Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Text: (John 18:3-9, Matthew 26:47-49)
And Judas came up to Jesus at once and said, “Greetings, Rabbi!” And he kissed him.
Prayer: Let the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
In our readings tonight, there are three things that are described here for our meditation. The first thing is that Judas arrives in the garden with a great crowd. The second thing is that Jesus asks for his disciples to be let free. And third thing is that Judas betrays Jesus with a kiss.
At the end of our reading from last week, we read that Jesus came to the disciples and said to them, “Sleep and take your rest later on. See, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.”
And then we read: While he was still speaking, Judas came.
We can see how quickly everything follows on from the next. The disciples were all still very sleepy, and everything happens so fast. And before they know it, all the damage is done, and it can’t be undone.
In the book of Isaiah we read the prophecy about Jesus: “Surely he has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows.”
Jesus didn’t just carry our sorrow as one, big, non-descript lump, but he carried our sorrows, piece by piece, one by one, one after the other. There are all different kinds of suffering that Jesus suffers, and each thing is unique. It is really impossible for us that we, on the other hand, would suffer so many different kinds of things in such quick succession, and altogether, like Jesus here.
On one hand, he takes all of suffering upon himself, so that we can always point to him and say, “Jesus knows what this is like from his own experience.” But not only that, because he has been through it, and because he has been there, he sanctifies it and blesses it when it happens to us. He shines his light into it, so that what the world thinks is a sad occurrence, for us Christians is a lucky break, it’s a great blessing. And so, St Paul says in Romans 5: “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings…” Do you hear that? We rejoice in our sufferings. We know that Christ has taken them on himself, and he blesses them.
So for example, he became an embryo in his mother’s womb. So we know that every unborn child is blessed in the eyes of God, because they are sharing in Jesus’ own experience. Jesus was born and grew up into a boy and a man. So we know that every baby, child, teenager is blessed in the eyes of God, because they are sharing in Jesus’ experience. He has made it holy for everybody.
Last week, we read about the profound internal suffering and anguish and heartache that Jesus experienced in the Garden of Gethsemane. He has made depression and inward suffering blessed for everybody. He is there with us right in the midst of that sort of experience.
But the suffering that we see Jesus experience tonight is betrayal.
Many of us will know the experience of being betrayed, some much more profoundly than others. And the awful thing about betrayal is this: a person only betrays you when they are close enough to you to know your secrets. The real hurt from betrayal comes when you tell a close friend the things that are close to your heart, and then later, when you think that they’re your friend, they throw it all completely in your face and make a fool of you. You see, it’s not your enemy who betrays you, because you would have never let them into your world, you would have never told them anything that could be betrayed. Betrayal is so nasty, because it requires a person to use against a person what they received from them in the context of friendship and intimacy.
Psalm 55 expresses this so well: For it is not an enemy who taunts me—then I could bear it; it is not an adversary who deals insolently with me—then I could hide from him. But it you, a man, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend. We used to take sweet counsel together; within God’s house we walked in the throng.
Later on, in the gospels, we read about how all the disciples deny Jesus, and run away. But Judas is a particularly corrupt example, because not only does he deny Jesus, but he colludes and conspires with the enemies of Jesus and shows them where Jesus is.
Earlier in the gospels, when it talks about the 12 apostles doing things, we know that Judas was doing everything that the other 11 were doing. He preached the gospel to people. He sat in the intimate company of Jesus day after day for three whole years listening to him and taking notes.
But now things are very different. Not only has he fallen away from Jesus, but he actively seeking out to harm Jesus. He comes out to meet Jesus with the crowd, marching out in front, holding the torch, leading the way.
These events which are described in our reading really point to the great corruption of human nature. In the person of Judas, we can see that there is no such thing as “once saved, always saved”. It is possible to fall away from the faith. It is possible to lose the Holy Spirit. We see this in the example of King David who committed adultery with Bathsheba, and sent her husband Uriah off to the frontline of battle to be killed. There was simply not possible for him to be saved, until Nathan the prophet came to him and told him the story about the rich man stealing the poor man’s lamb, and then said: “You are the man!” Then David repents. He said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord”, and God forgave the iniquity of his sin, as it says in Psalm 32. And Nathan says: “The Lord has put away your sin.”
