Surely Not I, Teacher?
Those are the words of Judas as he was about to betray Jesus.
We now approach the Easter season. In our culture Easter is a happy holiday with bunnies and candy. But the events leading up to what we could anachronistically call “the first Easter” were anything but happy and pleasant. I haven’t seen the movie, but apparently Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ makes this unpleasantness abundantly clear - just in case we have forgotten what the book versions says.
I would like to focus on one of those unpleasantries today. I want to draw our attention that arch-villain figure: Judas Iscariot. As someone commented, you hear a lot of people named after people in the Bible, but you never hear of a mother naming her child “Judas Iscariot Jones” or anything like that.
It’s no wonder, is it?
What We Know About Judas
Judas was one of “the twelve” whom the Bible tells us Jesus designated as His Apostles. Judas was present even when Jesus said, “Have I not chosen you, the Twelve? Yet one of you is a devil!” (John 6:70) Judas was “from Kerioth” which is a small town in southern Judah - that’s what “Iscariot” apparently means. So Judas was from Judah, and not a Galilean as were the other Apostles.
But he was one of the twelve, and this means that Judas was present for all those amazing things Jesus did - all the signs and wonders He performed. He was present when Jesus fed the thousands. In fact, must have done some amazing things himself, for we read in Mark 10:4 that Jesus “called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.”
Judas was very familiar with Jesus’ teaching. He was present to hear “the sermon on the mount.” He was present for Jesus’ teaching in parables. Not just that, but he was also there when Jesus gave a private explanation of the parable of the sower in Mark chapter 4. I find this especially ironic. Was Judas like the hard path where the seed that is the word of God falls and then is taken away by Satan? Was he the rocky place where the seed grows a little but then dies out from lack of depth? Or was Judas that thorny ground where the seed tries to grow but is choked out by, as Jesus said, “the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things.”?
That last one is more than a little intriguing, is it not? For there came a time near the end of Jesus’ life when Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus (whom, by the way, we have to presume Judas saw Jesus raise from the dead!) opened a bottle of expensive perfume and poured it onto Jesus. While she did this to honor Jesus, John’s gospel tells us that Judas especially objected. “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor?” said Judas. “ It was worth a year’s wages.” John goes on to tell us (12:4) that Judas did not say this because he really cared about the poor. He said it because he was a thief who was the “keeper” of the treasury (and John uses a play on words here) who would “keep” some of the money for himself. Did Judas cringe a little when Jesus spoke of “the deceitfulness of wealth”?
It is interesting, is it not, how Judas is mentioned in the gospels without acrimony. When the lists of the Apostles are given in the gospels, all that is said of Judas is “the one who betrayed Him.” Some say the gospels are fiction, written to justify a baseless faith of the church. It’s an odd fiction that, rather than vilifying the villain, presents him as a pathetic character. Why have Jesus choose Judas as an Apostle if you are just making this story up? Why indeed? It gives the gospels that “ring of truth.”
But the point is this: Judas did not lack knowledge of Who Jesus really was and what Jesus stood for. He was as acquainted with Jesus as it was then possible to be. And yet he betrayed Jesus.
Judas, we are told, went to the chief priests. They didn’t come to him; he went to them. According to Matthew, Judas asked the chief priests “What are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you?” The Jewish leaders offered Judas thirty silver coins. Yes, Judas had a money problem, as we have seen. But he is with Jesus, who can make all the food you need. What motivated Judas? Was it just money, or something more?
Commentators on the gospels speak with almost one voice in saying that we don’t really know exactly what motivated Judas to betray Jesus. But one good, general guess offered by many is this: Judas was profoundly disappointed that Jesus was not acting like the Messiah he had expected. It was when Judas decided to make this move that Luke tells us (Lk. 22:3) that Satan entered Judas. You might say that Judas sold himself to Satan for those thirty coins.
