so I’ve been extremely inspired by outside sources lately. I love new ideas and concepts… so again, here are some words that i did not write, but that are very thought provoking.
Judas…”a hard hearted man who never accorded jesus a higher title than ‘rabbi’ in three years as a member of His inner core. Never once did judas iscariot call jesus ‘Lord’”
“How would Judas Iscariot have responded to the resurrection of Jesus Christ? Of course, we can never know, but we can wonder, and there are some interesting clues in scripture as to what might have happened next. Matthew tells us that, prior to his suicide, judas was ’seized with remorse’ (27:3). He ran to the priests declaring, ‘i have sinned, i have betrayed innocent blood,’ hoping there might still be some way to undo the deed. do we dare describe these words as a confession of sin?
Judas then tried to return the blood money, flinging those thirty, dirty silver coins at the feet of the priests and fleeing in anguish. is this repentance, or just the demented regret of a desperate man?
The priests, not wanting to be tarnished with dirty money, use the refunded coins to purchase a field as a cemetery for foreigners. And this is where-deliberately or by bitter coincidence, we cannot be for sure from biblical accounts- judas chose to kill himself by hanging.
he had committed a sin greater than any other in the scale of its consequence. everything seemed hopeless. what does a man think, what does he do, having betrayed the Lord to a tortured death for the price of a field? fr judas, there was no escaping the awful horror of his own heart. no future. and so, in the darkest despair, he hung himself.
but what if he had waited a weekend? thats all that would have been needed. i love to imagine jesus on easter morning deliberately seeking out the disciple more lost than any other. perhaps now, at last, he might be found! when judas first sees jesus, i imagine him wondering how this tumult of madness could now be conjuring up the rabbi in his tortured mind. slowly jesus approaches, but judas is frozen in disbelief. closer. closer. jesus unbearably close-so close now that judas can feel his breath on his cheeck. and then it happens: Jesus greets judas.
with a kiss.
he is carrying three questions for peter. He has scars to show Thomas. but first, a kiss for judas.
and some time within those moments, i imagine two words- jsut two- being exchanged very quietly between the men. Jesus looks deeply into the unblinking eyes of his betrayer, who is too dumbstruck even to avert his gaze in shame. and then he utters a single syllable, upon which eternity will surely swing. Jesus whispers:
“friend.”
do you hear the echo? it was another day, another kiss, perhaps another judas, too. but, in the garden that night, jesus had greeted his betrayer in just the same way. “friend,” he had said, “do what you came for.” and judas had done it, and he had not been able to undo it. and jesus had been to hell and back as a result. and now he is standing here, impossibly, greeting judas again, his heart unchanged for the twelfth of his deciples:”friend.” he, too, had done what he came for.
the sound of that word somehow echoes to reach judas, lost as he is in another eternity. he hears the greeting. he feels the breath. life to dust. ashes to embers. a kiss for a curse. as if slowly waking from a nightmare, judas iscariot replies to his victim, the victor, with a single word, surely more meaningful than we can ever know:
“Lord.”
it’s a whisper, barely audible. and yet the sound of that word resounds like a gunshot around the halls of heaven. “Lord” the angels gasp in recognition: “not rabbi-Lord! even judas, even judas,” they say.
and then perhaps judas, in those awkward, awestruck moments, moves to reciprocate the kiss, as one should. should he? could he? would jesus allow it once again?
and his lips touch the cheek, it is as though a pin pierces his stupor-his body just crumples upon christ’s, shuddering with the greatest sobs of redemption in human history. somehow the irreversible sin has become the very door to salvation-even him, the twelfth, the last, the thief, the greatest traitor of them all.
with those tears, the angelic realm erupts in praise. “rejoice with me,” cries the spirit, his voice echoing through heaven, “for i have found my lost sheep!” ad there is always “more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent” (luke 15:6). praises ring to the lamb who was slain for the sins of the world-even this, the greatest sin of them all. truly he loves his enemy and does good to his persecutor. he is the shepherd who left the eleven to find th last his one lost sheep. he is the alpha and omega who takes the twelfth brother and makes him first, lifting his name as the ultimate example of grace- insurmountable and eternal proof of the power of love to conquer sin.”
…
“please do not despair of grace. never give up. resist the temptation to pass judgment on yourself like judas- that path is the path of madness and self-destruction. now matter how desperate you feel today, hold on for tomorrow. stumble on a few more hours in blind faith, offering god nothing more than your hopelessness and your sin. we cannot rush the resurrection. but wait and watch, and he will surely come. no matter what you have done, i am convinced of this: there is more grace in god than sin in you. i defy you to tempt such love with so much as a breath or a glance or a whisper of confession. just one prodigal pace is all it takes to bring your father running to greet you with the kiss of his grace.
and he will call you ‘friend’
and you will call him ‘Lord’.”
this is from “the vision and the vow” by Pete Greig
