Have you ever wondered why the Church doesn't have a feast day for Judas Iscariot? Probably not. He messed up big time and then killed himself rather than face the consequences. Why would anyone want to celebrate that? Do you ever have any sympathy for him, though? Does his human failure resonate with you at all? We often consider Peter, who from time to time let Jesus down, but we know that Jesus forgave him and restored him as chief apostle. Judas blundered big time, of course, but isn't redemption available whatever we've done?
Judas was perhaps from Kerioth, in the south of the country. How he met Jesus we don't know. However, he was appointed as one of 12 closest disciples and sent out as a missionary with the other first apostles. He was there at most of the intimate gatherings with Jesus' friends, when he explained things that were kept back from the crowds for the time being. He was empowered to preach, heal the sick and cast out demons on his mission trip, while living by faith. Judas was at Jesus' last meal with his friends, when he did his best to prepare them for what was about to happen when he would be arrested and killed. Jesus washed Judas' feet along with the other 11 disciples. Judas was right in there with the rest of them and trusted by Jesus to carry out his work, the work of the Father. How could everything go so wrong?
They say that the three big causes for downfall are sex, money and power. You probably are aware of, or perhaps even know personally, a Christian minister whose vocation was ruined through one of these. Sometimes churches are split because the main leader wants to keep control of everything and makes everyone subordinates; the circumstances which hit the headlines, of course, are more about sexual impropriety in the Church: adultery, sexual harrassment, sexual abuse, paedophilia etc. There have also been scandals concerning money, as leaders have syphoned off chuch funds to finance their own personal interests, sometimes leading to imprisonment.
We are not talking here about leaders who weren't really Christian, hadn't given their lives to God, had never been baptized in the Holy Spirit. Neither were these men and women insincere in their ministries. They were generally going great guns for God and then one of the three big temptations hit while they were off guard, and they fell. If the devil is going to work hard on bringing anyone down, it will be the leaders who facilitate church growth and the spread of the Kingdom of God - some of the most dedicated, sincere followers of Jesus. Let's not raise our hands in horror and ask, "How can that be? How could such a man of God do such a thing? He couldn't have been all that we thought." No, it's probably exactly because he was all that we thought that he was hit with a powerful temptation to get him out of the way.
We are all tempted; we all succumb from time to time and Jesus has already paid the price for our forgiveness, which we can choose to accept.
Judas was one of the 12 people in the whole world whom Jesus chose to be his closest friends and apprentices. He had been one of those handing out tiny pieces of bread to huge crowds on two occasions and both times finding everyone full up afterwards, with basketfuls of leftovers. Jesus had entrusted him with so much because he was a sincere disciple, and was so for nearly three years. But the temptation came and with him it was in the form of money. It seems that the other apostles worked out later that he had been stealing from the team's cash float for a while. When the opportunity came to earn quite a tidy sum, he had the same struggle that many have with additictions; he had become addicted to having money and, however much he didn't want to betray Jesus, the temptation was stronger. Perhaps he hoped that Jesus would pull out of the hat a miracle and prevent himself from being killed; perhaps he didn't care at that moment because the allure of 30 pieces of silver consumed him. We don't know, but we do know that we can all fall foul of temptation.
It was known that this was going to happen. It had been foretold that the price of betrayal would be 30 pieces of silver, that it would be thrown back in the Temple and that it would be given to a potter (Zechariah, chapter 11, verses 12 & 13). Someone was going to hand over Jesus and that had been prophesied hundreds of years before he was even born: Judas was the already quite powerful man of God who allowed himself to be drawn into fulfilling that prophecy, through his own weakness. It seems that he repented, which is why he killed himself. Jesus would almost certainly have forgiven him in person if he had gone back to ask for it - he died for the whole world through all time. I hope that Judas' repentance was sincere and that I shall meet him in Heaven. We don't, of course, yet know.
What we do know is that, if we are set on following Jesus, temptations will come our way. We are free from the power of sin and death (Paul's letter to the Church in Rome, chapter 8, verses 1 & 2) and so are able to resist them (Paul's letter to the Church in Corinth, chapter 10, verse 13), but from time to time all of us will fail (John's first letter, chapter 1, verse 10) and need to confess our sins (1 John 1:9). We may end up looking like the woman in the portrait above, our own sadness being because we have let down our saviour. Jesus, though, took upon himself the punishment for all of us, so there is no sin that is too big to be forgiven. There is always a way back to relationship with God in this life (1 John 2:1). Peter found it; Judas didn't. I pray that we shall all be like Peter.
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