Liturgy of the Palms: Matthew 21.11
Liturgy of the Passion: Isaiah 50.4-9a; Psalm 31.9-16 (31.9-18); Philippians 2.5-11; Matthew 25.14-end of 27 (Matthew 27.11-54)
“LOOK, the man!” (John 19.5). On Good Friday, Jesus will hold our gaze to the exclusion of all else. But, on Palm Sunday, our gaze can turn upon another man — one whom history has treated as the opposite of Jesus. This other man is Judas Iscariot.
History makes Judas the arch-betrayer of friendship, repellent and disgusting. We know from the Psalms what suffering a betrayal can cause, and a Christian, reading the Psalter, finds Judas in every betrayal: “Yea, even mine own familiar friend, whom I trusted: who did also eat of my bread, hath laid great wait for me” (41.9).
“For it is not an open enemy, that hath done me this dishonour. But it was even thou, my companion: my guide, and mine own familiar friend” (55.12).
Almost every reference to “betrayal” in the Gospels is a reference to Judas.
Discovering that someone we trust does not, after all, have our best interests at heart, and does not deserve that trust, weaves two strands of emotional pain into a rope that chokes us. To have made a wrong judgement hurts our pride and dents our confidence. Then there is the humiliation of appearing vulnerable, even ridiculous, for having trusted. Betrayal is usually, as in the case of Judas, a betrayal of one person to another person or people.
We do not have direct testimony to how Jesus felt about Judas’s betrayal; so we have to quarry the Gospels for clues. The Palm Sunday Gospel offers a number of insights. Judas wanted money to betray Jesus (verses 15-16). Twice we are shown that Jesus may have seen through Judas’s pose of friendship (verses 25, 49). Jesus calls Judas’s behaviour by its true name (“my betrayer”, verse 46). And, after all this, still Jesus calls Judas his friend: “Jesus said to him, ‘Friend, do what you are here to do’”(verse 50).
How can it be that Jesus calls Judas his friend at the very moment when the betrayal is revealed, and while aware that he plans to desert his cause?
One answer, found in some devotional and scholarly writings, radically rethinks the part played by Judas. If those writings are correct, then the Greek word paradidomi means “hand over” rather than “betray”: Judas is, therefore, the “hander-over”, not the “betrayer”. That could mean that he was an agent forwarding the work of salvation, perhaps even in accordance with Jesus’s wishes. How splendid if that were true!
The case for rethinking the word “betray”, as it attaches to Judas in the Gospels, has its virtues. But two factors keep me from over-simplistically embracing it. The first is an argument based on how the word is used in other Greek texts, where it can carry a sense of betrayal, disloyalty, in certain pre-Christian writers. Although not the primary meaning, that one remains possible.
The second reason for being cautious about re-evaluating Judas is the Gospel witness itself. Mark may be relatively neutral about the moral quality of Judas’s actions, and Luke is somewhere in between. But Matthew and John both record actions of Judas which look straightforwardly blameworthy. In Matthew, Judas sells his friend for money (26.14-16). Jesus even states that “it would have been better for him not to have been born” (26.24), making decisions about whether Judas is a “betrayer” or a “hander-over” otiose. In John, Judas is a thief and a hypocrite (12.6). These elements point to a negative judgement on Judas.
Rehabilitating Judas, the supposed betrayer of God’s beloved Son, though, does not depend only on how we decide to translate one word. Matthew and John, his greatest critics, both also provide reasons that could point to a more positive judgement.
Matthew shows that Judas’s actions are expected and were understood by Jesus: “Jesus said to him, ‘Friend, do what you are here to do.’” Unless Jesus is being ironic, Judas’s actions have not changed Jesus’s view that they are friends. That is a comfort for all who call themselves Christian. Judas, moreover, came to be sorry for what he had done, and judged himself (27.5) as harshly as his fiercest critics could wish. Even John, who omits the word “friend”, still tells how Jesus encouraged Judas to do what he did (13.27).
At the end, Judas is the agent of his own suffering. I want to judge him with pity more than blame, because I hope that is how Jesus judges me.
