[Slide 1] Vision Statement: Gospel-Centered I. Introduction and Passage [Slide 2] We are in the middle of the series on the Gospel of John entitled, Knowing I AM. We are looking at the last week of Jesus life. [Slide 3] Today s sermon is entitled, The Way of Judas. Before we read the passage, let me give you a little background. This is the week of his death. It started with a triumphant entry into Jerusalem. The religious leaders want to arrest and kill Jesus. Jesus is having his last supper with his disciples. It is a Passover meal. He started the meal with washing his disciples feet. That s what TC preached about last week. (He did a great job!) Today, we are continuing the saga of what happened at the last supper. [Slide 4] Let s pick up the story at. 18 I am not referring to all of you; I know those I have chosen. But this is to fulfill this passage of Scripture: He who shared my bread has turned against me. [If you look at Psalm 41:9 where this is from, the first part of the verse says: Even my close friend someone I trusted, one who shared my bread has turned against me. You ll see this motif a few times in this passage: Intimacy and betrayal.] 19 I am telling you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe that I am who I am. [It literally says, you will believe that I AM. Again, open and clear reference to the identity of Jesus: he is God in human form] 20 Very truly I tell you, whoever accepts anyone I send accepts me; and whoever accepts me accepts the one who sent me. [When you understand who he is, this verse is very clear] [Slide 5] 21 After he had said this, Jesus was troubled in spirit and testified, Very truly I tell you, one of you is going to betray me. [Once again, you see the heartbreak of Jesus. Jesus was a man who felt everything. His heart was broken as he thought about Judas who would betray him.] 22 His disciples stared at one another, at a loss to know which of them he meant. 23 One of them, the disciple whom Jesus loved, was reclining next to him. 1
24 Simon Peter motioned to this disciple and said, Ask him which one he means. 25 Leaning back against Jesus, he asked him, Lord, who is it? [Slide 6] 26 Jesus answered, It is the one to whom I will give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish. Then, dipping the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. 27 As soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered into him. So Jesus told him, What you are about to do, do quickly. 28 But no one at the meal understood why Jesus said this to him. 29 Since Judas had charge of the money, some thought Jesus was telling him to buy what was needed for the festival, or to give something to the poor. 30 As soon as Judas had taken the bread, he went out. And it was night. [I want you to imagine this dinner. The people at that time reclined in low tables. You used your left arm to prop yourself up and ate with your right hand. And it seems from the way the conversation took place above that the disciple Jesus loved (some people speculate that this is John himself) reclined next to Jesus on his right side and Judas reclined next to him on the left side. That s why Judas and Jesus were able to have a private conversation. This means that Judas was reclining close to the bosom of Jesus. And he dipped a piece of bread and gave it to Judas. This was an act of intimate friendship. It is an act of love. Remember, Jesus knew that Judas was planning to betray him. Yet, there is this intimacy and love to the end. Yet, Judas allowed Satan to enter into him. We ll talk a little more about what this means later. Then, Jesus put him on the spot: What you are about to do, do quickly. As soon as he took the bread, he went out. And it was night. The author is very careful to tell us that there is spiritual darkness here.] I was always curious about Judas. For today, I want us to dig in a little about Judas and see what we can learn. [Slide 7] So, what do we know about Judas? 2
His name is followed by the word Iscariot. That s not his last name. People didn t have last names. One theory is that it means in Hebrew, a man from Karriot. Another theory is that he was a Sicari, which means a dagger hider, a band of Jewish rebel-assassins who assassinate Roman officials with a hidden dagger. He was one of the twelve, a part of the inner circle. This means he followed Jesus for 3 years. He saw Jesus love. He saw how he embraced the social outcasts of society. He saw the power of Jesus to heal and even bring dead to life. He saw how he multiplied bread and fed thousands of people. He saw how he walked on water. He heard his teachings about the Kingdom of God. He was there. He was also the keeper of the money bag; and embezzled money from the bag; he was a thief; he objected to Mary when she poured expensive perfume on Jesus. The Bible says that right after that incident, Judas went to the high priest to ask them how much they would give for turning Jesus over (Mark 14:10). Jesus washed his disciples feet, including the feet of Judas. And from the passage today, we know that they were close. Jesus loved Judas to the end. We also know that he betrayed Jesus with a kiss when he brought guards with clubs to arrest him. When Jesus was crucified, Judas was filled with remorse and returned the 30 pieces of silver he got for betraying Jesus. Then, he hung himself. Judas is one of the most mysterious persons in the Bible. I think the biggest question is: [Slide 8] Why did he betray Jesus? There are a lot of theories: -He was greedy There is strong support for this view; but, I think there was more going on because he ended up returning the money. -He was told by Jesus to do so. Gospel of Judas Jesus says: But you will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me. 3
