Wednesday of Holy Week 2023
It does not seem terribly fair what happened to poor Kerioth-born Judas, as Matthew records it. He sells out Jesus for what in today’s currency would be about $260. Then, seeing Jesus condemned to death, he changes his mind and attempts to return the money to the priests, who refuse to take it because it would ruin their ritual purity. He casts the coins into the Temple precincts, goes off and hangs himself. By doing so, he makes his name a kind of pariah, so that his comrade Judas, probably for the rest of his life had to be introduced as “Judas-not-the-Iscariot.”
So the question has hung around for two thousand years: why did Judas sell out Jesus for any amount?
We need to first remember that Jesus not only chose Judas as one of His lead disciples, He even chose Judas as His business manager, despite the rumors that he was a thief. I suppose a counselor these days would say that Judas went through life “conflicted.” He knew to some extent the Mosaic code, at least the Ten Commandments, but he clearly loved money, which St. Paul told Timothy is the “root of all evil.” It’s not money itself that fosters evil, because money is just a tool you can use for either good or evil, but it is the love of money that fosters evil. Let’s look at that in more detail: if your tendency is to spend it, then you spend it so you can feel more wonderful through food, drink or sex, or so you can have more power, influence, or fame. If your tendency is to hoard it, then it’s so you’ll have more money later to buy something for pleasure, power or fame. If you want to give it away, then the temptation to evil is to make a donation for political power or recognition by a charity. Money is just a tool. You can also make anonymous donations and refuse recognition so that it does nothing but good. It’s an instrument for attaining your goal, whether other centered or self centered.
Now let’s turn to Aristotle to give us another insight. Aristotle says people don’t make moral decisions so as to attain evil ends. Not at all. The jewel thief breaks into the retail store not because he’s a fan of broken glass and flying bullets. He wants to make points with a girlfriend when he gives the jewels to her. The rapist does not force a woman with physical violence because he enjoys having someone scream into his ear. He wants the physical pleasure of abusing his sexual faculties and hers and of having power over someone else. People do evil things to get results they think are good–at least for themselves. And they tend not to cast their vision very far ahead to see all the evil results. That’s why they ought to attain one end we can all agree on–prison.
Now Judas grabs our attention because, first of all, he betrayed the man who was God–Jesus Christ–and does not appear to have attained anything we can identify as good. He’s the Benedict Arnold of religious history, the Quisling of the world. We can speculate all day and night about what good he wanted. Yes, maybe he was trying to force Jesus to lead a great army of angels and men against the Romans like the Zealots wanted. Maybe he was just a thief, but if so why did he return the money? No. Judas got nothing good–not pleasure or honor or power. He ended up being the only person in the Bible whom God judged as being better off never being born.
So where are the lessons for our faith and spiritual growth? We need to remember that it is critical to have our final end in mind every day when we wake up. That’s one good reason for having a prayer we offer every time the alarm clock sounds. And it should be a prayer that focuses on doing God’s will. Once our end, our goal, is clear and good, then we will be more likely to make decisions that first don’t disobey the commandments and second, move us closer to that eternal goal. That seems to be the opposite of how Judas rose every morning.
Because we are daily capable of imitating Judas in a way that will end us up as he ended up–dead and destined for eternal punishment. That’s why every day, we pray in the Lord’s words that we be not led into temptation, and delivered from the Evil one. We focus on God’s will and all will be well.
And here’s why: Judas had some kind of perverted good in mind when he betrayed Jesus, and ruined his rep and his eternal destiny so that he attained only evil. But he unintentionally fit so well into God’s plan, into the Father’s will, that the Greatest Good came from it. Now, because of the saving action of Jesus in willing His own unjust execution, we all have access to God’s life, His grace, and through repentance and Baptism into Jesus through the Holy Spirit, we have the hope of eternal life. All of us, even the worst of sinners, have access to eternal life and joy.
