Dear friends in Christ, may God give us all a fine Memorial Day weekend.  May we all take a moment to look back and remember with gratitude those who have gone on before us, those family and loved ones who died in the Christian faith, and also those who have died in defense of our nation.  This is the purpose of Memorial Day.

          Today let us pray for our nation's leaders and defenders, our President, Congress, and our armed forces.  More and more public opinion is against both, mostly because people dwell on the immediate and do not look to future needs.  The war against Islamic fanaticism and its terrorist agents, is a far greater threat to the world than we realize.  And it will not go away by itself.  If we lose this war, it will drastically change the world as we know it.  Either we make sacrifices today to stop the killers of the innocent, or one day we will awake to find our liberties gone and ourselves slaves of a pagan religion.  The leaders of our nation and the free world need our prayers, that they may do what is right.  May God give them eyes to see clearly what is needed.

          Last weekend millions flocked to the theaters to see the opening of "The DaVinci Code", a fictional thriller about the Christian faith.  The movie is based on the notion that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married, had children, and that Mary was to be head of the church, not Jesus.  The book says early church buried this belief until it was recently revealed only in the past few decades.

          Whatever value the book has, it has certainly renewed interest in the Bible.  People are seeking the facts.  Papers and magazines and are printing stories on so-called "lost books of the Bible."  (They weren't lost - they were never included.)  Even people formerly considered evil, such as Judas, are being cast as misunderstood, victims of historical mistakes or cover-ups.  Since two of today's lessons refer to Judas, let's take a look at this man, and the part he played in the divine drama of salvation.

          We really know little about most of the disciples, except for Peter, James and John.  What Judas did, however, seems clear:  he turned Jesus over to the authorities for money.  But why he did it, what motivated him, and even his relationship to Jesus, remains in the shadows.  Judas' name was common at that time.  He was born in Kerioth, a small village 40 miles south of Jerusalem.  ("Iscariot" means "man from Kerioth.")  As a disciple, Judas "carried the purse," acting as treasurer and buying what was needed.  It was a position of trust.

          Jesus chose Judas as His disciple, and that seems a bit odd.  If Jesus knew what Judas would do, why choose him?  For his weakness?  Did Jesus "set up" Judas to betray Him and "take the fall" when the time was right?  Over and again the Bible refers to what Judas did, "That the Scriptures might be fulfilled..."  The Judas Factor has been debated ever since, and has given rise to interesting theories.  There is even a Gospel of Judas, a 2nd century book in which Jesus secretly tells Judas to betray Him so that Jesus could be released from His body to achieve greater things.  In it, Judas is a sort of martyr, giving his life for Jesus and the greater good.

          The only known copy of the Gospel of Judas was discovered just 30 years ago.  It was written around 150-180 AD.  Iranaeus, the early Christian scholar, condemned it in 180 AD, so that dates it.  But it is the only document that gives Judas any credit; every one and everything else condemns him.  The Gospel of Judas was written by someone who wanted to make him a hero.  Scholars say it is a Gnostic work, written by those who believed they had special revelation, unknown to all others.

          How then should we consider this man, Judas Iscariot?  Was he evil personified, as the Gospels say, a puppet of Satan to defeat Jesus?  Or was he a misguided fellow, a puppet of Jesus, as the Gnostics portray him?  The truth is somewhere in between.  Muslims consider him a hero, claiming that Judas died on the cross in place of Jesus.  Gnostics have always considered Judas a pawn, used by God to help Jesus achieve salvation.  The Church vilifies him, and the Bible places his name last in the list of disciples, always adding that he betrayed Jesus.

          But this we can say for sure:  Judas was not a victim.  He knew what he was doing.  He may well have been disappointed at Jesus, hoping He would help to expel the Romans (making him a zealot).  Or he may have wanted a higher place among the disciples and resented the tasks Jesus gave him to do (making him envious).  He may have been greedy for money, for the disciples accused him of theft in John 12:6.  Or he may even have betrayed Jesus as a solution for the lesser of two evils (making him a politician).  Some think him a stooge, but I think he was bright and very misguided.  At least he had a conscience, though it led him astray.  When he realized the gravity of what he had done, he took his own life.  He did not deny what he had done.  But with him died his personal motives.

          In the divine plan of salvation, a betrayer was necessary.  Hundreds of years before, the Old Testament had prophesied the Messiah would come into the world to defeat Satan and neutralize sin, but in the process He would be betrayed.  The Seers of Old wrote that the Lamb of God must die for the sins of the world, and that one of His own would betray Him.  But Judas was not pressed into service, an unwilling man for an ugly job.  He knew what he was doing, and did it willingly.  Judas did it because he chose to, and God foreknew he would.  God's plan of salvation moved forward because God foreknew who would be involved.

          We need to understand this about the Bible:  Salvation is not an exact outline.  It's not Part 1, the Need; Part 2, the Plan; and Part 3, the Plot - all perfectly clear.  Salvation is presented by God's writers in segments, a human story told by God's people.  There are several dozen authors of the story, each adding a piece of the puzzle, all presented so we must use our heads in understanding what it is.

          In the end, the Gospel is simple:  God loves us, but we're all sinners; that's why He sent Jesus, so let's trust Him!  Simple words, yet filled with eternal life for people headed for eternal death.  Judas could have repented, but because of what he did, he bears the ultimate stigma, the Judas Factor:  no one names their child Judas any more.  His name, so common once, has been placed into the dust bin of history forever.

          Did Jesus love Judas?  Of course!  You can see it in His great sadness during the Last Supper when He tells him to go do what he has come for.  Perhaps the human Jesus hoped there would be a last minute change of plans, a different way than having one of His own betray Him.  But the divine Jesus knew the plan and lived it to its completion.  He turned His cheek for the kiss, held out His hands for His captors, and crawled onto the cross.  Jesus went willingly, and because of it, we are saved.

          The Judas Factor lives in each of us.  You and I could easily have taken His place.  We deny Him when we fail to speak up for Him.  We betray Him when we shun worship, avoid prayer and ignore His Word.  We nail Him to the cross with our sins and abandon Him for the toys of the world.  And yet, mystery of all mysteries, Jesus loved Judas, and Jesus loves us.  He who was betrayed seeks and saves the betrayers.

          The Judas Factor will only be solved in paradise.  There we shall know the answer to why it had to happen this way.  Meanwhile, let us not think Judas a victim.  Let us not fall to that temptation.  Rather, let us fix our eyes on Jesus, our Lord and Savior.  Amen

Copyright © 2006 by Pastor Bob Tasler.  All rights reserved.