On Palm
Sunday we often read the whole Passion story from beginning to end,
from the
triumphant entry into Jerusalem until the crucifixion. This extract pauses at
surely one of the most excruciating moments for Jesus as he sets his own
imminent death in the context of the fulfilment of covenant promises enacted in
the Passover meal he shares with his disciples. This is excruciating because of
the presence among them of the one who will betray him. Luke has warned his
readers earlier that this is coming but it is still a tense moment as the joy
and friendship of a shared meal are overturned, and divine and human agency
meet in a stand-off between love and treachery. Judas serves God’s ancient
purpose but must also take responsibility for his own actions. And so it still
goes. God has a plan and purpose for each of us, and yet we have choices to
make as we go through life. Could Judas have made a different choice? I believe
so. In that case the plans of God would have been fulfilled another way. Any of
us who has ever made a choice or a decision we regret can surely spare a few
moments today to weep for Judas, driven to despair by his act of betrayal.
Conscious of the ways in which we too betray Jesus through our own wrong-headed
and self-centred choices we will hopefully resist condemning him. Unlike with
Peter, the denier of Jesus, we have no biblical account of a reconciliation
between Judas and Jesus, but I am in no doubt that Jesus forgave him and the
choice he made, as he forgives each one of us.
‘Dido’s
Lament (Remember me, but, ah, forget my fate)’ Henry Purcell sung by Joyce
DiDonato
Jane
McBride
Judas kissing Christ surrounded by
soldiers; St Peter attacking Malchus in foreground, after
Dürer
Marcantonio
Raimondi (Italian, Argini (?) ca. 1480–before 1534 Bologna (?)), The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Henry Walters, 1917,
www.metmuseum.org
.
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