Books have been written on the Passion narrative proclaimed on Good Friday, so a short reflection can focus only on a small portion of the treasure-trove of meaning in the readings of this day. For this reflection, out of the many possible topics, I will focus on Judas.
The question of Judas has generated a vast array of interpretation throughout history. In Dante's Inferno, we see him in the innermost circle of Hell, right next to Satan, as a result of committing the supreme act of betrayal. By contrast, in the Gnostic Gospel of Judas, he is depicted as a friend of Jesus, in that, according to the Gnostics, he helped Jesus leave the chains of this earthly existence by facilitating his execution. Many other gradation of interpretation can also be found between these two.
In Catholicism, Judas has always been seen as guilty of the greatest of sins, personally betraying Christ, God Incarnate, handing him over to death. However, even this horrendous sin could have been forgiven if Judas had accepted God's love. The great tragedy of Judas is that, unlike Peter, who also betrayed Jesus, Judas rejected the forgiveness that would have been freely given to him by Christ and chose suicide instead.
Is there hope that in his final moments Judas did open his heart to God's forgiveness? Perhaps. On the one hand, Christ does imply that it would have been better for Judas not to have been born (Matthew 26:24). On the other hand, throughout the Gospels Christ, often speaks using hyperbole, so perhaps what he implied about Judas falls into that category as well. We will not know the eternal state of Judas for sure until we too transition from this life to the next.
The rejection of God's mercy by Judas can teach us much about the dynamics of how the enemy seeks to separate us from God. When we are about to sin, the demons urge us on, making us feel that what we are about to do is our right, is good for us, is our true liberation, and that God is unreasonable for not wanting us to engage in the sin we are about to commit. But once we have committed the sin, the demons take on the role of the accuser, attacking us with the feeling that we have failed completely, that our fall is irredeemable, that God could never forgive, could never love someone who sinned like us.
As the spiritual saying goes, Satan accuses, whereas the Holy Spirit convicts. Satan makes us focus on the enormity of our guilty, so that we would despair completely. The Holy Spirit, by contrast, convicts us, making us understand the seriousness of our sin, but with the goal of helping us repent and seek healing. We must learn from the suicide of Judas. No matter how greatly we have sinned, we must never despair but should open our hearts to God's infinite forgiveness.
Another lesson from this narrative of betrayal is not to leave Jesus because of Judas. One of the early criticisms of Christianity was that the faith could not be taken seriously given that one of the hand-picked members of the inner core of the movement handed the founder over to certain death. But the apostles had free-will. All the disciples had the choice to follow Christ truly or to reject him. As the community grew and became more and more established, we also see disciples who do not choose to leave Jesus but instead choose to serve him badly, creating scandal, which then shakes the faith of others.
We most likely have all encounter Christians whose unworthy, hypocritical, or abusive behavior made us question the truth of Christianity. Perhaps they were family members. Perhaps they were members of the church we attend. Or perhaps they were leaders of the community, ministers or priests, or even higher up. The more the person was involved, the greater the authority the person had, the more the wound would hurt, and the more likely we would be to walk away from Christianity as a result - to leave Christ because of Judas.
But we should pause and think. The person who hurt us has already caused us some damage. Why would we respond to that harm by allowing them to harm us further? Why would we allow them to separate us from the source of all good, the way, the truth, and the life - from Christ himself? Letting a bad Christian cause us to leave Christianity is like letting a bad chef to cause us to stave ourselves to death.
The best way to answer the behavior of a bad Christian is to draw closer to Christ ourselves. In the process, we should pray for the one whose behavior tempted us to turn away from God's grace in the first place. A key principle of Catholic spirituality is to offer up our suffering for others, with the understanding that the spiritual value of our suffering can be beneficial to others. If other Christians hurt us, the best thing we can do is to offer up the spiritual value of the suffering they have caused us for their own healing. By doing so, we imitate Christ, who offered up his suffering and death upon the cross for our salvation.
We should also remember that only one of the apostles stayed by the foot of the cross during the crucifixion. The others all ran away. The disciple in question was John, to whom our Lord entrusted the care of his mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary. Many commentators have remarked that John was able to stay with Christ, because he stayed with Mary. Our Holy Mother gave him the strength to remain focused on Christ. We should do likewise. When we are tempted to turn away from Christ, either because of bad Christians or any other reason, we should pray to our Blessed Mother for assistance. She will help us stay with Jesus.
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The readings for Good Friday are:
Is 52:13—53:12
Psalm 31:2, 6, 12-13, 15-16, 17, 25
Heb 4:14-16; 5:7-9
Jn 18:1—19:42
The full text can be found at the USCCB website.
Photo Credit: Mosaic in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, near the spot where Christ was crucified by Zoltan Abraham (c) 2016.