Judas

I've heard many people talk about Judas in different ways.  His name is synonymous with betrayal, even outside of Christian circles. Teachings on him range across the spectrum. But most tend toward decidedly negative.

Here's the thing that doesn't make sense to me though.  God chose him.  It couldn't be otherwise, and Jesus actually says that.  He also says that he was doomed for destruction.  He says it would be better for him not to have been born.  Really!  This is Jesus talking.  The guy who picked up the adulterer and turned away the people who would kill her for her faults.  The friend of drunkards and traitors.  Now he's saying this guy is less than dust?  Doomed by God to the worst fate of any human ever?


OK.  So some people reason around that by saying it was Judas' free will.  He could have chosen otherwise.  So what we're seeing in Jesus' statements is his foreknowledge.  But Judas could have chosen another path, and didn't.  So he's up the creek on his own account.

But then, what about forgiveness.  Just like the adulterer.  Am I to believe that one particular act could so define my eternal existence that I could be the most pitied soul in the universe?  What kind of pressure is that?  Good God, there's no hope for me, then!  Sure, I've never had the opportunity to turn God Incarnate over to a tortuous death...but I would have!  I've mocked. I've turned away.  I've outright refused him as much to his face as I can get in this world.  Yet I know in my deep places the feeling of peace and forgiveness I receive from God.  Why doesn't Judas get the same from the unchanging God?

No, I would argue that he does.  I don't know Judas.  I could speculate on his personality and motives.  Many have.  But that's all pure fiction.  We don't know.  He could have been a misguided zealot, an addict who couldn't control himself, or Satan's own henchman.  None of which would entirely be his own fault, and thereby giving God some responsibility for his creation with whatever neuro-chemical damage he may have had.  I don't know.  But the only way I can make sense of it is to remember that God is love.  Jesus exemplifies forgiveness.  Whatever the reason, Judas played a pivotal role in history and one that none of us in our right minds would want.  (Sure if you don't believe Jesus was who he claimed to be, you might think differently, but we're not redefining the story here.  We're taking it as it is presented.  So if you're one of those people, pretend you aren't for a second and stay with my thinking long enough to get my point.)  So I don't think Jesus is condemning him.  I think he's pitying him.

Nothing fits these facts better than the model of a father, which conveniently, pervades the Bible.  No good father wants his children to experience pain, to be sick, etc.  But some kids are not well.  Some make terrible choices that impact themselves and others.  Some are given hard fates that must be dealt with.  But through it all, a father wants to protect and heal his children.  Even through grievous self-chosen wrong.  What father wouldn't put his kid through rehab to get him clean?  Even as he screams and cries for more of the poison.  Or worse, who wouldn't bash his kid over the head if he was caught in the act of a rape?  You'd still love and pity that kid, want to get them help, but that hurt needs to happen.  If you think you'd just disown them, that's still proves my point.  Sometimes the pain is so great you have to turn away and leave the kid to their own mess for a while.

So it's clear to me that Judas is not to be envied.  But he stands to me as the epitomy of what our faith is about.  And I would not be in the least surprised to find he has a very special and protected place in deep in the bosom of God where he can heal and be free of unwarranted pain.  If this is not so, then like Paul, I say we Christians are to be pitied above all men.