What kind of messiah did Judas expect? Again, we can only guess based on other things we read in scripture. In John chapter six we read of Jesus feeding a group of thousands of people by a miracle of food creation. This excited a very large crowd of people who followed Jesus around the great lake of Galilee. But Jesus insists that he will not continue make miraculous physical bread, and when Jesus turns His attention instead to “the bread of life which comes down from heaven” and starts teaching that He, Jesus, is that bread, something happens.
Jesus’ disciples begin to grumble. At this point Jesus says something that is very revealing:
“Does this offend you? What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. Yet there are some of you who do not believe.”
Then the gospel writer adds this comment: “For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him.” (Jn. 6:61-64)
As a result of this incident, John tells us, “many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.” Why? Because Jesus was not the kind of messiah they were expecting. We have to suspect very strongly that, although Judas did not leave at this point, he now shared this view of Jesus. When the real Jesus did not match up with the Judas Jesus’ expectations, Judas was ready to sell out and move on. When Judas began to dislike the real Jesus, he created his own version, a “Judas Jesus.”
Greek mythology has a famous character named Procrustes. He had an infamous iron bed to which he tied his victims. Those shorter than the bed were stretched to fit it. Those longer than the bed were cut shorter to fit it. Judas had an iron bed for Jesus, and as he figuratively tied Jesus to that bed for a fatal adjustment, he at the same time cried out, “Surely not I, Teacher!”
Jesus: He’s Not the Kind of Messiah We Were Expecting
Then, as now, Jesus is not always what people want Him to be. Back then, people were happy with a food-producer who would ride into Jerusalem like a Messiah-King, but they were not as happy to add to that the idea of suffering, dying Messiah. Even after the resurrection, some were unhappy with a king whose kingdom “was not of this world.”
Which leads me to ask: What expectations do you have for Jesus? It’s amazing how the Judas-like expectations for Jesus are still with us today.
Perhaps you have heard of “The Jesus Seminar.” This is a group of New Testament scholars who have been meeting periodically since 1985. The initial two hundred has now dwindled to about seventy-five active members. The goal of the Jesus Seminar is to determine which things in the gospels were “really said” by Jesus. They actually take a vote on every “saying” of Jesus by dropping little colored beads into a box. Red: Jesus undoubtedly said this or something very like it. Pink: Jesus probably or might have said something like this. Gray: Jesus did not say this, but the ideas are close to His own. Black: Jesus did not say this; it represents a later tradition.
By this means, the Jesus Seminarians create their own Jesus. Their version of Jesus is simply a sage, a spinner of one- liners, a teller of parables, a clever preacher. That’s very intriguing, except that this Jesus of the Seminar is a Judas Jesus.
There is a group of people who appear on “Christian” radio and TV stations with the message, “Jesus wants you rich and Jesus wants you well.” It’s not too hard to notice that this is just another way of saying, “Jesus wants what you want.” Convenient, isn’t it?
A few years ago there came onto the Christian scene an infamous little book of non-sense called The Prayer of Jabez. As one writer said, “Mr. Wilkinson [the author] teaches his readers that if they recite the five-line prayer once a day, God will ensure that they experience prosperity, just as Jabez did millennia ago. With Mr. Wilkinson’s (and, through him, God’s) help, you, too, can "enlarge your territory."”
Never mind that the passage from the O.T. from which this book comes is lifted completely out of context. Now you can’t walk into a Christian book store without tripping over “Jabez junk” - not just the books, but all sorts of shirts, jewelry, and you-name-it. The problem is this: the Jesus of Jabez is a Judas Jesus.
There are also those theologies of liberation which see Jesus as someone whose followers will lead a communist-style revolution which will bring in the kingdom of God. These things are called “liberation theologies” and there are as many of them as there are groups to claim one.
There is Latin American liberation theology where God is on the side of Latin Americans. There is African liberation theology where God is on the side of Africans. There is Black liberation theology where God is on the side of black African-Americans. There is Feminist liberation theology where God is on the side of women. There is now even what is called “Womanist” liberation theology in which God is on the side of black women. Occasionally one of these liberation theologians reminds the other liberation theologians that they should all get together sometime! I find that just a little amusing!