So we must we vigilant. As St Paul says in 1 Cor 10: Let anyone who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.
We know that every friendship that we have with people has the potential to be reversed and go sour. Human nature is not that good, that we can be absolutely sure that people are going to be friendly for their whole lives. Apparently, for example, Latrobe Valley has 4 times the national average of domestic violence – and I believe it too. That must mean that there are many people who live among us here in the Latrobe Valley who know what it’s like to be betrayed by members of they’re own family – to turn their love and their friendship and the intimacy that belongs to families against those same people. And of course, this doubles the hurt, because not only are people hurt, but they are hurt by people who are supposed to love them.
But also, in the church, there is always potential for betrayal. One day a person may appear to be the most faithful believer and pious Christian that ever lived, and then the next day, they are actively seeking to destroy Christ’s church and to tear it down.
You see, the other 11 disciples fled from Jesus too. Peter denied him 3 times. But Judas went a step further. You see, it’s one thing to do something wrong. It’s one thing to sin against God. And then people find themselves standing in front of the door of salvation, shocked and horrified at themselves that they could ever have found themselves out in the cold.
But, the door is always open. We must simply realise this. The door of heaven is always open through Jesus. The father is always waiting for his prodigal son. The woman is always ready to search for her lost coin. The shepherd is always ready to search for his lost sheep. There is never a time when the door of heaven is not open.
In the case with David, as soon as he realised he was the man in Nathan’s story, Nathan said to him, “The Lord has put away your sin.” The door of heaven always stands open. That’s what the Office of the Keys is in the church. Pastors are commanded by Jesus to open the door of heaven to all those who know their sin. But to those who don’t want to know their sin, the door is to be closed in their face. “If you forgive anyone their sins, they are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, unforgiven they remain.” This is how the church works.
But you see, in Judas’s case, he has fallen away. He has walked out of the door of heaven. And then instead of coming back to Jesus and walking back in, he has come to destroy the door, to hurl mud and dirt at the door, and to tell the whole world what a useless, squeaky, pitiful door it really is.
Many people who have fallen away from the church are like this. They are too proud to acknowledge their sin, so they persecute the church. The atheism that exists in our society today is an atheism of such hypocrisy, because people are not only throwing mud at the church, they are throwing mud at the grandmas and grandpas. I saw a book the other day with the title: “The atheist’s guide to reality: enjoying life without illusions”. The atheists lie and join forces with Satan when they say that the life without God is enjoyable, as Satan says to Jesus in the wilderness, “All this I will give to you, if you bow down and worship me.” Richard Dawkins once said that he didn’t need to be a Christian to know that it was wrong to steal, and murder, and such like. But he forgets that he probably had a Christian grandmother, or great-grandmother, who read the bible, sat at the feet of Jesus, and told her children that it was wrong to steal and murder, which eventually made it’s way through the generations into the consciousness of arrogant atheists like Dawkins.
On another note, in politics, the separation of church and state is always being discussed. But this separation now is something different than what it once was. Since the time of the reformation, Lutherans have always said that Christian pastors should not be put in charge of armies and given rights to sentence people in the courts. That’s the job of generals and judges. But now, separation of church and state means that if you are a Christian member of parliament, you are not allowed to have an opinion. Separation of church and state means that you are not allowed to make any moral decision on the basis of religion, but if you make a moral decision on the basis of your bankrupt empty rationalism like the rest of the politicians, then that’s all right.
What a culture of Judas we live in today, where people conspire and fight to silence Christianity, the very faith which has pervaded it blood and very air that it breathes for almost 1500 years.
And so, in the same way, Judas, the friend of Jesus, his former preacher and faithful companion, comes to lead the way. We read: “While he was still speaking, Judas came, one of the twelve, and with him a great crowd with swords and clubs, from the chief priest and the elders of the people.”
In the gospel of John, the evangelist describes for us some details which should command our attention. We read: So Judas, having procured a band of soliders and some officers from the chief priests and the Pharisees, went there with lanterns and torches and weapons.
You can see, by the mention of the weapons, that they intended to do Jesus harm.
Then Jesus, knowing all that would happen to him, came forward and said to them, “Whom do you seek?” They answered him, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus said to them, “I am he.” Judas, who betrayed him, was standing with them. When Jesus said to them, “I am he,” they drew back and fell to the ground.
