and Sarah would have a
child – he laughed (“I will bless her and will surely give you a
son by her. I will bless her so
that she will be the mother of nations; kings of people will come to her.” Abraham fell facedown, he laughed and
said to himself, “Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old. Will Sarah bear a child at the age of
ninety?” – Genesis 17:16-17).
Isaac means he laughs. The name is representative of Abraham’s
laughter, certainly, but also, perhaps, that God laughs in the face of
humanity’s many doubts about what he is able to accomplish.
When Isaac and Rebekah have twin sons they are named Jacob and
Esau. Esau is the older son, and
when he is born Jacob, the younger, is holding onto the heel of his
brother. The name Jacob means to grasp by the heel and supplant, to
deceive. Jacob becomes known
as one who practices a great deal of deception throughout his life, so his name
predicts his character.
Think about this – how many people do you know who are named
Judas? Anyone? I doubt it. The name Judas carries such an incredible level of infamy
that it has fallen almost completely out of usage.
Ironically, Judas is the Greek name for the common Hebrew name
Judah, which means, God is praised. How in the world could God ever be
praised through the life and actions of Judas?
We know the story of Judas’ betrayal of Jesus. He received thirty pieces of silver
from the leaders of the religious establishment for delivering Jesus into their
hands so they could put him on trial and then hand him over to the Romans. It wasn’t that Jesus was hard to find,
but the religious leaders wanted to arrest Jesus out of the view of the crowd
in order to avoid a riot.
So why did Judas betray Jesus?
After walking with Jesus for approximately three years, how is it that
Judas could perform such a terrible act of betrayal? Not to excuse his actions in any way, certainly, but it is
worth considering what Judas hoped to accomplish in this act. We cannot enter the mind and heart of
Judas to understand his actions, but we can speculate a bit. There was a financial motive – thirty
pieces of silver, which was a good deal of money – but I don’t think Judas was
acting out of greed. I
believe, instead, that Judas saw himself as acting in the interests of Jesus,
as strange as that might sound, in one of two ways. I believe that Judas was, perhaps, trying to force Jesus
into accepting the mantle of a political Messiah, which Jesus refused. Judas was no lover of Rome, and was
probably like most of his fellow countrymen – he would have loved to see Jesus
unite the people in revolt against Rome.
When Jesus refused to take this role, and when Judas saw what he had
unleashed by having Jesus arrested, his grief led him to suicide. The other reason for Judas’ betrayal of
Jesus might have been to protect him, as strange as that sounds. Judas was certainly aware that the
religious authorities were out to destroy Jesus. By conspiring to have the Romans arrest Jesus, Judas might
believe Jesus would be placed in custody for a brief period of time – most
likely long enough to get beyond the time of Passover and all the tension
present in Jerusalem during that festival. Judas believed, perhaps, that the
Romans would interrogate Jesus, come to the conclusion that he was innocent of
any crimes against Rome, and release him, freeing Jesus and his disciples to
leave Jerusalem and go into the safer territory of the surrounding
countryside. Again, none of this
is meant to justify the actions of Judas, but it does explain the amount of
grief that drove him to suicide.
Judas is a tragic example of how we can fail to live up to who we
are called to be. Judas carried a
name that meant God should be praised.
Instead of praising God through his actions, however, Judas betrayed
God, and not in some generic manner, but by betraying the very Son of God into
the hands of his captors and eventual executors.
We carry the name of Christ in our lives – we are Christians. We bear the name of Christ and we represent the name of
Christ. We are called to represent
him in our words, our actions, and our values.
Lent is a season that asks us to take very seriously the fact that
we carry the name of Christ, because if the Bible shows us anything about human
nature it is this – we are very easily deceived by temptation and the primary
temptation we face is to abandon who we have been called to be, which is the
root of the temptations Jesus faced in the wilderness.
Temptation doesn’t always come in an obvious form; sometimes it
comes disguised as something that seems the right thing to do. We see this from the very beginning, in
the story of Adam and Eve, when the serpent twists the truth in a manner that
made his temptation seem like not only the correct choice, but the obvious
choice (Genesis 2:4 – 3:24). In
the Gospels, Peter believed he was acting in the right manner when he attempted
to prevent Jesus from going to Jerusalem, but Jesus rebuked him and said, Get behind me Satan! (Matthew 16:21-23). Peter believed he was acting in a way
as to help Jesus, when he was in actuality standing in the way of Jesus’
mission. The danger of temptation
is that it whispers in our ear in a way that makes some measure of sense. If temptation was always obvious, it
would not be able to get a foothold in our lives, but it finds its way into our
hearts and minds by using just enough of the truth to appear to make sense and appear
to be the correct path.
The antidote is to see the manner in which Jesus conducted himself,
especially in the Garden of Gethsemane, at the time of the betrayal. Jesus always remained true to who he
was. Always. It didn’t matter what was happening
around him or what was happening to him; Jesus always remained true to who he
was. A person with the ability to
live in such a way is very rare indeed; in fact, I would make the point that Jesus
is the only one ever to truly accomplish such a feat.
And even more amazingly, Jesus allowed people to make their own
choice, even Judas.
We can’t control what people will do, and God
chooses not to control them. Judas
had a choice, and he made his choice.
Everybody makes some choice when it comes to the role Jesus will play in
their life.
The Garden asks that we choose carefully. May we make a choice that allows us to live up to the name of Christ
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