We were sitting outside having a picnic last Saturday in the front yard – Beth and the girls and me. Now, to that point we hadn’t mowed the yard this Spring. And until about six days ago it didn’t need it. But after a few days of rain and temperatures in the 70s, every weed known to man sprouted in my yard. Every weed, people. The girls loved it however and with the arrival of each pollen-infested bloom, they talked about how beautiful the “flowers” were. Full of allergy medicine, I kept trying to tell them that they were not real flowers. Just weeds that…well…bloomed. They weren’t buying it. They loved their yard full of flowers.
But as we sat outside last Saturday, the lawn care company showed up. That guy (at Dad’s request) took his John Deer professional grade lawnmower off the back of his trailer and plowed right through the center of the girls’ “flower garden.” And that’s when I heard a chorus of screams behind me. The girls wailed as their flowers were destroyed. It was horrible to watch. At first I thought about fleeing the scene of the crime. Then I thought, If I start screaming too, maybe they won’t see me as complicit in the crime. In the end, I fell back on a father’s tried and true method: I attempted to reason with a dependent. I consoled Claire Grace, “Honey, they’re just weeds. Our yard will look better with them cut down.” “No Dad! They’re flowers!” “No sweetie, they’re just weeds.” In that moment, I came to the horrible conclusion that I had just taught my daughter how to discriminate. In a subtle way I had taught her that some “flowers” weren’t as valuable as others. I said that for the same reason I buy into discrimination: someone had taught me the same concept when I was her age. But who gave me the right to decide which flowers my daughters should love?
Let me see if I can tie this to Judas. Judas wasn’t just betraying Jesus’ whereabouts – but something much deeper. Judas was betraying himself. He betrayed his own ability to love others by refusing to manipulate or discriminate against them. That’s why the word betray literally means “to hand one over” – you are discriminating against someone’s ability to choose for themselves and handing over their decision to someone else you think can do a better job. One’s agenda for that of another. Judas essentially did that to Jesus – he felt he knew a better way. That’s not too difficult for anyone to do, particularly when we feel we know what is best in a given situation. But its motivation is always pride. But love does the opposite. Love frees us to allow others to make their own choices. And that’s exactly what the cross does. In the cross, Jesus says, “I have died for you. Now, what is your choice? Here is my life. What do you plan to do with yours?” The cross doesn’t discriminate. It gives everyone the same choice. Their own choice.
Holy Week can bring about different emotions in people. Some people are bored with the same story of the cross and resurrection. I’ve been in that category before. For some, it reveals the character of God for the first time. I’ve been in that category, too. And this is what I’ve settled on: how the cross happened is somewhat of a mystery. I can’t tell you the mechanics of how the cross saves me exactly. There are lots of theories on that. But why the cross happened is as clear as day. The cross gives us an event that we can point to and say, “God, I know you love me because no one ever laid down their life for me like you did. I will never doubt your character because I’ve seen your love for me in action…and it beckons me to know you more.”
I think Jesus would’ve restored Judas just like he did Peter. That is if Judas had felt worthy of restoration. After all, Judas was a weed, right? Worthy of thirty snakes for his thirty sins. But it’s important to see exactly who Jesus invited to the table to share in his final meal. In those disciples, every range of faith and doubt existed at that table – those who loved Jesus and those who would betray him. The weeds and the flowers. The only reason Judas could betray Jesus was because Jesus had invited him there anyway. And that’s the beauty of the cross – all manner of people in various stages of belief find themselves at the “table” of the body and the blood of Christ. The invitation is to everyone. And this year we are invited to the table of his death and resurrection again. Jesus invites intimacy and closeness regardless of your spiritual condition. God doesn’t discriminate. And we can reconnect with that spiritual truth this week: the indiscriminate love of God poured out for us at the cross and the power of resurrection life returned to us.
In my high school freshman Biology class, we went on a field trip to a nature preserve and were told to record and describe 5 different flowers. Walking through an open meadow on a sunny day, the bright yellow pedals of the dandelion immediately caught my eye. Thinking nothing of it, I quickly jotted down the description of the flowering plant.
When I received my assignment back later that week, my teacher had only granted me credit for 4 species, stating that “a dandelion is a weed, not a flower”. To this day, I remain saddened by the lack of perspective my high school teacher had.
That’s a great story Chris. It’s amazing how quickly we remove the right of others to determine what’s valuable/aesthetic to them.
