Today is Good Friday. And, as always today, I am thinking of Judas.
I have both written and preached about Judas before, and I have a heartfelt theological interpretation about him that always surfaces today in particular, but it actually informs much of my theological understanding of salvation in its entirety. There is a medieval legend that Jesus sought out Judas specifically in this time of darkness between Good Friday and Easter to forgive him–Marty Stortz references it in her book, A World According to God. Irrespective of its possible veracity, I firmly believe the core truth behind this story, which is the lengths to which Jesus will go to save us, even from ourselves. The fact is, we are all Judas; therefore, the forgiveness of Judas is, in some ways, the whole point of the crucifixion. It is the forgiveness of Judas that confirms my forgiveness, and yours.
So, today: a meditation on Judas.
Can you spare a thought for Judas today.
Yes, Judas. The betrayer, the false friend; greedy schemer, cog in the wheel of Jesus’ destruction.
Judas, dead by his own hand and trapped in a hell of his own making; overcome by shame, isolation and despair. Does Judas know something of Christ’s agony and painful death?
Can Judas dare dream that his utter abandonment might be coming to an end? Can he even imagine that the one he deceived has not forgotten him but is in fact coming for him? Coming for him and all those like him, who believe themselves to be forever lost, forever alone, and thoroughly, desperately unredeemable?
Today, don’t look away from Judas, because he represents the end-of-the-earth, no-man’s-land depths to which Jesus will go to reconcile all of us sinners with God, and haul us out of the hells in which we find ourselves, back into light and life.
Judas shows us that no matter who you are, or what you have done, you are not beyond the reach of the radical love of God in Christ Jesus.
When the church proclaims that Jesus died for you, this is what we mean.
Jesus died so that your death—whether literal or metaphorical, the hell in which you find yourself, whatever that looks like, is not the end, and does not have the final word.
The final word for you, for me, for the whole world, is Jesus: reconciliation, forgiveness, life, and salvation.
So today, spare a thought for Judas, who is about to be surprised by an unimaginable reunion, and the gift of unearned, undeserving love and grace he can only receive with trembling hands.
Happy Lutheran 