Monday, March 23

Scripture: Matthew 27:3-7
Then when Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he changed his mind and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders,  saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” They said, “What is that to us? See to it yourself.” And throwing down the pieces of silver into the temple, he departed, and he went and hanged himself. But the chief priests, taking the pieces of silver, said, “It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, since it is blood money.” So they took counsel and bought with them the potter's field as a burial place for strangers.

BEYOND OUR OWN MAKING

I think the story of Judas scares many of us.

It brings up such hard questions—why did Judas betray Christ? Why does God’s plan for redemption include this horrific betrayal? Why didn’t Judas, in his remorse, return to Jesus?

There’s much we don’t know about Judas Iscariot. Interpreters even argue about the meaning of his name. We don’t know why he handed Jesus over, but some suggest it was because Jesus was not who Judas wanted him to be. Judas, probably a Zealot, would have been hoping for a military messiah to rise up against the Roman colonizing forces.

A colonizing force seems like such an obvious evil to overthrow: Judas’ desire is such a human desire. As infamous as Judas may be, we can see ourselves in his potential confusion and anger—Jesus was not saving the way he should be saving, not lording the way he should be lording.

And yet, Judas realized his mistake. Edward Armitage’s Remorse of Judas sears with the agony of such a realization—sears our own hearts with an agony. For what times have we—in our arrogance, our clinging to shame—missed God as well?

Though we are centuries removed, Judas’ despair unsettles and scares us. The shadow of his heinous decision strikes our hearts with coldness. But why? He betrayed Christ—he is cursed with his sad death! . . . But there is still that unsettling, that ache around the edges of this passage.

I think it is because we recognize this danger of being so lost in ourselves that we lose Jesus. We live life, or portions of it, in drawn-out treachery; choosing again and again some god who does not love unconditionally, who only offers ease and happiness, who has little hope for us. We miss Christ, and something great breaks when this happens.

The sadness in the face of Jesus in Andrey Mironov’s The Treachery of Judas alludes to this. The way Judas leans against Christ, with affection, protection, hypocrisy and ill-intent—all these attitudes mixed together, all under that haunting face of Christ—compels us to question our own hearts’ entourage of worship and treachery.

Some of the ‘yes’ to following God operates because we want God to act in certain ways, to be a certain God. We massage and manipulate the image of God made in our own desires, using a program of ‘faith’ to camouflage the hunger for control. What room remains in the heart for the God beyond our making?

Like John, Thomas and Peter sing in Rob Gardner’s “Is It I, Lord?” we too can ask, Is it I who betrays you? Do we really know, as we look into the mirror or gaze at our hands in prayer, that nowhere in us is the propensity to deny God the reality of who he is?

But grace is at work. Grace can help us dismantle our own designs of the Grace-giver. 

And the result is not just ruin to our little kingdoms—no, it is much greater: we come to know even more fully, even more deeply, the wondrous Presence of our Savior and King.

Lent offers the painful yet exquisite time to peer into our own god-designs. We can ask God to start dismantling our self-centered expectations of Him, so that we can experience his beautifying redemption evermore fully. Here we can remember that we are, like Judas, but dust, in need of a Savior beyond our own making.

PRAYER 
O Savior and Lord,
I don’t want to betray you,
because I believed somehow
you’ve betrayed me.

I want to trust you
more than my designs of you.

Inspect my heart—
show me how I am
willfully and unwittingly
missing you.

Search me, O God, and know my heart;
Try me and know my thoughts.
See if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.

Lead me, Lord, unto you. Amen.

Jessica Brown, Graduate Student, Institute of Spiritual Formation