Daily Office

Proper 7, Tuesday: Judas

Today's Readings:

• Psalm 97,99
• 1 Samuel 6:1-167
• Acts 5:27-42
• Luke 21:37-22:13

The Ark is returned after seven months, with guilt offerings. The Sadducees threaten to destroy the apostles, but are counciled by Gamaliel that if Jesus was human, the apostles will lose steam and the movement will disappear; if the Jesus movement comes from God, then there is nothing the Sadducees can do to stop it. Satan enters Judas' heart and Judas looks for an opportunity to betray Jesus. Jesus tells the apostles where to prepare for the passover feast.
Judas must have written a very interesting gospel. Of course, what we read about him in the four canonical gospels is very unfair to Judas. As soon as we meet him we are told that he betrayed Jesus with no explanation as to why Jesus called him. Judas must have had something. All twelve of them must have had something that Jesus recognized as important to his movement. We have different accounts of his death and rumors about his love for money. In conversations I've heard people say that the Jews in Jerusalem couldn't have behaved in a different manner, like the prophecy of the Messiah took away their choice. If the Jews who called for Jesus' execution were compelled by prophecy, then Judas was, too, and we can't call him the villian in the passion narrative. It gets tricky, because then who authored the prophecy that forced Judas to act the way he did? God. It works if you believe in atonement theology, which I don't.
So Judas had something. It's possible that he was looking for a military leader, but it's hard to justify his sticking around for so long with Jesus if Jesus never talked about military rebellion and a military victory over the Romans. Judas probably liked the way Jesus taught at first, supporting his ideas and his methods. When Jesus entered Jerusalem and the people hailed him as a Messiah, and Jesus didn't deny it, Judas probably felt that that was the moment where Jesus crossed a line. For Judas, that was when Jesus went from being a great teacher to a theological problem. Did he meet the requirements for the Messiah? Where the people misunderstanding Jesus' mission and Judas couldn't rationalize following Jesus any more? It's possible.
Why don't I take the Gospel accounts literally? Because, like most history, they were written by the victors in the fight for the Jesus movement and Christianity.

posted by Josh English @ 2:42 PM