"Why Judas, why?"

Two of the malevolent characters in the New Testament that fascinate me are Pilate and Judas.  I wonder at how you could be so close to the Messiah and miss the point.  Pilate is a tragic character, caught in his own intrigues and looking for the easy way out.  But Judas’ case is much darker.  Frankly, I have never found any explanation for Judas’ behavior really satisfactory.  They all seem to make Judas too ‘other’, as if what happened with him is an aberration and could never happen to us.

Unsatisfying Explanations

Here are some of the suggested motivations for Judas’ betrayal and briefly why I feel they are insufficient explanations.

·      It has been suggested that Judas disliked Jesus’ turning leadership of the disciple band over to the Galileans.  Judas was the only disciple from Judah, and there was a disdain among Judeans for their less sophisticated kin.  But it seems that withdrawal from the company would be a more likely response in view that Jesus Himself was from Galilee.

·      Judas had become convinced that Jesus was a false Messiah or at least a false teacher.  However, in his regret for his treason Judas admits that he has betrayed an innocent man.  

·      Judas realized that Jesus’ Messianic kingdom would not, in Judas’s opinion, be what the scriptures called for or Israel needed.  But even after the resurrection the disciples were unsure of the nature of the Kingdom and were asking when Jesus would restore the Kingdom to Israel.  It seems unlikely that Judas alone would have realized the different nature of the Kingdom and found it not to his liking.

·      Judas believed that Jesus was the Messiah and was trying to force His hand to establish His earthly Kingdom.  By turning Jesus over to the priest he would compel Jesus to call for a general revote and usher in the Kingdom.   It seems that betrayal is a pretty odd way to advance a political agenda.  Judas was a man who served his self-interest and such a move would certainly leave him on the outside of any inner circle in a new Kingdom.

·      An evil spirit controlled Judas.  During the ministry years Judas was apparently as involved as any of the disciples in the miracles of exorcism, evidence that the Spirit of God was working through him.  While we are told explicitly that Satan entered Judas that was only after he of his freewill had agreed to the betrayal.  

·      Judas was motivated by greed pure and simple.  The allure of the 30 shekels was just too much for a person who loved money.  The Gospel of John tells us that Judas was a thief and stole from the common treasury.   His greed explains why he was upset over the anointing of Jesus.  But betraying Jesus, even for roughly three months wages, would be killing the goose that lays the golden egg.  Additionally, a person highly motivated by money would not likely have the emotional reaction of throwing the money into the temple.  Greed may have been the spark but there seems something deeper and darker involved.  

These explanations by and large are very remote from our experience and life.  They make Judas a caricature that is wholly unreal for our lives.  Judas’ story would, if it were like the rest of scripture, have application for us.  So here I present my theory of Judas’ motivation.  You may, of course, reject it out of hand, but perhaps there would be warnings and life lessons that we may appropriate. 

Family Connection

While not absolutely necessary for the theory allow me to conjecture some family relations.  The dinner in John 12:1-8 is held at the home of one Simon the Leper (Mark 14:3).  Lazarus is at the table and Martha is serving.  It is a safe assumption that Simon is the father of Lazarus, Martha, and Mary.  This Simon must have been healed or would still be an outcast, and if he were their father this would explain Martha and Mary’s confidence in Jesus’ ability to heal their sick brother Lazarus before he died.  Judas is identified as the “son of Simon Iscariot”.  If Simon Iscariot and Simon the host of this dinner are one and the same then Judas was the brother of Lazarus, Martha and Mary.   While not essential to understand Judas’s motivation the familial relationship gives some clarity.   

The Dinner Disruption

At this festive dinner is the company treasurer Judas, the healed Simon, the resurrected Lazarus the serving Martha and Mary.  We can almost imagine Judas’ thoughts about his kid sister.  ‘In comes Mary showboating with an extravagant gift.  A gift Judas would have known about for years.  Making a spectacle of herself and wasting part of the family wealth, Mary goes over the top again’.  Matthew and Mark are more general in their description of who condemned her, John is direct; it was Judas.  Mark describes the castigation with the word embrimaomai, translated rebuke, scold, or murmur.  It literally means, “to snort at”- a condescending, arrogant, expression of anger and contempt.  The kind of expression we could only offer to family.

Jesus responds by not only defending the act, but defending the girl as well.  Rather than something contemptible what she has done will be eternally remembered in the preaching of the Gospel (one of two times Jesus uses this word in Matthew).    Judas who was contemptuously snorting at his kid sister and rebuking her finds that he is the subject of the Master’s rebuke.    Jesus’ rebuke, targeted primarily at Judas was sharp and would have stung.  Matthew and Mark quote Jesus as saying, “Why do you bother her?”  The word bother translated literally is “beat”.  In front of the house full of guests Jesus says in effect, “Judas, stop beating on your sister; what she did was wonderful.”  Cue the crickets for an awkward, domestic moment. 

“I’ll show you!”

Matthew and Mark make a point of putting Judas seeking out the high priest to betray Jesus in the immediate context of this rebuke.  In fact, Matthew says “Then” literally “at that time”.  You can almost see Judas humiliated, furious, and guilty storming out of the house and taking the mile and a half walk from Bethany to Jerusalem to make the evil deal.  “You shame me in front of my family?  I’ll show you.”  This was no cold calculation of money or political intrigue; this was the white-hot passion of wounded pride and fury.  The walk did not cool Judas off.   He, with the help the demonic, became resolved to humiliate this Galilean.  R. T. France of Oxford, citing Albright and Mann stated that no disciple would initiate a kiss toward his Rabbi, and when a disciple did kiss his Rabbi he would kiss his foot or his hand.  In the garden Judas comes up to Jesus and kisses him.  It was an act of repudiation of Jesus’ authority.  If this was a kiss on the cheek, as we have generally assumed, Judas was asserting that he was Jesus’ superior.  If Judas left the dinner saying, “I’ll show you,” he could not have fathomed a more bitter, insulting and rebellious way of doing so.  He had completely rejected his Savior. 

What To do with a Rebuke?

Here is the point of the Judas betrayal; here is the warning for our lives.  When we are faced with the conviction of the Holy Spirit or when rebuked by scripture or a fellow disciple our response is critical.  If we respond with bitterness, pride, anger, or if we take offense we will travel down that path to darker places and sins more grievous and more entwining.  Repentance is easiest earliest.  How might this story have been different if Judas had responded, “Lord, I am sorry; Mary, please forgive me?”  But the sin of greed and theft with his wounded pride moved Judas to un-repentance and to growing bitterness.  The warning to “not let the sun go down on our wrath/anger” is more than advice for happy relationships.  It is the cautioning of the deadly growing power of wounded pride and the emotional cancer of holding on to and even nurturing offenses. 

Someone once said, “God can over come all our obstacles except for our hardened hearts.”  We need not worry that we would reject the Savior because of a little money, or a political expectation, or that we suddenly decide He is a false Messiah.  But we all face the danger of bitterness, offenses, pride, or unrepentant sin growing within us a hard, angry heart.   Better to go to the Master, own up to our sin and experience His loving mercy, than the other option, a rope with no hope attached.