Sunday’s Readings: Palm Sunday

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 person!” (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 one other man — one whom history has treated as the other 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 could 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 shouldn’t be 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” within the Gospels is a reference to Judas.

Discovering that somebody we trust doesn’t, in any case, have our greatest interests at heart, and doesn’t deserve that trust, weaves two strands of emotional pain right into a rope that chokes us. To have made a incorrect judgement hurts our pride and dents our confidence. Then there’s the humiliation of appearing vulnerable, even ridiculous, for having trusted. Betrayal is generally, as within the case of Judas, a betrayal of 1 person to a different person or people.

We don’t have direct testimony to how Jesus felt about Judas’s betrayal; so we’ve to quarry the Gospels for clues. The Palm Sunday Gospel offers plenty of insights. Judas wanted money to betray Jesus (verses 15-16). Twice we’re shown that Jesus could 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, in any case this, still Jesus calls Judas his friend: “Jesus said to him, ‘Friend, do what you’re here to do’”(verse 50).

How can or not it’s that Jesus calls Judas his friend on the very moment when the betrayal is revealed, and while aware that he plans to abandon his cause?

One answer, present 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” moderately than “betray”: Judas is, due to this fact, the “hander-over”, not the “betrayer”. That could mean that he was an agent forwarding the work of salvation, maybe even in accordance with Jesus’s wishes. How splendid if that were true!

The case for rethinking the word “betray”, because it attaches to Judas within the Gospels, has its virtues. But two aspects keep me from over-simplistically embracing it. The first is an argument based on how the word is utilized in other Greek texts, where it could carry a way of betrayal, disloyalty, in certain pre-Christian writers. Although not the first meaning, that one stays possible.

The second reason for being cautious about re-evaluating Judas is the Gospel witness itself. Mark could also be relatively neutral in regards to the moral quality of Judas’s actions, and Luke is somewhere in between. But Matthew and John each record actions of Judas which look straightforwardly blameworthy. In Matthew, Judas sells his friend for money (26.14-16). Jesus even states that “it will have been higher for him to not 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, doesn’t depend only on how we resolve to translate one word. Matthew and John, his biggest critics, each also provide reasons that might 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’re here to do.’” Unless Jesus is being ironic, Judas’s actions haven’t modified Jesus’s view that they’re friends. That is a comfort for all who call themselves Christian. Judas, furthermore, got here 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 top, Judas is the agent of his own suffering. I need to guage him with pity greater than blame, because I hope that’s how Jesus judges me.