Here is the Lenten reflection I gave during a Thursday lunch service during the first week of Lent.

I am taking classes part time to finish my Bachelor of Arts degree. After taking a year off here and there, and switching from Math to Religious Studies, I’m usually a few years older than the average student in my classes, so I usually sit by myself. Sometimes while I’m sitting there waiting for the lecture to start, I overhear what other people are saying.
A few years ago, when the movie The Passion of the Christ came out in theatres, I was surprised to hear a group of guys sitting behind me talk about having seen the movie. One of the guys playfully hit one of his friends, as guys my age often do. A third guy jokingly criticized the attacker and said, “Didn’t Jesus teach you anything in the movie yesterday?” I was fascinated by that. These guys, whose conversations usually cover a long list of other unwholesome topics, went to watch this movie, even though they might get some moral instruction out of the deal.
I decided to see the movie as well, so I talked my dad and brother into coming with me. My dad hadn’t been in a movie theatre since he was dating my mom, and my brother was thrilled to see a movie if it meant someone else was paying for it, but neither of them were prepared to read subtitles all night. We got to the theatre a bit later than we had hoped, so the movie had already started. As we walked in, we saw Judas under the bridge being tormented by his own actions. He had given up Jesus, his teacher, his leader, his mentor, to be arrested, and afterwards, he wrestled with the demons within himself.
The passage in Luke says that the High Priests wanted to kill Jesus, that Satan entered Judas, and that he conspired with them, but there’s one key phrase that I want to highlight, that I think can bring a little light to the situation. Why did the high priests want to kill Jesus? Luke says that it was because they were afraid of the people.
If Jesus was just a wandering maniac, they could have dismissed him. If Jesus was just a popular religious teacher, they would have given him a promotion, but the high priests were uncomfortable with the kind of religion that Jesus was preaching and they were afraid of how easily the people were accepting his teaching. Jesus had new ideas, and he preached against the old structures that had perverted God’s way of doing things. So we can understand a bit why the high priests would want to get rid of him, they got their power from the very institution that Jesus was preaching against.
But why Judas? Maybe he was just an evil man that somehow tricked his way into the group of disciples. Maybe he knew that he could make some money from doing this, so the thirty pieces of silver was what drove him to do it. Maybe we’re supposed to take this passage to mean that Satan took control of Judas, an otherwise good man, and for that time, he had no power over himself.
We see later on that Judas feels remorse for what he had done. Unable to cope with the guilt for betraying Jesus, Judas kills himself. It looks to me that Judas knew what he was doing, but after he realized what it meant, he couldn’t handle the reality of it.
The priests were afraid of the people, but what was Judas afraid of?
It’s easy to pick on Judas, and see him as the bad disciple, but none of them really understood Jesus. Only after he visited them in resurrected form did they understand what he meant about rebuilding the temple in three days, raising himself from the dead in three days. Only then did they start to understand what he meant when he preached about the Kingdom of God, a Kingdom that wasn’t of this world.
There were times when they grumbled to him about when he was going to establish his Kingdom. They argued about who would get to sit on the right hand side of his throne. Some of them very clearly expected Jesus to set up an earthly kingdom, to get rid of the Romans once and for all. That’s part of the reason some of them were following Jesus in the first place. Then we see that Jesus starts talking about dying, about taking up our cross, about being led to the slaughter. How could their new king die before the work was done?
It seems to me that they got tired of waiting. I think that Judas got tired of waiting and wanted to do something about it.
It’s easy to do that. Have you ever got tired of waiting and taken a situation into your own hands? I know I have.
When I was a kid, I would sometimes help my mom with canning preserves, and for some reason it was so exciting to sit there and wait for the seal to pop. So exciting that I wanted to help it along a bit, until mom caught me doing that. Or when a batch of cookies just came out of the oven and I wasn’t allowed to eat one until they had cooled off. I burned my mouth quite a few times because I thought they were cool well before they actually were.
There are lots of times when we want things to happen quicker. We call the mechanic to try to rush the process of fixing the car. Farmers just can’t wait for the right time to take the crop off. Pregnant women just can’t wait for the baby to be born. Young couples just can’t wait until they’re married. There are lots of things that happen according to a schedule that we can’t control.
Judas tried to take control of Jesus’ schedule. He probably thought that by turning him in to the authorities, he could speed up the process. Certainly then Jesus would fight back and throw off the oppressors, right?
Judas gave up on Jesus. Judas gave up waiting for Jesus’ coming kingdom. He couldn’t wait anymore, so he took things into his own power. He gave up Jesus to the authorities thinking that finally Jesus would give up his slow pace and finally take power. When Judas realized what he had actually done. He couldn’t handle the consequences.
Many people use Lent as an opportunity to give something up. They give up a certain kind of food or drink, or a certain kind of technology, and they try instead to focus on Jesus. It’s easy to live by our own rules and our own schedule, but we need to give that up.
Rely on God. Rely on Jesus’ teachings, God’s love and rely on the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
Don’t give up waiting, don’t give up hoping. Give up your own agendas, give them up to God.
Amen.