A Message of Hope from Judas
If Judas’ betrayal couldn’t screw up the Kingdom of Heaven, neither can we.
At the tail end of a convention a couple of weeks ago, a very nice woman approached me. She knew from a previous conversation that I was Christian, and she wanted to hear about my faith.
We chatted for an hour or two, and afterwards, I felt like the conversation had gone pretty well. I had been calm and relaxed, and I felt like I had pretty reliably heard and said what I felt God inviting me to say to her so that she could understand His endless love for her.
But then panic hit me.
I had done alright in this conversation, I thought. But God’s been putting more and more folks like this in my path. What if the next time someone asks me about my faith, I’m too in my head? What if I’m too full of fear and guilt and shame to hear what God wants me to say to them, and they leave thinking that Christianity might be a nice idea but it’s probably not for them—or worse, they leave so offended by something I said that they swear off the whole faith forever?
I was working myself into a state of panic. What if I failed the Kingdom? What if people who truly needed to know God’s infinite and unrelenting love for them didn’t—because I was a bad messenger?
That would be awful.
And then, as I prayed to God for guidance about what to do with my fear, I found myself thinking of the story of Judas.
Accounts of Judas’ betrayal differ, but for myself, I have a hard time imagining that Judas went into his ministry planning to betray Jesus. Probably what happened, I imagine, is that he was torn: part of him really wanted to follow Jesus, but another part of him didn’t. Maybe he struggled with greed, and his greed overcame his faith. Maybe he wanted Jesus to overthrow the Israelites’ Roman conquerors, and he grew frustrated when Jesus didn’t behave the way that he expected him to.
But no matter what, I imagine that there was a war within Judas, between his faith and his flesh.
And his flesh won.
And from that moment of greed and betrayal … came the greatest victory that mankind has ever known.
If Judas hadn’t betrayed Jesus, then Jesus wouldn’t have been crucified. He wouldn’t have died for our sins. He wouldn’t have risen from the dead to usher us into eternal life.
The world would be a much darker and grimmer place.
From the absolute beginning of time, Jesus knew that Judas would betray him. Would fail him. And so He had all of eternity to plan how to turn that failure 180 degrees into His triumph.
Which makes me worry about my own possible failures a whole lot less.
After all … if Judas getting Jesus crucified and killed couldn’t throw off God’s plans, what chance do my own sins have to derail the Kingdom? There’s nothing I can do, no way that I can fall short, that God hasn’t seen coming since literally the dawn of creation. And, just like with Judas, I’m guessing He’ll use my failures to bring His light and love to the people who most need Him.
Which doesn’t mean that I want to fail. I’m certainly going to keep trying to do right with God. But the reason is because I love Him and I want to be close to Him, not because I’m terrified that there will be existential consequences if I screw up.
Which is to say: pressure’s off :)
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