Bogosity

John 13:21-32

So when he had dipped the morsel, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. 27Then after he had taken the morsel, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, “What you are going to do, do quickly.”

Judas is a pretty amazing character. His story raises all kinds of questions and takes us to dark places. It seems he is painted in retrospect of never really getting it. I’m sure that wasn’t the case, why did he follow Jesus in the first place if he didn’t really believe. He must have seen much of what Jesus did. Was he confused? Well it seems he may have been – he tried to give the money back to the pharisees saying that he had betrayed an innocent man.

I wonder why Jesus felt the need to predict the betrayal. Was it in the context of a reflection on the nature of humankind? Interesting that he trusted more details to just a couple of the disciples – it suggests a bit of a heirarchy amongst the group. Also, the text suggests that Jesus somehow caused Judas to betray him – that has awful implications – if that’s the case then Jesus caused Judas to sin, he must have also known Judas would commit suicide. Surely that’s not right?

Why didn’t Jesus try to stop Judas? Did he need Judas? I don’t think it’s a case of Jesus needing Judas. Jesus knew he was going to be arrested and executed eventually, he didn’t need Judas to make it happen, the pharisees would have found a way to sneakily arrest him without Judas’ help. Jesus seemed to have surrendered to his fate some time earlier when he decided to return to Jerusalem. I think he just wanted to get the group ready for what was about to happen. It seems they weren’t taking it very seriously because later in the night, they kept falling asleep when Jesus asked to them to pray.

So anyway, it seems like Judas’ story should have been neatly left out of the gospels and it would have made a tidier story – Jesus versus the pharisees just like the rest of the Gospels.

I guess the betrayal of Judas did play one important role in Jesus’ life – Jesus suffered many hardships in his life and Judas added betrayel to the list – perhaps Judas was part of Jesus’ death just like the abandonment of the disciples, rejection from the people and the physical suffering – Jesus’ death was many faceted and complete. Why did Jesus need to suffer so much in order to do his great work of atonement? That’s a question for another time and perhaps the most important question raised by the story of Judas.