Midweek Lenten Service – April 6, 2011

Psalm 41:9 - Even my close friend, whom I trusted, he who shared my bread, has lifted up his heel against me.

Have you ever heard of a parent who named their child “Judas”? It just doesn’t happen anymore, does it? But in Jesus’ day, the name Judas seems to have been quite popular. We see that of Jesus’ 12 disciples, two were named Judas. But like the name “Benedict Arnold,” the name Judas today has become a synonym for traitor. Judas is someone we look upon with disgust.

It wasn’t always that way, though. The relationship between Judas and Jesus began as friends, and that is the relationship Jesus strove to maintain until the very end. This evening we look at Judas, a man who had been Jesus friend. And through the eyes of prophecy, David tells us the story in Psalm 41. He shows us how a faithless friend adds to Christ’s anguish by the trust he betrays and the injury he inflicts.

The words of Psalm 41, written by David, are words that certainly would have applied to David at certain points in his own life. On more than one occasion David had advisors and close friends betray him. But this psalm also speaks to the betrayal of Jesus by his own disciple Judas. And we can be sure of that because Jesus quoted it in reference to his own betrayal.

Jesus spoke these words of Psalm 41 right before he predicted his betrayal at the Last Supper. Yet, if you take time to examine the way Jesus treats Judas, it’s amazing. He treats him as a friend. Even in the middle of Judas’ traitorous act in the Garden of Gethsemane, while he is leading Jesus’ enemies to him and exposing Jesus with a kiss, Jesus still addresses him in this way: “Friend, do what you came for” (Matthew 26:50). But was Judas ever really Jesus’ friend?

We have no reason to believe that when Judas began following Jesus, he was any different from the rest of the disciples. Like the others, he was looking for Israel’s Messiah. He wasn’t someone who only occasionally made time for worship. He was so drawn by Jesus’ message that he was willing to leave everything else behind, whatever his career opportunities might have been, and literally follow Jesus wherever he went. He was genuinely amazed and excited by the miracles he saw. He was not a mole or spy secretly planted by the Pharisees or Sadducees to sabotage Jesus’ ministry. He was a sincere believer, though sinful and flawed, just like the rest of Jesus’ disciples.

If you find that hard to believe, just look at the way in which Jesus treated Judas! The words of our psalm describe him as one “whom I trusted, he who shared my bread.” Jesus trusted Judas. He may not have been a part of the inner circle of disciples like Peter, James, and John were, but he was trusted enough to be given charge of the treasury, a job generally not given to just anyone. Judas was entrusted with the fullness of Jesus’ teachings, not just the sermons that were preached to the crowds in public. When the time came to send the disciples out for their first tour of mission work in Matthew chapter 10, Judas was there. With his partner, he went from town to town, preaching the gospel to the people. He had the privilege and joy of seeing people grasp the grace of God and the forgiveness of sins for the first time. He also knew the pain of rejection.

Where Jesus slept, Judas slept. Where Jesus ate, Judas ate. And that last privilege should not be underestimated. Christian writer Brennan Manning comments, “Sadly, the meaning of meal sharing is largely lost in the Christian community today. In the Near East, to share a meal with someone is a guarantee of peace, trust, fraternity, and forgiveness.” Judas was loved, trusted, and accepted no less than the other 11 men who followed Jesus. In fact, he was not like Peter – someone who was often impetuous and spoke before he thought. He wasn’t vengeful like James and John – who wanted to call down fire from heaven to destroy the Samaritan village that rejected them and Jesus. But Judas did love money. He helped himself to the money in the disciples’ treasury, and for money he would betray his Savior’s trust.

And have you ever asked, could you or I be Judas? As a person who has taken time to come and hear Jesus’ words in the middle of your busy week, you too are someone whose heart is drawn close to him. Jesus has trusted you to serve him, in the many different ways we do. You too know the peace, trust, and forgiveness of eating at Jesus’ table, for these are exactly the gifts he has given you together with himself in the Lord’s Supper. Like Judas, Jesus has made us his trusted friends with whom he has shared every blessing.

