by Eve Beglarian

Psalm 69: 7-15, 22-23
Isaiah 50:4-9a
Hebrews 9: 11-15, 24-28
John 13:21-35

The gospel reading for today is the story of Judas' betrayal of Jesus. Reading it today, I noticed for the first time that John's telling of the story differs from the other gospels. Only in John's gospel does Jesus actually dip the bread in the dish and hand it to Judas after saying this action will identify his betrayer. And then John says, "After he received the piece of bread, Satan entered into him."

I can't help but connect the image of Jesus handing the moistened bread to Judas to the image of being handed the consecrated bread each time I receive communion. I believe that the writer of John's gospel wants us to make precisely that connection, because he wants each of us to identify with Judas, the evil betrayer of Jesus.

There is the idea circulating (made popular as few years ago by the Scorsese film The Last Temptation of Christ, and by National Geographic's questionable translation of the Gnostic gospel of Judas) that Judas was actually Jesus' closest companion and disciple, and that Jesus chose his most trusted friend Judas to betray him because Jesus knew betrayal and arrest was a necessary part of his sacrifice to save the world. These ideas are compelling, but I'm actually more interested today in imagining how I am like Judas the evil betrayer than Judas the secret trusted apostle.

I try to imagine myself as Judas reading the psalm for today: "Do not let the flood sweep over me, or the deep swallow me up, or the Pit close its mouth over me." I have certainly read that psalm when I have been in my own dark places, but Judas' darkness is almost beyond my powers of imagining. It's one thing to imagine being "the subject of gossip for those who sit in the gate, and the drunkards making songs" but quite another to imagine being completely beyond all possibility of rescue by God.

But that's the thing, isn't it? No human being is beyond the possibility of rescue by God. Not even Judas. Graham Greene has the old priest at the end of Brighton Rock say, "You can't conceive, my child, nor can I or anyone the ... appalling ... strangeness of the mercy of God."

I need to believe God's strange mercy can release even Judas from eternal damnation. I can't understand it, certainly the whole question of evil and mercy and forgiveness are beyond my powers to comprehend, but I don't want to believe in a God who will punish even Judas for eternity; I don't want to believe there is a soul who cannot be released from the enslavement of sin.

When I return to the gospel passage, I'm struck that immediately after Judas goes out into the night to betray him, Jesus gives his new commandment: "Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

I believe we are asked by Jesus to love even the evil betrayer Judas. Not rewrite him into the secret trusted good guy so that we can love him. No. We are to love the evil disciple who betrayed Jesus for thirty pieces of silver and then went out and hanged himself in despair at what he had done.