Now what’s happening here? In the Greek, the answer of Jesus, simply is “I am.” Now this doesn’t make too much sense in English, so they add the word “he”: “I am he”. But in the book of Exodus, this is the same name that God gave to Moses, when Moses asked God for his name. God said, “I AM WHO I AM. Tell the people that I AM sent you.”
This is the same words that Jesus speaks, and we read that these words were filled with such power, that the soldiers fell on the ground. Earlier in John’s gospel, Jesus said, “Before Abraham was, I am.” And the Jews tried to stone him at this time. They knew what Jesus was saying – he was calling himself “I AM”, he was calling himself the true Son of God, God of God, Light of Light.
The same thing happens here. And just so that we all understand what is happening, Jesus asks the question again.
So [Jesus] asked them again, “Whom do you seek?” And they said, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus answered, “I told you that I am. So if you seek me, let these men go.” This was to fulfil the word that he had spoken: “Of those whom you gave me I have lost not one.”
We know the great power that is in Jesus’ words here, when he says I AM. We can see then when he asks the question again, and when he finally is arrested and taken captive, he does this completely voluntarily. He chooses the way of the cross and the way of suffering for us. He wants to do it for us. He could easily speak one word and Caiaphas, Annas, Pontius Pilate, the soldiers, the mockers, and everyone would simply drop like flies, as the do here. But he chooses the way of love for us.
And not only that, right at this time, Jesus intercedes for his disciples. He says: “If it is me you seek, then let these men go.” None of the disciples can die with Jesus, and if they are going to be saved, then Jesus has to die alone for them. So he protects them, and puts his angels in charge of them to keep them safe, even though he allows the demons and all the power of hell to be unleashed upon himself. And so John writes: This was to fulfil the word that was spoken: “Of those whom you gave me, I have lost not one.” He does the same for you: he lets all the wrath of God come upon himself, so that all the protection of God may come upon you, and so that you may not be lost.
Lastly, in our meditation tonight, we read about the way in which Judas singled Jesus out to the crowd. The gospel of Matthew reads: Now the betrayer had given them a sign, saying, “The one I will kiss is the man; seize him.” And he came up to Jesus at once and said, “Greetings, Rabbi!” And he kissed him.
Before we mention anything else, we need to mention the place where all this happens. This happens in Gethsemane, on the Mount of Olives. We read in many places in the gospels where Jesus went there to pray, and that it was a kind of favourite place for him. It was a quiet place of retreat, for prayer, for simply enjoying the presence of his Father. To the outside, it looks like this is a place where Jesus is at his weakest – but it’s a lovely place, because Jesus is strongest there.
It’s this place that Judas betrays. Judas betrays to the crowd the place where Jesus goes to be on his knees. He betrays to them his favourite place.
But he also does it in a certain way. He betrays Jesus with a kiss. It’s not hard to see why this is so shocking. He used a sign of such intimacy and friendship, and he uses it for the exact opposite thing that it should mean.
This is what the devil is always doing. He always takes words and gestures and uses them in the exact opposite way as they should. So a person will shake a person’s hand, kiss them on the cheek, pat them on the back, hug them, and then spit in their eye. Compare the kiss on the cheek from Judas to the kiss on the cheek and the joyful embrace of pregnant Mary and pregnant Elizabeth. Listen to their greeting of friendship. Listen to the greeting of the angel Gabriel to Mary – these are honest greetings of friendship and love, greetings which bestow the Holy Spirit.
Judas says: “Greetings, Rabbi!” Same words, but he bestows the power of Satan instead.
And for us, Jesus actually blesses this when it happens to us. As Jesus says: “Woe to you when others speak well of you.” “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.”
So we see our Lord going to lay his life freely for all his sheep, to die for the forgiveness of every denial, every betrayal, every false word, every false gesture, every false greeting. And we see Jesus blessing those who persecute him: just as he blesses us who have persecuted him day after day and week after week with the words of his holy absolution. Jesus says what he means, and he means what he says. When he embraces, he means it in love. He has embraced us all into his care through Holy Baptism, and it is not a fake love, or a love which talks the talk but doesn’t walk the walk. It is a love for which he suffered and died.
Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world, have mercy on us. Amen.
And the peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
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