Today we hear of the betrayal of our Lord at the hand of Judas, and by the kiss of Judas.
And it’s easy to pull out of this text nothing but negative examples of what not to do (do not do _ X) and / or exhortations to be faithful to Christ (therefore do _ X)
BUT – just because something is easy does not mean it’s true, or good, or helpful, good news.
Something else is here in these texts. Something is here in the Gospel Reading for Holy Wednesday, and it’s, good news, if only we have the ears to hear it.
So, without further ado, let us hear it.
We begin this way, earlier in John 13; starting at the very first verse. It was now just before the time of the passover (that is, it was just now the time for Him to fulfill what was foretold, foreshadowed, and pregiured of Him in the O.T. passover by dying as a sacrifical substitute for the forigveness of our sins that we mgiht by his blood be made clean). That time had now come. And Jesus knew that along with this, so also came the hour for Him to pass from this world to the Father. He knew that it was soon His time to die, and to become, by His death the fulfillment and fullness of the passover and of the sacrifice. And now at this time, John tells us, He did something to show His love for the world before He left it.
For He had always loved those who were in the world, but now He would show those whom He loved just how perfectly full and complete His love was for them. That there was nothing He would not do for them. And that there was nothing they could themselves do, to make Him abandon them.
What follows then, is the washing of the feet, and the institution of Holy Communion. And these two things, truly they show a great love. For these two things,
in the washing of the feet, we see Jesus approach the dirties part of His disciples, and to clean them. To see them at their messiest and to restore them to purity in love. And in doing so, and in the way He does it to show them this, He lowers Himself below the status of a slave.
In the institution of Holy Communion, He shows us that He will go even further than the point of a slave for those He loves. Because in that most holy of holy meals, our Lord declares that He now gives us His flesh and blood, given and shed (through death) for the forgiveness of our sins. And those sins, are sins that we did against Him.
And in the midst of this all , keep in mind, please, He knows. He knows what these disciples are and He knows who they are. He knows that they do, what they think, and how they feel. And He knows Judas too. He knows that Judas has been keeping the money for a long time. He knows also that Judas has fallen into the temptation of stealing from that money. And He knows also, that Satan, the devil, the temepter, the accuser has put into the mind of Judas that He might betray Him.
And how this came about is really no mystery. For money is the root of all evil. Money is this grip of temptation. And form that source of temptaiton comes a shift in our affections. A shift in our hope. A shift in our love and our faith and our fear.
For as we confess in the LC on the 1st commandment, what is it to have a god? A “god” is the term for that to which we are to look for all good and in which we are to find refuge in all need. Therefore, to have a god is nothing else than to trust and believe in that one with your whole heart. Anything on which your heart relies and depends, I say, that is really your God.
And so it was for Judas – handling the money, being around the money, then came the temptation. And how could it not? Who will know, if I take just a little bit of money? Who will see? What affect will it really have?
Greed really – was Judas’ sin.
And so, dealing with this money, handling this money he began to steal the money.
And maybe we begin to wonder at this point – but didn’t He know that He was a disciple of the Christ? Didn’t He know that He was in the company of the Messiah? Of God Himself?
To which I say, – and don’t you know that you are too? Don’t you know that christ is with you, that Christ is in you, and that you are, as Christians, and as the church part of the body of Christ? That you are the New Temple of God, made up of living stones in whom HE dwells? That you are indwelt by the Holy Spirit? Do you not know that you eat the very flesh and drink the very blood of Christ?
And yet you still sin. And yet you still betray Him. And perhaps you say that your sin was not handing Jesus over to be crucified. And yet truly, He was crucified for your sins.
And so we look at Judas and we use Him as a scape goat, if you will. Judas the one who turned His back on Jesus – forgetting that each and every one of the disciples had fled by the end, and at the cross itself, of the male disciples, only John the beloved apostle was present. And yet we look at Judas as this one who is afflicted by Satan and his demons. And yet we look at Judas as though he alone is the one who lacked faith in Christ or who failed to love Christ or who failed to obey Christ. When all the while we do the very same things ourselves. Truly we are hypocrites ourselves are we not.
Just as Satan put the thought in Judas’ mind to betray Him, so also Satan and his demons afflict us also. If not with money then with sloth. If not with sloth, then with anger. If not with anger, then with pride. If not with pride, then with lust.
But no matter what it is, it is something. And yet even still He loves us. Even still Jesus washes His feet. Even still, Jesus gives Him His flesh for the forgiveness of sins. And even still – Jesus LETS HIM betray Him, so that the prophecy might be fulfilled – and so that He might die that death. And here’s the kicker – that death He died was not just for you. And that death He died was not just for me.
For let me ask you this one question, if I may, and because I must – did the death of Christ not take for Judas? Did Judas have a different human nature than we do? One that Christ didn’t take on? Or did Christ die for Him too. Did Christ redeem Him too? Did Christ forgive Him too?
And so in this way Judas serves really as a type of the Jews. And as a placeholder for the pharisees. For just as we look at those pharisee and those Jews and say AH – how is it, that these Jews who had the Word of God? And these Jews who were raised in those scriptures and the Jewish festival year, making sacrifices to YHWH, and Hearing of His love, from the living Word of the Holy Scriptures– and yet when they actually meet that God face to face, when they meet that living Word made flesh they reject Him? For He came to His own – John tells us in the very first chapter of His Gospel, and His own knew Him not. And surely, Judas at one point thought this of his Jewish brethren, yet he too, and in an even greater way fell also, into temptation, into the forsaking of Christ His Lord. And into unbelief. For though they had heard the written Word, Judas had walked with, lived with, and been a friend of the living Word made flesh. And yet He – yet even He – in the end, even in receiving Him, ended up betraying Him, and forsaking Him, and abandoning Him, – as did ALL of His disciples.
And this is the great love that Christ shows for us.
That even knowing this, and knowing what that we are all in our own way little Judas’, that He loves us still.
That even though He knows who we are, what we’ve done, and what we’re going to do , again , and again, and again – He remains present to us, with us and for us.
Knowing who we are, and what we are, and even what we will never be – He loves us anyways. He washes the dirties parts of us anyways, He lowers Himself under us, and below us, and becomes our sin for us, in order to wash us and make us clean, through the death He died for us, the death He know – in His Holy Supper, continually feeds us.
This – and this alone, is the Holy Gospel of our Lord.
This – and this alone, the Good news of God’s love for you, that you cannot lose.
IN the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
