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Betrayal
It’s bound to happen to you - betrayal. It’s a page turner, a heart break, a non-anticipated blow to the gut all because a friend was not a friend, but someone walking with you, gathering your trust, raising a flag for your cause, and seemingly sharing fish and chips in your yacht on a rough and ready sea. Even family members rip up flesh and blood to betray one another.
 Matthew, chapter 26.2 calls it: The Son of Man is betrayed to be crucified. It was the final blow. The chief priests and scribes wanted to kill him. They feared him. They not only were afraid of what might happen to them if they let this rebel continue preaching and healing the people, but his presence in Jerusalem made them look bad, look weak. Judas Iscariot, a close companion of Jesus who was disturbed by what Jesus was saying and doing, went to the powers that be and said, what will you give me to deliver him unto you - How about 30 pieces of silver?
Judas who was a fairly wealthy man as it was, who didn’t need the silver, had been with the group of disciples from the start as a devotee of Jesus - but he was the money man, the common-sense man, the one who was getting nervous that Jesus was going too far and would get them all killed. He felt the political fires coming on them and for some reason suddenly Jesus himself, anticipating trouble, called all the team together for a special meal. For what cause was this special meal, I’m sure Judas thought, and as they lounged around the table a woman entered and anointed Jesus with expensive perfume and washed his feet - which seemed very odd and Judas thought maybe his friend was going off his rocker because he allowed such a thing.
Then Jesus removed his outer robe and took a towel, poured water into a basin, and washed the feet of the disciples, shocking them all, especially Peter who protested, uncomfortable with such humility from the Messiah, and Jesus quickly put him in his place. Then, according to Matthew, Jesus felt the vibes in the Passover group and predicted very honestly, one of you will betray me. Each disciple, nibbling on food, sipping the wine, was stunned: Me? Is it Me? Judas merely retorted - “Well, you said it.”
Immediately Jesus, leading the last meal this group would enjoy together, created what has become our Holy Eucharist - the ceremony that keeps us connected to him 2000 years later and to our faith, the one we share with each other, to have strength and courage to love and serve our Lord. He taught his team that the bread and wine are His body and blood and that - telling them before they even could figure out what He was talking about - “this is my body which will be given for you and my blood of the new testament (which, at that time, hadn’t been put together yet) to be shed for all of you for the remission of sins.”
After a round of song, the group strolled along with the Master up to the Mount of Olives. There Jesus predicted, following Old Testament prophecy, “the shepherd will be slain and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad.” This inspired one of the worst responses from His probably closest companion, “foot in the mouth” Peter, who, still not understanding the severity of the moment, shouted out, “Everyone else might, but not I.” And Jesus specified - spelled out - “Yes you will. Three times before the cock crows you shall deny me.” Peter and the rest of the gang just couldn’t anticipate such betrayal.
Even when Jesus asked his inner circle, to accompany him to the olive grove they frequented, to wait for him and stay awake, because He needed to pray, they go with him, but all doze off, probably still feeling the effects of the wine. It is easy for us to feel the betrayal Jesus already feels, the lack of support from his closest team, knowing what He knew was going to happen, which they didn’t yet comprehend.
He plead, “Could ye not watch with me one hour?” We know how the spirit is willing but the flesh may be weak. Jesus went a second time to the prayer rock, same thing happened again. Their eyes were just too heavy. I know that nodding off feeling - even our Supreme Court Justice nods off when the president is speaking. Put me in a theater with the most rambunctious play - like Book of Mormon and Lion King - and at some point, I just doze off. I’m afflicted with old age. But these guys were not. Jesus seemed to understand, to accept their weaknesses, and He even rejected help from Gods angels. Finally He said, “Ok, sleep. Rest. Now is the hour of my betrayal into the hands of sinners.”
And then came Judas leading a multitude of men with drawn swords and staves, as if they needed an army to subdue this Son of Man, who had no warriors around Him. Judas kissed Jesus to identify Him for the soldiers. If Judas kiss of death was not enough, later, when Jesus was going through the process of trial and incarceration leading up to his death, Peter denied his friend, saying he had nothing to do with Him, and, worse, everybody fled - hear that? Everybody fled. No one stayed to accompany Jesus through the legal and illegal presentations, through Pilates torturous decisions, through Chief Priests anxious to get this thing over with, and suddenly Jesus, having carried His cross to the spot, was on the cross, nailed at his hands and feet, with only women weeping at His agony, saying “Forgive them Father for they know not what they do.”