The manuscript just came out about 8 years ago. It is one of the celebrated non-biblical text discoveries in the last 60 years after they discovered some of the other Gnostic Gospels. An authentic manuscript was found in the 1970 s and was floating around dealers of antiquities for a long time. I think National Geographic got a grant to translate it and make it available to the public. It was probably written around 150 AD. This does not appear to be a fake. The manuscript dates to around 300 AD. It is one of the Gnostic Gospels written around that time Gnostics who were Christians believed either that Jesus was not really a human or that he was clothed with human body that he wanted to get rid of. Essentially, they believed that spirit was good and body was bad. For centuries, scholars had known about the existence of this Gnostic gospel because Irenaeus (who was a disciple of Polycarp, who was a disciple of John and wrote a book called, Against Heresies, around 180): They declare that Judas the traitor was thoroughly acquainted with these things, and that he alone, knowing the truth as no others did, accomplished the mystery of the betrayal; by him all things, both earthly and heavenly, were thus thrown into confusion. They produce a fictitious history of this kind, which they style the Gospel of Judas. But, we never had the actual Gospel of Judas until now. CT says: Don't get confused by mentions of Jesus and Judas. This is no Christian text. The Gospel of Judas did not circulate until about 150 years after Jesus died. Let's put it this way: This new text tells us nothing more about Jesus' relationship with Judas than does Jesus Christ Superstar. The third theory: He wanted to force Jesus hand If you look at Matthew 27:3, it says: When Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned he was seized with remorse and returned the 4
thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders. It looks like he didn t expect Jesus to be crucified. Maybe he had an agenda and wanted to force Jesus hand into his agenda. He knew the power of Jesus. He saw the miracles he performed. Healing the sick, raising the dead, calming the storm, casting out the demons, feeding the thousands. It was the desire of virtually all of the disciples (maybe except Matthew who was a tax collector) that the Messiah would come and overthrow the Romans and inaugurate the Kingdom of God. Some at the time believed that if Jews would rise up and fight, God would send legions of angels to fight for them, and the Messiah would come and lead the nation into victory. It was so obvious to them what the Messiah was supposed to do. That s why they couldn't get it when Jesus talked about suffering and the cross. It went in one ear and went out the other. That s why Peter tried to stop Jesus when he said that. And Jesus responded to him at that time and said, Satan, get behind me! When we do not believe in the power of the cross, the power of crossshaped love, the power of love, the power of grace and servanthood, and instead buy into the power-over version of victory, we take the place of Satan, we are influenced by Satan to that extent who is the prince of this power-over world. That s why when Judas decided to betray Jesus, he took the place of Satan again. It is interesting that even after the resurrection and before the ascension in Acts 1, his disciples asked him in Acts 1:8: Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel? They still don't get it. So, Judas, who was nationalistic and possibly a rebel himself before he started to follow Jesus, knew Jesus had the power to not only escape but also to inaugurate his kingdom right then. Maybe if I force him by getting him arrested. Establish power and kick some Roman butt! Freedom from the tyranny of the Romans! 5
His agenda was to force Jesus to use power-over people, the power to compel behavior by the use of force or threat or coercion, and inaugurate the Kingdom of God. But, Jesus had a different agenda. To die for our sins. To demonstrate his love and justice on the cross. To reconcile us to a relationship with God. To defeat Satan by the power of the cross, the power of love, and to free us from the bondage of Satan. He came to defeat Satan so that he can save both the Jews and the Romans and everyone on earth, and bring them together in the New Jerusalem, a New City, as one. [Slide 9] What does it look like to follow the way of Judas? What does it look like to follow the ways of Judas instead of the ways of Jesus? Whenever we use violent, power-over, coercive methods to accomplish what we obvious believe are God s will, we are dabbling in Judas way. There is always some good purpose we are trying to accomplish. A more moral world, for example. If we try to accomplish what we believe to be a more moral world through the power of the sword, the power of violence, the power of coersion, we are dabbling in the ways of Judas. We are called to the way of Jesus, which is the way of the cross, the way of self-sacrificial love, servanthood, and mercy, the way of love even for our enemies. You have to remember that when we take what we believe is good, and that can be right, but seek to use the power of this world, the power of the sword, violence, coercion, we are in essence standing in the place of Satan, just like Peter, just like Judas. If you think about it, the way of Judas is very common. It look like just another version of what is out there, where it s about winning, being the top dog, and we just Christianize it. Is there a difference between Jesus and the god of this world or have we just Christianized a pagan warrior God? When we think about Western history, we have to acknowledge that the way of Judas has infiltrated into the church at least from the 4th Century. In the name of God and 6
