Wednesday of Holy Week 2024
John 13:21-32
I have never cared to linger on this passage about Judas. I do not like to think about betraying Jesus. I don’t like to think about Judas, you, or me betraying Jesus. This passage is not where I want to hang out. It makes me uneasy. I want to quickly move past.
I prefer to think about Peter’s denial. Peter denied Jesus three times. But at a post-resurrection breakfast on the beach, Peter has the chance to say, “Lord, you know that I love you.” And Christ entrusts his ministry to him, saying three times: “feed my sheep” (John 21:15-17). Peter’s relationship with Jesus is reconciled. Peter’s story is resolved.
But we do not get that with Judas.
What we heard just now in the gospel is an awful, catalytic moment. Followed by the curtain drop: “And it was night.”
Our final glimpse of Judas is this:
“So Judas brought a detachment of soldiers together with police from the chief priests and the Pharisees, and they came there with lanterns and torches and weapons. Then Jesus, knowing all that was to happen to him, came forward and asked them, ‘For whom are you looking?’ They answered, ‘Jesus of Nazareth.’ Jesus replied, ‘I am he.’ Judas, who betrayed him, was standing with them” (John 18:3-5).
Judas was standing with the soldiers.
Who would take Jesus away.
And we do not hear of Judas again. Only Matthew’s gospel shares the detail of Judas taking his life afterwards.
There’s no post-resurrection breakfast on the beach for Judas. His story is sad, dark, ambivalent, and unresolved.
What do we do with that? And all that is sad, dark, ambivalent, and unresolved in our lives and the lives of others?
Well, we sit with it. As uncomfortable as it is. Sit with it and watch God’s story unfold. We know how this story goes. We know how it ends. And perhaps, as we sit with Judas a little longer today, we might see how all in our lives that mirrors Judas … and all that is sad, dark, ambivalent, and unresolved … is ultimately swept up in Christ’s much bigger saving act.
Redeemed.
Transformed.
Turned to light.
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Image above: Koenig, Peter. Judas’ Kiss, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=58534[retrieved March 27, 2024]. Original source: Peter Winfried (Canisius) Koenig, https://www.pwkoenig.co.uk/.
Seeking & Finding 