Just Like Me
We’re a month past the Easter season, and yet my mind is still on the Resurrection.
As it should be, of course. It is the reason for the hope any believer has, the rallying cry upon which our victory is assured. And yet, while I do bask in this glorious truth, the appearance of our Risen Savior isn’t the thing to which my mind keeps returning.
Instead, I keep going back to those few days before. To the Passover. To the meal. To the garden.
To the betrayal.
Yes, my mind keeps returning to Judas Iscariot.
The story is told in slight variation in each of the Gospels but the basic facts remain the same:
“Then one of the Twelve—the one called Judas Iscariot—went to the chief priests and asked, ‘What are you willing to give me if I deliver him over to you?’ So they counted out for him thirty pieces of silver. From then on Judas watched for an opportunity to hand him over.” (Matthew 26 14-16)
Judas betrayed Jesus for money.
Now, many scholars have debated about the motives behind this betrayal. Some believe it was money alone, a theory bolstered by John’s Gospel John, which includes the notation that Judas kept the “common purse,” the fund that Jesus and his disciples used for their ministry, and stole from it. Others have suggested a more political motive for his traitorous act. According to this theory, Judas might have become disillusioned when Jesus showed little interest in fomenting a rebellion against the Romans and reestablishing an independent kingdom of Israel. Betrayal could have come either out of anger at this or perhaps as an attempt to force Jesus’s hand into a more political movement. With this theory, the money, they maintain, would have just been a bonus. Alternatively, Judas (like the Jewish authorities at the time) could have seen a rebellion as potentially dangerous for the Jewish people in general; it’s possible Jesus believed handing Jesus over was the only way to stop a larger rebellion and, ultimately, the countless deaths of his people.
Regardless of his motivations, transactionally, Judas was given money to betray Jesus. And he did.
It’s so easy to judge him for that, isn’t it? To scoff or sneer or puff ourselves up with righteousness. I, for one, would never betray Jesus for something so common as money.
And yet, how often have I betrayed Jesus…for free?
Daily, there are times when I betray the vows I made to Jesus to obey Him, to love Him, to follow Him in order that I might, instead, follow myself. No one pays me to be selfish; I do that all on my own. No one gives me money to be unloving; I do that for nothing. No one is passing out hundred dollar bills, telling me to be self-righteous, pleasure-seeking, narcissistic, and vain; I am an expert at worshiping myself without getting paid.
It’s easy to pass judgement on Judas for giving Jesus up for a rather paltry sum. But you and I? By our sins, we do the same thing every single day for absolutely nothing.
The great news is that Jesus forgives. He suffered the cross and the grave for that very reason–to free us from our bondage and offer us eternal life, something we never could have achieved on our own. But, to accept this, we must first recognize our own role in His death.
Judas betrayed Jesus…but it was my sin that nailed Him to that cross.
It was my sin for which His blood was spilled.
My sin for which I need to repent.
Not Judas’s.
Mine.
Because, as much as we like to paint Judas as the villain of the Easter story, the sad truth is that he was simply a sinner.
Just like me.
Just like you.
Sinners in need of daily grace. Daily surrender.
And, thankfully, Jesus’s daily, never-ending love.