Betrayal? Judas knew in the moment he was doomed as well. Dante in his Inferno imagined Judas was condemned to the lowest circle of Hell - the Ninth Circle of Traitors - the frozen lake Cocytus. He along with Brutus and Cassius who assassinated Julius Caesar was one of three sinners deemed evil enough to be doomed to an eternity of being chewed in the mouths of the triple headed Satan while his back was raked by fallen angels claws. I don’t think we take betrayal seriously today in our violent political and self-serving world. We are so busy judging each other, that we lose our hearts and sympathy. We enjoy turning our backs on those who do wrong and leaving the clean-up of souls to someone else.
In the play Jesus Christ Superstar, the Judas figure broke my heart as he tried to figure out the whys, the cowardice, the results. I learned the name Iscariot was a corruption of the Greek sikarioi or murderer or assassin. He belonged to the Sicarii, the most radical Jewish group, considered terrorists of that day. In the play Judas weeps in song about Jesus “I don’t know how to love him. I don’t know why he moves me. He’s a man Just a man. He’s not a king. He’s just the same as anyone I know. He scares me so. …… My mind is darkness now. My God, I’m sick. I’ve been used and you knew all the time. Why you chose me for your crime, you have murdered me. I really didn’t come here of my own accord. Just don’t say I’m damned for all time.
We are so catholically focused on the progression of the Holy Week story down one road - because it has been pounded into us since the church fenced in its fields and made any diversion, any outside thought, any question off the straight and narrow - a blasphemy. But reading Crossen, Borg and other open-minded theologians, it seems to me it’s healthy to think outside the box.
There was definitely a class system at the time of Christ. Jesus was an Artisan, a carpenter like his father, in a place where whatever He said or did was not of the intellectual mode. And yet, His words, as recorded in the gospels, could create miracles, healing, and stir up high priests who just didn’t know what to think of him. Even Judas, who apparently had been a most enduring friend of Jesus, his most trusted of the motley crew because he kept the money bags, got scared at where Jesus was taking them, all the talk about crucifixion and resurrection in so many days revealed so suspiciously. It’s funny how sometimes the people you would take a bullet for, are the ones behind the trigger. It was the same with Julius Caesar, assassinated within months of Jesus’ crucifixion, by Brutus and Cassius. The perpetrators had their reasons, or at least they thought they were helping history work out the wrinkles of what was happening at the time.
If you put yourself out in the danger fields, a person is going to, in the final word, in the long run, do what they need to do to defend their reasoning and keep self-safe. When the ball rolls the wrong direction, and they feel they must catch up with it and turn things around, it’s about the betrayer’s quality of heart, not the one being betrayed. We live in a time when betrayals are warped by politics and wars. Love has gotten so off the wall, so grotesque, so vicious and estranged, that to accuse someone of betrayal seems but a joke. The betrayals are multiplied, divided and subtracted off of betrayals. Loyalty, faithfulness, trust seem be short-lived. There are too many alternatives. Once, Loyalty begat honor and endless relationships. Betrayal was the assassin that came along and let us feel we have the right to kill, betray, get back at someone, abuse a spouse or even a child, physically force someone to pay up, or cover up with a lie that begets a lie that begets another lie until you can’t remember which the first lie was. We have so many excuses and few parameters.
Our hope, then, is in our crucified Lord, as always. He paid the price and left behind probably more questions than answers. Remember what Jesus said: “He who is ashamed of me before others, I will be ashamed of before God. If you cannot stand up for me now on earth, I won’t stand up for you in heaven.” We who shout out against those who do bad, the criminal, the abuser, the deceitful, the destroyer, the violent, the betrayer, are the very ones whom are supposed to exercise Jesus kind of forgiveness.
All of us, even Judas, are children of God. Those we consider the enemy, unforgivable in our eyes, are still children of God since God made this world and filled it with men and women. Judas was a tool in the machinery God used to get Jesus to the cross. Both Judas and Jesus were human beings, were men. If God’s only son, the divine Jesus had not become mortal, we would not be here today with hope.
So we must train our hearts to not make knee-jerk judgements, to give others a fair chance, to find out root-causes of why someone has betrayed us and destroyed our faith in them. It is not up to your neighbor or the psychologists or the healers and enforcers to do this. It must start with us, the children of God who are called to be his servants, and to bring love and forgiveness into our community. The heart celebrates the love of Christ when we can turn to the worst, the neediest and the sad and lonely and embrace them. AMEN
~ Rev
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audrey@audreytaylorgonzalez.com
www.audreytaylorgonzalez.com
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