Hear Our Silence

The recent publication of the Gospel of Judas Iscariot has cast a sudden searchlight on the least regarded of Christ’s chosen apostles. The restored codex dates back to two centuries after the death of Jesus. And the community responsible for its history offer us a make-over of the man who betrayed his leader.

Judas is portrayed as a close friend of Jesus, so close that he agreed to hand him over to the authorities ’so that Scripture might be fulfilled’. So now we see Judas in a different, even more tragic light: he is asked to abandon his Lord so that he might go to his death on the cross.

My wife, being a psychotherapist, has an original take on the Twelve. She sees them as types or icons of the different aspects of the human character. Yes, each man was unique, as we all are: yet the Evangelists seem to highlight each person in a sharply defined way.

John, the youthful lover of Jesus, faithful to the end; entrusted with the care of his Mother at the death. Peter, magnanimous, an outstanding leader, yet flawed with cowardice when he comes to the test. Mathew the money man, intent on making his pile - until his head is turned in another direction as he hears the Call.

Now we tend to turn away from Judas, as despicable: the man who killed himself in despair at what he had done, an irretrievable failure. What had he done? Betrayed the one relationship with the single person who was able to make him whole.

And what is the sin of modern society? Our failure to stay in relationship, sometimes even our inability to enter into relationship with another person in a committed, meaningful way. So here is Judas, showing us the wreck we make as we break or fail to make good our relationship with each other.

Christ may or may not have asked Judas to betray him to suit the storyline: but I can see in this man a terrible warning that if I betray my lifeline of relating to my wife, my friends, my fellow men - taking them seriously as real people - I am in deep trouble.

Julia telephoned from Bethesda on Easter Day. She is my five-year-old grand daughter, her mother is from a Jewish family. Tom and Jodi had celebrated the Jewish Passover with the Seder, that wonderful story-telling  which recapitulates the journey out of Egypt and how it was led by Moses - the meal, the escape, their journey across the sea and the desert that followed.

Stories are great and, if listened to, always true.

The Gospel of Judas has just been published in the States and so Tom had to explain to Julia who he is in our story. How he betrayed Jesus, how Jesus had then suffered death, accepting his own Story- which also belongs to us.

So God had chosen to die!

This is Julia’s question: “Why did God choose to die?”

And that is what I had to answer on the flip of a coin, as she came to the telephone to wish me Happy Easter.

I tried to tell her that if God had come among us, it was not about death but about our life - how we should go about our living. But once we are alive, then we must all die, since living is about change. And the ultimate, transforming change, is to die. Yet death is ‘passing over’, the Passover. And just as God had accompanied those Jewish exiles journeying towards their new land long ago, caring for them, feeding them, leading them through to a new way of life, so now he still accompanies us on our journey.

Jesus became Man. He lived and he died - Son of David, Son of God and Son of Man.

Why did he chose to die?

Julia (you ask the best of all questions): because he loves us to live and chose to live with us to teach us how to love in our living.

About dying: don’t fuss with that. Since he did it for us all long ago.

Seriously, Julia, living is far more important than dying. And when we all come to die, as we must, we will be fine. It is just the next step in our Passing Over, that great journey of long ago that Moses led his people through.

And now. today, our Loving Maker and Keeper and Lover, shares our journey so that we may safely live and love and eventually - in his Good Time - find our way home away from this land of Tents and Trials.

Shalom, Julia: a very Happy Easter as we begin our long, safe journey - together.