Spy Wednesday: Judas decides to betray Jesus

 Opening Prayer

O Lord open our lips.
That our mouths may proclaim your praise.

O God, come to our aid.
O Lord, make haste to help us.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen.

Almighty God,
you have made us for yourself,
and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you:
pour your love into our hearts and draw us to yourself,
and so bring us at last to your heavenly city
where we shall see you face to face;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. 

According to tradition today is known as ‘Spy Wednesday’. It receives its name as this is the day on which the Church remembers that Judas approached the religious authorities in order to betray Jesus. He was the ‘spy’ in the midst of the disciples.

 

‘It was two days before the Passover and the festival of Unleavened Bread. The chief priests and the scribes were looking for a way to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him; for they said, ‘Not during the festival, or there may be a riot among the people.’

[…]

‘Then Judas Iscariot, who was one of the twelve, went to the chief priests in order to betray him to them. When they heard it, they were greatly pleased, and promised to give him money. So he began to look for an opportunity to betray him.’

[Mark 14.1-2, 10-11]

 

Why does Judas betray Jesus?

 

In his version of this story St John says that Judas was inspired by the devil. That he was a thief who constantly had his hand in the collective purse, and when Judas complains that had the ointment used at the Anointing of Christ at Bethany (see Tuesday) been sold, the money raised could have been used to feed the poor, he is lying – he would rather the money went to him. Is this then the tipping point that causes Judas to rebel?

But that’s not the only way of viewing this story, Andrew Lloyd Webber in the opening song of Jesus Christ Superstar has Judas sing that Jesus’s belief that he is the messiah was getting in the way of their original mission. This is supported by some modern scholars who argue that the betrayal by Judas leading to Jesus’s arrest could have been an attempt to start a revolution: the sight of Jesus (a known radical) being led away by the authorities leading to rioting in support of his release.

 

Finally in the image I have chosen we see a shadowy figure standing at Judas’s shoulder: the devil guiding his actions as he sells Jesus to his enemies.

 

But Judas was not the only one seeking to get rid of Jesus, the religious authorities were also making plans for his disposal. The arrival of Judas, one of the inner 12, must have been a surprise and a blessing to them: here was their way in.

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Human emotions and motives are complex things, and we do not always know ourselves why we have done something, especially if that action has been particularly damaging or outlandish. For the religious authorities, the need for action was not at all complex: Jesus had become a nuisance and a thorn in their side. He repeatedly ridiculed them for what he called their lack of faith, and now he had caused a riot in the Temple. He was becoming a danger to their authority, and his actions were likely to cause a violent response from the Roman authorities who dealt harshly with any sign of rebellion. (As the High Priest Caiaphas says in the Gospel of St John: ‘It is better than one man die than the whole nation suffer!*) Here then was their way out.

 

That Jesus had to die in order that he might save creation is beyond question, but that leaves us with another question of whether Judas truly had agency in his actions, or whether he was blindly following a plan set out before the beginning of time. (I’m thinking here of Pharoah in Exodus, who the writer said had his heart ‘hardened’ by God** so that we he would not release the people of Israel from captivity, and thus prolonged the suffering of the Egyptians who were cursed by the seven plagues.) My sense is that Judas does have agency, and that like Adam and Eve he could have said no to his anger and temptation, but sadly he refuses to, and so like the falling of a small stone that causes an avalanche Judas approaches the religious authorities with an offer they are not going to refuse.

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In one final act, not found either in scripture or tradition but in more recent thinking, there is the idea that when Christ descends into Hell on Holy Saturday he travels down to its deepest part, there to seek out his friend Judas in order to redeem him. This goes against traditional views of the fate of Judas, but also opens the possibility of redemption for Judas. And if even he can be redeemed, then who is beyond God's redemptive power.

 

*John 11.50

**Exodus 9.12

 

Closing Prayer

O God, who willed your Son to submit for our sake

to the yoke of the Cross,

so that you might drive from us the power of the enemy,

grant us, your servants, to attain the grace of the resurrection.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

God, for ever and ever.