I think Judas Iscariot gets a bad wrap.

His name far surpasses “Benedict Arnold!” as a designation for traitor. He appears in the center of Hell in Dante’s Inferno along side Brutus and Cassius (betrayers of Julius Caesar!). He is the penultimate backstabber.

And yet I have heard very few sermons about Judas. For someone who is near solely responsible for the short series of events that lead to Jesus’ state-sanctioned execution, he gets very little attention.

Today is Maundy Thursday, when many of us in the Christian Tradition commemorate Jesus’ last supper with his disciples. If there is one night of the year when we will likely hear Judas’ name mentioned, it is tonight. And it will be brief.

I think we do not talk about Judas because he is complicated. He is considered super-evil, after all he betrayed Jesus Christ. Yet, to discuss Judas’ role in Holy Week is to open a can of worms. “But without Judas, there is no atonement or Resurrection! Did he have a choice?! What about God’s will?!” AHHH!!! It is the timeless migraine-inducing discussion about the free will of humanity verses God’s sovereignty all over again!

It seems that Judas is an evil bastard of a disciple, and that is all we need to know.

Except the writer of the Gospel of Matthew may not agree (as we shall see).

Judas Iscariot, methinks, is the most important of cautionary tales in Scripture.

Judas’s name is first mentioned the Gospel of Matthew in the list of Jesus’ twelve disciples (Matthew 10 for those of you following along at home). Before the roll call is given, the writer introduces them by stating that Jesus “gave them all authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every affliction.” Then the Twelve are named, ending with “Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.” The gospel writer neglects giving us a “Spoiler Alert” and tells us the twist that Judas betrayed Jesus. The gospel writers do this spoiler thing a lot. The big twist of the Resurrection is repeated over and over again. These fellas need a class on plotting.

However, Judas is clearly given the same power and authority as the other disciples. In fact, the writer of Matthew (or Mark, Luke, or John for that matter) offer no implication that Judas is not performing miraculous acts in the name of Jesus. Judas, “who betrayed him,” is part of Jesus’ ministry and doing the same awe-inspiring work as the rest of the apostles. Judas is healing people. Let that sink in. As far as Matthew’s gospel is concerned, Judas is as involved and on-board with everything Jesus is doing, at least insofar as the rest of the disciples are. Judas is never noted as an outlier. The designation “the disciples” is used often when Jesus faces their confusion or indignation. In Matthew 26, when Judas decides to betray Jesus, the writer prefaces Judas’s name with “one of the twelve.” Judas, the writer wants us to remember, is a disciple.

So what happens?

Frankly, the Gospel of Matthew gives us little information, and Mark and John do little better. Luke notes that Satan entered him but that seems an awfully flat characterization. But I have my own thoughts.

On Good Friday 2017, I discussed how the Messianic expectation in first century Palestine was not an expectation for God-in-flesh, but for a military leader that would bring about a revolution that would reclaim Judea from the grip of Rome. In that post, I made the case that many of Jesus’ disciples initially answered the call to his ministry because they thought he was the revolutionary they were waiting for. As I read through the Gospel of Matthew, it’s not hard to see how they arrived at that idea.

In Matthew 10, Jesus’ speech to the Twelve speaks of persecution and bringing a sword, and there is the talk of rewards when it is all over. If one isolates it from the rest of Jesus’ ministry across four gospels, it has the tone of insurrection, rebellion, and even civil war. “Do not fear those who can kill the body!” “Do not think I have come to bring peace to the earth!” “Viva la Judea!” Okay, that last one was my addition.

But it all is tempered by parables and sermons about forgiveness, and then Jesus starts speaking about his own death. And then on Palm Sunday, Jesus enters the capital for Passover not on a war horse, but a donkey. If Jesus was going to start a violent revolution, that was the time. In Matthew 26, all the disciples are indignant over the woman anointing Jesus’ feet with expensive perfume. The gospel writer wants the reader to know that they are all of the same mind on the issue, to which Jesus responds that she is preparing his body for burial. Judas chooses to betray Jesus immediately after this event and begins his collaboration with the Pharisees.

Judas sets the gears of betrayal in motion once Jesus was made the greatest concrete statement that he will die. The metaphors have ceased. Jesus has spoken of his own burial, and it sounds imminent.

I find the Last Supper particularly interesting. Over dinner, Jesus informs the disciples that one of them will betray him, and each in turn asks “Is it I, Lord?” If you ask me, this response is bizarre. Either all the disciples believe Jesus is omniscient and can see the future (which is isn’t an outlandish idea), or each thinks himself capable of such treachery. At the very least, not one disciple, not even the verbose Peter, is confidant enough to say “Well it wouldn’t be me!”

When the question finally circles to Judas, the conversation seems to read less like Jesus is catching Judas in the act. Rather, when Judas says “Is it I, Lord,” Jesus’ response is merely “You have said so.” The decision still wholly belongs to Judas.

If there is any honor in Judas, it is that he does not make Jesus into someone Jesus is not. In Matthew 26, when Jesus is arrested, he says to Judas “Friend, do what you came to do.” Rather than rebuke Judas, Jesus still calls him friend. No, the one who is rebuked is the disciple who violently defends Jesus as if Jesus were the war-mongering revolutionary so many were waiting for.

Maybe in Gethsemene, Judas better understands Jesus than the other disciples.

I think Judas betrays Jesus because he is unwilling to let Jesus break the mold of what he believes a Messiah is. He grasps Jesus’ mission and method. He gets it, if only in part. Jesus will allow himself to be executed.

And there’s a gospel here for us, a gospel according to Judas. When we read the Bible, we should find that Jesus emphatically does not offer us the power for change in the shape we so desire, nor does he offer us our definitions of freedom and justice. And when that occurs, how do we respond? Do we choose that power somewhere else, but still call it Christ? Do we chose it in a political leader or in certain nationalist rhetoric, but call it Gospel? (Looking at you, Franklin Graham). Or do we openly acknowledge that Jesus is not who we want to follow, and we find no assurance in his message and method?

Judas’ own story ends in tragedy, of course. The great betrayer, regretting what he has done and seeing that Jesus is being delivered to Pilate, returns his blood money, and hangs himself. It is a very brief moment, but it begins with a confession of sorts. “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood!” reads Matthew 27. The Pharisees to whom he confesses offer no absolution. “What is that to us? See to it yourself.” What if Judas had sought Jesus for absolution; what if Judas ran to the feet of the cross on Good Friday?

If Judas could write a gospel, I hope it would break our hearts. I hope we would see ourselves in the man who betrayed Christ, only to be overcome with regret mere moments later. I hope we would hear a cautionary tale of a man who is the first understand what Jesus is about, only to reject it, and to seek to sabotage it. Maybe we would see ourselves in a man who had forsaken a Gospel that didn’t seek to crush his enemies.

In this season of Lent, we must let pieces of ourselves die. And for some of us, for myself first and foremost, I want to bring all that is in within me that hears the radical Love of Jesus and says “No, that is not the Messiah I am looking for.” I want to bring that to the cross, and then I want to let it die so I can embrace such radical Love.

Amen.