Wednesday of Holy Week
Before we take up the story of the conjunction of the timeless and historical aspects of the Godhead, we must make a diversion to consider the very essence of what it means to be human in the figure of Judas.
There is hardly a figure in the Bible more sharply and unequivocally drawn than the man who betrayed Jesus; and yet, there is much mitigating evidence to be considered in addition to understanding what it means to be human.
In the first place, even if the Gospels are post Resurrection, largely literal accounts of what Jesus said and did, his pre Crucifixion intentions were somewhat enigmatic. I wonder what conclusion I would have drawn had I followed him about for a week or two and been a witness to, say, the feeding of the 5,000. What would I have told my wife when I got home? As is usual in the Bible, but most notably with Jesus, it's what people do that counts much more than - with the partial exception of the Prophets - what they say. No wonder Judas was confused. No doubt most of Jesus' other followers were confused too but did not have such interventionist personalities. After the triumphant neo-Solomonic entry into Jerusalem there might have been a serious discussion in which Jesus disavowed any war-like ambitions and even any intention of overthrowing the Temple (thinking about context the positioning of the Temple cleansing in John is extraordinary); to the partisan this was like holding a full hand and throwing it away. Not unrelated to this apparent retreat was the unhistorical concept of the pacifist Messiah. Thirdly, it is more obvious to us than it must have been to Judas that he was double crossed. And, finally, the ambiguity of his position is underlined by his suicide. At the very least it seems to me that John's picture is one of a stereotyped, scapegoat tradition, not helped by the rather odd idea that his actions were undertaken to fulfil Scripture which, if true, would put any personal guilt into doubt. Overall, the story of the fanatical, indeterminate, muddled Judas has been de-cluttered into a clean-cut caricature.
Now the danger of caricature is obvious. In the first place, it substitutes reception – how we read a text - for publication, so that our wilful reaction overcomes authorial subtlety; in this case John's reception of tradition prior to publishing illustrates the point well. Secondly, caricature simplifies past the point of helpfulness into self-serving parody. Thirdly, and although this should be obvious by now it still needs saying, our desire to control rather than to receive becomes irresistible. This is why bits of Biblical text look so odd and out of place when they do not fit our theory.
This is not to say that Judas was not guilty - if "guilt" is a viable proposition only God knows - but that we too often draw the wrong conclusion for ourselves. The real lessons of Judas were that he transferred his ambition to Jesus instead of vice versa and that when he detected inklings of doubt about his action he was either too muddled or too hurried to pause and re-think.
The first of these lessons has been a recurrent theme in these reflections but the second is almost as important. A life devoted to Christ means that we have plenty of time, particularly now, for re-thinking.