the will of God, we have killed people, burn people at the stakes, invaded nations in the name of God. It s terrible. We may have gotten our victories and our 30 pieces of silver, but we failed to live out the Calvary like love, we failed to live out cross-shaped love, which is real power. It s not just on societal scale. It happens in our personal lives as well. We follow the ways of Judas all the time. In the context of our personal lives, we try to coerce people through the power of this world. We try to coerce people through threat of violence or violence. Maybe it s not a gun or a fist, but maybe it is through verbal assaults. Maybe it is through our anger, yelling, cursing. Often times, what we are trying to accomplish is obvious good as what Judas was trying to accomplish. But, the methods we use are the methods of this world. When we do that we line up with the ways of Judas. I used to believe when I was practicing law that successful lawyers have a killing instinct. I remember having lunch with summer associates, really nice Christian summer associates, and telling them that if they want to be a successful lawyer, they need killer instinct. I told them you have to know how to attack mercilessly so that they are afraid of you. As I think about that now, there is something wrong with that. That s more in line with the ways of Judas, not the ways of Jesus. We try to coerce people, pressure people to become Christians. We do so in such way that we turn them off to the gospel of Jesus. [the story of the retreat if we have time] I thought the purpose of my life was to make it in the world, reach the top of the world, the American dream, and break glass-ceilings of discrimination, and give credit to God for blessing me. I thought that would be a great testimony. When I get my fist Mercedes, I will declare that God blessed me and give glory to God. I was dabbling in the ways of Judas, instead of the way of Jesus. Judas had his own agenda, and tried to get Jesus to bless it. I had my selfish agenda, and I tried to get Jesus to bless it in the name of his glory. I was trying to manipulate God for my own gain. I think we have to ask the question: Are we in this so that God will bless our careers? 7
Are we in this so that God will bless our marriages, or help us find our future spouse? Are we in this so that God will bless our children? Is God like a vending machine or a Genie? Are we following the way of Judas and trying to use God for our agenda, what we believe are good things that would bring us happiness? Or are we ready to submit to the way of Jesus? Take some time to reflect: Who is your true God? Are you really following yourself or are you following God? When we try to put our plan above the plan of God, this is what happens: (1) Things work out. We continue to act as God of our lives. It is all about how my religion can help me succeed or how my religion can help me make the next sales or etc. (2) Things don t work out. Some of us blame God and walk away from God. (3) Things don t work out. Some of us are honest enough to admit that we screwed up. We try to make it right. But if we can t fix it, ultimately, we give ourselves the punishment we deserve. o That s what happened to Judas o It didn t work out. o He admitted that he screwed up o He tried to make it right by returning the money and asking them to stop the condemnation o When he couldn t resolve it, he gave himself the punishment he deserve. He hung himself. o How do we punish ourselves? I think we do it emotionally by condemning ourselves You are no good You can t do this 8
You call yourself a Christian? I think sometimes we punish ourselves physically, by not taking care of our bodies, or killing ourselves through drinking, drugs, or even suicide [Slide 10] What is the solution? The solution is not to take our agenda above God s plan, but to submit ourselves to the way of Jesus. o He leads us to die so that we can really live o He leads us to follow the way of the cross, servanthood, mercy, humility, and grace o He leads us to give up everything so that we can gain everything o He leads us to be weak so that we can be powerful o If we made a mistake in our lives, we come to God asking for forgiveness How? Where do we get the power to do this? o It is the grace of God. o If Judas repented as he did and came to Jesus seeking his forgiveness, he would have experienced this tremendous forgiveness from Jesus. This experience would have radically changed him. He would have submitted to the plan of Jesus willingly and happily. o That s the only way to do it. Christianity is about inner transformation affecting outer life. It s not trying to change our outer life when nothing is going on in the inside. I want us to remember that we can feel close to Jesus, but completely miss the way of the cross. Because the way of Judas is so much more obvious than the way of Jesus. But, remember he is the way, the trust, and the life. 9