Judas has captured my attention the past few weeks. As I have read and reread the story of Jesus telling Judas that he is the one who will betray the Son of God, I am struck with an admiration for Judas. I don’t admire his willingness to give up his Master to people that would want to kill him. I don’t admire his deceptive thoughts as it related to taking money to give up a man. I admire his willingness to do anything for the cause that he was committed to.
Judas the Rebel
Judas, prior to following Jesus for the three years of his life was part of the rebellion again the Roman Empire. Rome had suffocated Israel for centuries with their high taxation rate, physical oppression, and operational slavery. From a young age, Judas was part of a group of people that sought to overthrow the Roman Empire or at least move them out of Israel so that the Jewish community could live at peace. There are authors and historians far brighter than me who write about his activity in this rebellious sect. He was a killer of men. He was a brilliant mind filled with activism and dreams. He was a warrior for a cause, against a giant. Judas was a badass in the rebellion and knew that God had promised Israel freedom from this season. And that would come in the form of a Savior who was being prophesied about, by a wild man named John the Baptist.
Put yourself in Judas shoes for just a moment. For your entire life, you have been raised to hate the Roman Empire. You have been trained to fight against the ‘man’ and to have hopes and dreams of revolt and ultimately victory. One day, you discover that there is one that is being talked about as the Savior of the World. He would be coming in power, in authority, and with strength. This is the warrior that you need, if you are Judas, to overcome the odds that have been presented to you.
You finally meet Jesus and immediately, you see the potential that this man has to be an asset to the army. He performs miracles. He heals the sick, makes the blind man see, raises men from the dead, and the wind and sea obey him. He seemingly has control over all things and people follow him for these reasons. He begins to attract multitudes that gather around him, potential rebels that could help to defeat the Romans that have been diminishing your quality of life for year. Jesus asks you to follow him. You are more than obliged to do the will of a man with such potential. You are willing to oversee the books for the cause because you have that skill set. You are willing to oversee the weaponry that is stocked for the cause. You are willing to go ahead and make a way for Jesus into towns and cities, so he can gain notoriety and followers.
You’ll do anything for the sake of the cause.
Disappointment with God
Personally, I have wrestled with disappointment with God for the better half of my adult life. I was a Pastor at a local church where I had hopes and dreams of God doing amazing things. Maybe he would allow our church to reach hundreds of people, thousands of people, for the sake of the gospel. Maybe he would use our church to create a revival in our city. Maybe he would use our church to plant tens of churches into our city, allowing people to find Jesus over and over again. None of this happened. My experience was one of disappointment, regret, and dulled expectations of God, as I worked in the local church.
I wonder if this was Judas’ experience as he followed Jesus. Sure, he was part of the miracles that Jesus performed as he saw them first hand, right in front of him. He was part of the daily grind that Jesus and his followers went through. But he was also a part of the teaching moments that Jesus presented to his disciples. And these teaching moments didn’t exactly line up with the cause that Judas was excited about. In fact, Jesus seemed to teach forgiveness over everything. He seemed to teach peace over war. And he was clearly not on the direct warpath with Rome. Jesus even made the statement that Rome should receive the taxes that were theirs, rightfully, from the Jewish people. This would surely be heard as heresy to Judas.
The sense of disappointment and disillusionment that Judas possessed must have been crushing. He may have felt trapped. He may have been bitter. The bible obviously doesn’t tell us what Judas heart was in the moments leading up to the betrayal of Jesus. The authors that write about his betrayal assume the position of Judas’ heart was bent against Jesus. And it seems that was the case.
In Luke 22, we find that the religious leaders were sought out by Judas. He knew that they were also disillusioned with Jesus and even threatened by Jesus. He found like mindedness with these men. They offered to give Judas money for the situational arrest of Jesus. And Judas took that money. He took today’s equivalent of $3,ooo to betray the man that he was following. There are so many questions that come out of this betrayal that have been debated for centuries.
- Did Judas take the money because he needed it?
- What does it mean when the bible says that “Satan entered Judas?” (Luke 22:3)
- Did Judas have a choice to not betray Jesus, since Jesus had already predicted this? (John 13:17-18)
- After Judas betrayed Jesus, killed himself, and the deed was done, did Judas go to hell?
I wonder if Judas saw his act of betrayal as a way to force Jesus’ hand. He would be put on trial, and have to save himself from the merciless punishment of the people that hated him the most. It would put on display the power that Judas knew Jesus possessed and put Jesus in a position where he would have to exercise dominance and control over a situation. It would win him followers, thus winning the rebellion followers and would highlight Jesus as the true political Savior that Judas assumed Jesus to be.
When Judas discovered that Jesus was going to be meek in his trials, he may have found no other solace, than to take his own life. His cause was ruined. His Master was ruined. And he was the sole cause of both, in his own mind.
Judas: Disciple of Satan or Jesus?
I don’t know all of the answers to the questions above. There are people who have carefully deconstructed these texts and offer suggestions to each of them. One thing I know for certain, if Judas did go to hell, for either betraying Jesus or killing himself, I know that most of us don’t have any chance of avoiding the same fate. In some way or another, all of us have committed the atrocity that we find Judas committing in the garden of Gethsemane. We have betrayed Jesus for far less than $3,000. We have all done things that have gone outside of Jesus’ plan for our lives, in an effort to further what we think is the best plan of action. Many of us have been on the precipice of taking our own lives, because the outlook to the rest of the life that we have to live is so bleak.
My disillusionment and disappointment with God all came from expectations that I had of God that were ill founded. I thought that my version of how things should happen were the best version of what could happen. God’s version is often very different. When “Satan entered Judas” there are some commentators who point out that this could be a reference to the spirit of Satan, who wanted to be like God in the early days of creation, and was cast out of heaven, for trying to control things that only God could control. Maybe Judas was not actually indwelt by Satan himself, but took on the spirit of Satan that wanted to be like God. He wanted to control things that were not his to control. He wanted to see his own cause come to fruition. And this was outside of the bounds of God’s plan.
In my own life, I can look back and see all of the times that I have failed to live inside of the bounds of God’s control, instead taking it upon myself to be “God” in the situations that I was in. I betrayed Jesus, sold him for a sum of money, and hoped that my actions would bring about the resolution to whatever cause I was carrying at the time. Clearly, the spirit of Satan had entered me.
Today, I know that I am Child of God regardless of what spirit I am operating in. I rest in the fact that I cannot control the things that God has to control (or really much of anything) and that God has it. I resonate with Judas and see many Judas-like moments in my own life. God had Judas in his grasp. I believe Judas is present in God’s Kingdom. And I think that the story of Judas is more about our own everyday experience with Jesus, than we care to admit.
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