But what weaknesses, what pet sins, what temptations lay lurking in the deep, dark corners of our hearts? We are so tempted to underestimate the power of our own sinfulness. We like to qualify sin with “it’s just a little”: “It’s just a little lust. Nothing will come of it.” “It was just a little slip of the tongue. Just a little lie. No one was hurt by it.” “It was only a little too much to drink. Nothing I can’t control.” “It’s just a little laziness at work. Nothing that hasn’t been done before.” “It’s just a little dislike. I won’t let it turn into anything else.” “It’s just a little skipping out on God’s Word. At least I’m there more than others.” “It’s just a little theft. No one will even know that it’s missing.”

But do you suppose that Judas tried to walk off with the disciples’ entire treasury from the start? No doubt it began as something small. No doubt he made it seem little. How easy it is for us as well. We minimize and rationalize our sin, whatever it is, and we convince ourselves that we are still pretty good. Don’t be fooled! The same potential that led Judas to betray our Savior’s trust and in the end to throw faith and life away, is not so dormant and not so hidden inside of each one of us. Your sin, my sin, all sin is frightening, because it can lead us to betray the trust our Savior has given to us.

More amazing than Judas’ betrayal of Jesus is Jesus’ love for Judas. “Friend,” he calls him, even in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus knew of Judas’ plot to betray him even before Judas did. Who of us would spend so much time with a guaranteed failure? And yet Jesus gave Judas every chance. He brought Judas as close to himself as anyone could possibly be and held out his grace to him to the very end.

And equally amazing is Jesus loves for us. Not only did he go to the cross to pay the penalty of our sins, but he has brought us close to himself through faith and holds out his grace to us each and every day. He invites us to receive his free forgiveness every time we sin. His love is so big that he stopped at nothing to win our salvation. That includes his willingness to be betrayed by Judas!

So far we have described how Judas betrayed Jesus’ trust, now let’s look at how David describes the injury Judas inflicts: “Even my close friend, whom I trusted, he who shared my bread, has lifted up his heel against me.”

David pictures the betrayal in a very vivid way. It’s one thing to hit or punch someone with a fist. The right combination of blows can knock someone unconscious or even be fatal in rare cases. But our legs are much more powerful than our arms. A kick strikes with more power and inflicts a deeper pain. Perhaps David’s words “lifted up his heel against me” bring to mind video footage we have seen of police brutality or gang violence. Someone is curled up on the ground, and those standing around kick at him and drive their heels into his body. It’s hard not to wince and grimace thinking about such abuse.

Judas did not slap Jesus in the face or spit on him as the members of the Sanhedrin did. He was not among those who whipped Jesus until the flesh was torn, or shove thorns into his head, or drive nails through his skin. That was the work of the Roman soldiers. Judas’ only physical contact with Jesus throughout the events that led to his death was to plant a kiss on his cheek in the Garden of Gethsemane, the kiss that turned Jesus over to the men who sought to kill him.

But that doesn’t mean that kiss of betrayal was any less painful. We know from experience that we are most hurt by those who are closest to us. If a stranger insults us, we don’t give much attention to their words. They don’t even know us. If a long-time enemy attacks, we almost expect it. But when someone close to us turns on us, that wound runs deeper: the closer the relationship, the deeper our pain.

And Jesus counted his disciples closer to him than his own family. All of them would forsake him before the night was over. Peter would even deny him. But Judas was the friend who allied himself with Jesus’ enemies and became a part of the plot to murder him. The result was injury that ran deeper than the simple act of leading the soldiers to arrest Jesus. This faithless man had been Jesus’ friend, and this betrayal of the love and trust Jesus had poured on him added to Christ’s anguish.

Could Jesus have avoided Judas’ betrayal that evening? He had known that it was coming. He had announced that it was coming. He could have gone to some other place in Jerusalem to pray. He could have avoided Jerusalem altogether. But that would not have benefited you or me.

Earlier we mentioned the love of Jesus for Judas that offered repentance and forgiveness to the very end. It was Jesus’ love for us that moved him to endure the anguish of this indignity, to allow Judas to hand him over to those who would take his life. Here Jesus takes another step toward perfectly fulfilling the Scriptures. Here Jesus also suffers for our sins. Here, in Jesus’ pain from a trust betrayed and a friendship rejected, we find that God’s grace will stop at nothing to save us from our sins. Jesus goes forward to the cross so that we might know him as Savior.

It isn’t often that we focus our attention on the person of Judas himself. But tonight we do. We do so, not to increase our disgust at Judas, but to praise Christ for willingly suffering the anguish inflicted by his friend, so that he could go to the cross and make us his friends. Amen.