There is a problem here also. The Jesus of a liberation theology is a Jesus who serves only one group of people. The Jesus of liberation theologies is a Judas Jesus. There is a professor of religion (of all things) at Princeton University named Elaine Pagels. Professor Pagels likes Christianity, sort of, but she found a way around that. She has written a book about a writing called The Gospel of Thomas. This writing comes from a group of false teachers in the early church called Gnostics, but that doesn’t bother Elaine Pagels. She doesn’t like the Jesus of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. She instead prefers the Jesus of The Gospel of Thomas. According to Elaine, in John, Jesus alone offers access to God. But, she says, “Thomas’s Jesus directs each disciple to discover the light within himself.” Don’t like the Jesus of scripture? Then find your own, says Professor Pagels. The problem is this: the Jesus of Elaine Pagels and The Gospel of Thomas is a Judas Jesus.
I think you begin to get the idea. There are many “Jesi” floating around our world today. They are all idols made in our own image. Like Judas, we have rejected the real Jesus because he did not fit the mold we have created for our Jesus. Don’t like the real Jesus? Don’t worry. Today, as in the days of Judas, you can create your own. But that creation doesn’t come without a price.
You Must Count the Cost of Creating Your Own Jesus
There’s no such thing as a free lunch, or a free, new Jesus, as Judas found out. Someone has said that while experience is a great teacher, she often charges exorbitant fees. So true, as in the case of Judas.
Matthew’s gospel tell us something pathetic about Judas:
“When Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was seized with remorse and returned the thirty silver coins to the chief priests and the elders. "I have sinned," he said, "for I have betrayed innocent blood." "What is that to us?" they replied. "That’s your responsibility."” (MT 27:3)
Apparently, upon further review, Judas decided the real Jesus was worth something beyond those thirty pieces of silver. Experience taught Judas that attempting to make your own Jesus was something far more costly than he had imagined.
Peter denied Jesus. But he didn’t try to invent his own Jesus, so he repented, and eventually he recovered and he was recovered. Judas attempted to invent his own Jesus. In that process he betrayed the real Jesus. But by the time he realized it was wrong, it was too late. He never recovered.
Putting together what we find in Matthew 27 and Acts 1, we get this picture of the end of Judas. He cast the pieces of silver at the Jewish leaders from whom he had received them. Being piously hypocritical as they were, they would not put this money back into the treasury because it was “blood money.” So they used it to buy a field, perhaps in the very name of Judas Iscariot. There Judas hanged himself. His dead body - and a suicide at that - was unclean to the Jews, so no one touched it. Instead, that partially decayed body fell and burst open.
It was a messy end of a very messed-up life. That life was messed-up when Judas tried to remake Jesus into the Jesus Judas wanted. There is no way to do that, then, as now, without making a horrible mess.
So, when all is said and done, we find that we cannot afford to create our own Jesus. We had better, instead, bow before the One who is Lord. That’s the lesson of Judas. Perhaps, in some back-handed sort of way, something almost good came from Judas’ pathetic life: he showed us, in spiritual cinemascope and moral color, what not to do. And while knowing where the bridge is out doesn’t necessarily tell us what road to take, it certainly tells us what road to avoid at all costs.
The fact is that we live in a world that is constantly urging us to re-invent Jesus. The real Jesus is far too demanding - “if you love me you will keep my commandments” - and far to exclusive - “no one comes to the Father except by Me” - to fit into our post-modern world.
So the question before you is this: will you know Jesus the Christ, the Son of the Living God, or will you invent your own Jesus? We need to remember that the real Jesus does not tolerate rivals. If you decide to make your own Jesus, know that it will be a Judas Jesus.
And before you say, “Surely Not I, Teacher?” make sure you are addressing that question to the real Jesus, not one that you have - like Judas - invented for yourself.