Doesn’t Judas get a bad rap here?? Judas is the hero of the story…(assuming the portion of the story is accurate) he proved to every Jew that Jesus would die without fulfilling any messianic prophecy (although obviously every Jew would have loved for him to have actually been the Messiah) and he helped created a single demi-god for all of the pagan gentiles to follow instead of their slew of gods. Furthermore, helped to provide the framework of the religion that would come later. Judas should be revered more than ridiculed…
Just to add another thought…God has never had in his plans to have Himself or some version thereof to act as a vicarious atonement. It just doesn’t work like that. No one can die for the sins of another. If Jesus were actually a part of God or God himself, depending on which sect of Christianity one espouses, he had the ability just forgive. He even grants as much according the NT, when the harlot was washing his feet with her tears. Sacrifice was only a way to bring one closer to God, but not the only way and certainly not the preferred way. Just your average repentance is what God is looking for…but the need to attach a more human like figure to God has always been man’s undoing and Christianity embodies that sentiment.
You make some good points here. I discuss this very idea in this post.
Now, I’m not sure whether vicarious atonement was necessary in one way or another. Truth is we don’t know what was required on a cosmic scale for salvation. Sure, we have the context of Jewish sacrifice, but that context was most relevent to the Jews that saw Jesus minister in their own time. Now it serves as springboard to a larger context for Christ sacrifice. Maybe one can die for the sins of another. Maybe not. But I completely agree with you that forgiveness was happening before the cross occured. And I also agree that sacrifice was one way but not the only way – God chose various ways throughout the Hebrew Bible to attain the same relationship with humanity. The cross was the most poignant and intense of those attempts and, therefore, the one in which God is most fully revealed. I imagine the preferred way would not have included human propensity towards violence. But in diving into the depths of that violence God in Jesus exposed the absurdity of violence as well. I don’t see Christ’s humanity as some sort of cosmic projection we need to feel close to God. I believe God took the initiative to convey the extremes to which he would practice kenosis in order to convey his unconquerable love. That’s the beauty of the cross: power displayed in weakness.
Hi Matt –
Some interesting ideas here – though I’m not sure I agree with the direction you take. Sure, I believe Judas gets a bad rap – the point of the blogs. But the Jews wouldn’t have embraced Judas either. He was a part of the Jesus sect – a maligned Messianic movement within Judaism proper. The Jews with political and religious had no desire to embrace Jesus – he was the Messianic anti-type. Jesus’ crime to the Jews was not that he was a competeing demi-god, but that Jesus expressly said he was God in the flesh. That’s what angered them so. But Judas, like the other disciples, missed the point: Jesus wanted to inaugurate a spiritual kingdom, rather than one that challenged Rome proper. Judas’ mistake was that in his zeal to make that a reality, he wrestled that decision from Jesus’ hands and forced him to operate within a political context – one Jesus never wanted to begin with.
Please site where Jesus claims that he was God in the flesh…Jesus goes out of his way making a clear distinction that he is less than the Father in every way. Now this was claimed for him, to be sure, but never does he make such a declaration. The Jews weren’t anti-Jesus unless you believe everything you read from the bias perspective of the gospels. They would have loved for him to the messiah. The Messiah ben David is not about a person as much as it is about a state of the world that will be ushered in by the appearance of Elijah and then the Messiah. Non of this took place when Jesus came and therefore the Jews knew immediately that he wasn’t the messiah. It’s the uneducated Gentiles that have grasped this idea of Jesus being messiah…some misguided Jews for sure, but in no way can it be supported through scripture. It’s an Inconvenient Truth (although I would never want to quote Al Gore for anything) lol.
Jesus spend plenty of time in the Gospels talking about this. He specifically uses Yahweh’s name in describing himself as “I AM (the shepherd, bread of life, etc..” Even more direct, he he said, “…before Abraham was, I AM.” Poetic? Yes. But not lost on anyone listening with Middle Eastern ears. Then there’s the passages in John where he says that if we have seen him we have seen the Father. The disciples ask “Show us the Father.” Jesus answers in first person narrative for a reason. The Trinitarian model of God is essential to understadning this. That model is derived from scripture yet stands outside scripture proper. I suppose that’s where a litle faith in the apostolic fathers comes in.
Of course, I don’t ahve everything figured out concerning the deity of Christ. And I don’t have to. Fortunately God allows relationship and faith without perfect understanding. Matt, you come across very black and white in your thoughts. Everyone is “misguided” in some area. Part of understadning that is making allowances for others as they seek clarity about God. I hope you’ll do that for me.