The Fall Guy

Judas Iscariot is two-thousand years in the grave and is causing as much a stir now as in the day when he decided to sell Jesus out to those who wished Him destroyed. Jesus was, after all, a rebel with a cause who challenged the core religious establishment to its man-made foundation. This religion was filled with pious, righteous men who deemed themselves the enforcers of YHWH’s laws and as teachers of the faith that delivered Israel’s people from bondage and slavery in Egypt. Jesus was the One who was calling this same people back to the faith which had delivered them, and His calling of faith was getting in the way of the religion of this same people, or at least the religion of those who called themselves the teachers.

According to the synoptic gospels and with tongue firmly in cheek, were it not for the treachery and deceitfulness of Judas, the Pharisees and chief priests may never have caught up with Jesus. Recall in the Gospel according to Mark of the implication that no one would apparently know who to arrest, making Judas’ kiss necessary for positive ID.

“Immediately, while Jesus was still speaking, Judas, one of the twelve, with a great multitude with swords and clubs, came from the chief priests and the scribes and the elders. Now His betrayer had given them a signal, saying, ‘Whomever I kiss, He is the One; seize Him and lead Him away safely.’” Mark 15:43-44

There is an odd flavor in this passage which might suggest that something is not quite in sync with the whole Judas story, not the least of which is the likelihood that contained within the “multitude” is not one single person other than Judas who could recognize Jesus positively. Am I the only one who finds this strange?

Having read only commentaries from various historians and theologians, the Gospel of Judas, apparently written some two-hundred to three-hundred years after the synoptic gospels, portrays Judas in a more favorable light as a trusted companion of Jesus and one who may have been in cahoots with Jesus Himself in order to hasten that fateful day.

In all these years, it has been told to us that Judas alone was the one who gave Jesus up to the authorities. Then there are the passages in which Judas is sorry for what he has done and tries to give back the money he was paid for his betrayal and his hanging himself and, well, the rest of the gruesome details we are well aware of. Yet the assignment of blame does not stop with Judas.

A Vatican II document, entitled “Nostra Aetate”, was a ground-breaking piece of work through which the Catholic Church worked to correct some two-thousand years of oppression and fault-finding which somehow held the Jews alone responsible for the death of Jesus, likely because of their recorded dismissals of Christ’s message of salvation. Years later during the time of Pope John Paul II, Christians were called to account for some of the burden for the religious pretense used by the Nazi hate mongers. Thomas G. Lederer of the seminary of the Immaculate Conception writes, “According to the pope, it was much easier for Christians to turn away from the reality of the gas chambers and death camps with preconceptions of Jewish responsibility for Christ’s death coursing through the veins of those transfused with early childhood Christian religious education.”

In October 1997, Pope John Paul II stated, “In the Christian world … the wrong and unjust interpretation of the New Testament relating to the Jewish people and their presumed guilt circulated for too long, contributing to feelings of hostility toward these people.”

Did Judas somehow become too small a target so that throughout the course of Christian history, we would be able to turn our sights on an entire people and hold them responsible for the death of Christ Jesus, somehow “blaming” them even as we “rejoice” in the death that produced the blood by which we proclaim ourselves absolved of all our sin? I would admit that the killing of the Messiah would necessarily have to involve at least a conspiracy as “big” as Messiah Himself; one single person throughout all of human history is just not quite “big” enough to hang such responsibility on. Yet this is what is told to us through the New Testament.

Why do we feel such a need to hold someone responsible? Why is it so important that we be able to personify the treachery that turned Jesus over to the authorities as we “celebrate” His death? The entire premise is not theologically sound and yet we hold so fast to it that we virtually turn inside-out when some piece of ancient history is discovered and brought to light because it contradicts what we have always believed to be true, according to the canon we’ve always possessed.

For those who revel in the crucifixion of Jesus, it becomes necessary to ask ourselves whether the life of Jesus had any significant value if His death was the only real purpose of His entire existence. If His death alone were necessary for the redemption of mankind, why not allow Jesus to be executed as a child when King Herod ordered the slaughter of the innocents instead of warning Joseph in a dream to flee the land? The Holy Child would have been just as dead and could have, by the power of YHWH, been just as resurrected as the Man.

This apparently is not what was meant to be. There are numerous passages from the Hebrew texts which seem to prophesy of the coming Messiah, and much of what happens to Jesus during His time on earth is a direct reflection of these prophesies.

It must be noted, however, that this is precisely what happens in Mark 14:50: “Then they all forsook Him and fled.”

Although Judas’ act may have served as a catalyst for what was about to take place, it is quite a stretch to suggest that Judas alone was responsible for subsequent events and that if Judas had not done what he had done, Jesus would not have been crucified.
My only point in all of this is what I consider to be overreactions from many evangelicals who have apparently cried “foul” over the release of this “gospel” that proclaims to be the gospel of Judas and that Judas is portrayed as Jesus’ “best friend”. We want Judas to be the fall guy; we NEED him to be the fall guy, because this somehow seems to take a little pressure off of us.

We do not want to believe that we could somehow, some two-thousand years removed, be responsible for the death of Christ. Yet we will still be among the first to proclaim ourselves “clean” from the blood that poured out as a result.

Just as Mark 14:50 suggests, those closest to Jesus were the ones who “forsook Him and fled”. Would we not have been as tempted?