This is the second in a series of four Lenten devotional reflections given by Fr. David Curry on The Kiss of Judas: Themes of Betrayal & Forgiveness in the Scriptures. The first is posted here [1].
UPDATE (22 Mar.): The four addresses have been compiled into a booklet, which can be accessed here [2].
“Judas, betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss?”
There is something wonderfully appropriate about commemorating St. Matthias in the course of our Lenten Programme on the Kiss of Judas. The Feast Day for St. Matthias is February 24th which this year fell on a Sunday in the season of Lent. The Feast of St. Matthias frequently, though not always, falls within Lent; sometimes it coincides with the pre-Lenten season of the Gesimas. But whether during the Gesimas or in Lent, if the 24th is a Sunday, the celebration of St. Matthias is transferred to the following Tuesday. What makes this wonderfully appropriate, even providential, is that the story of St. Matthias is directly related to the story of Judas. Matthias is the apostle chosen to take the place of Judas, the betrayer of Christ.
The readings for the Feast of St. Matthias [3] are wonderfully illuminating about this connection to Judas. The lesson from Acts tells the story of Judas’ reaction to his betrayal – his self-destruction by falling headlong, bursting asunder and all his bowels gushed out (other accounts have him going out and hanging himself) – and the subsequent decision to choose another among those “which have companied with us” (Acts 1.21) and with Jesus “to be a witness with us of his resurrection” (Acts 1.22). The story of Matthias is about the one chosen by lot to take the place of Judas the betrayer. The Gospel from St. John is the last of the seven ‘I am’ sayings in which Jesus identifies himself in relation to us as the vine; we are the branches (John 15.5). We live from him. The image is inescapably sacramental and recalls us to the night on which he was betrayed, the night in which he institutes the form of his sacramental presence with us.
The kiss of Judas marks the greatest betrayal, one that gathers into itself all of the forms of betrayal. Not least is the idea of the betrayal of brotherhood and fellowship, betrayals that are related to our betrayals of ourselves and God. In a way, those aspects of betrayal are captured best in the Old Testament story of Joseph and his brothers and in the New Testament story of Peter’s betrayal of Christ. Both stories bring out the nature of betrayal and the prospect of forgiveness through contrition and repentance; paradoxically, the very things refused and denied by Judas himself.
Giotto’s poignant portrayal [4] of Judas’ betrayal has Jesus look directly into the face of Judas and speak to him. And yet, the story of Judas is about his utter denial of the face and voice of Christ; betrayal, yes, but also the denial of redemption, of the possibilities of forgiveness and mercy. That is, it seems to me the horror of the kiss of Judas. It shows us the fullest possible extent of human sinfulness – not only do we deny the truth of God but we persist in our denials to the point of willful destruction. Such is the end of Judas. And it serves as an object lesson precisely about lessons not learned!
The stories of Joseph and his brothers and of Peter’s betrayal concern the matter of recognition. Joseph makes himself known to his brothers and they, in turn, confront themselves and the consequences of their actions. Jesus, “on the night in which he was betrayed,” is hauled before the High Priest and turns and looks at Peter who has just denied him. Powerful moments of recognition and repentance. It reminds me of another story.
Johnson was seventy years old. He decided, like many of the good people of the Valley, to alter his lifestyle completely in order to live longer. He went on a strict diet, a Lenten diet, if you will. He ran and walked; he worked out with true devotion. In just three months, and without the benefit of a bowflex exercise machine, he had lost thirty pounds, shrunk his waist by six inches, and expanded his chest by five. Pleased with the results of his make-over, he decided to complete his transformation with a haircut and a pedicure. Stepping out of the barbershop in Windsor, he was hit by a bus.
As he lay dying, he cried out, “God, how could you do this to me?” And a voice from heaven replied, “To tell you the truth, Johnson, I didn’t recognize you.”
Who are we that God should recognize us? How are we known to him and to each other? How shall we divine an understanding of who we essentially are? We are so good at deceiving ourselves and one another. We are so good at betrayal.
But coming to terms with ourselves is not easy. It is often a matter of tears, “a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou shalt not despise” (Ps. 51.17). Contrition is that sense of sorrow that belongs to the recognition of ourselves as sinners. Contrition, confession and satisfaction belong to the structure of our Anglican liturgy; it is a recurring pattern. The story of Judas is about remorse rather than contrition. Remorse leads to destruction through the denial of the truth of God’s mercy. Paradoxically, that mercy has its fullest expression in the Crucifixion of Christ, an event which occurs through betrayal. The larger witness of the Scriptures helps us to appreciate the power of the Christian story of human redemption which requires the recognition of ourselves as sinners through contrition and not simply remorse.
Consider the story of Joseph (Genesis 37, 39-47, 50). Joseph was the beloved son of Jacob by his beautiful wife Rachel. Rachel, the love of his life, only bore Jacob two sons, Joseph and Benjamin, in his old age, before dying in childbirth at Benjamin’s birth. Apart from Joseph and Benjamin, the sons of Jacob and Rachel, there were the other sons of Jacob by Leah as well as some sons from the handmaidens of both Rachel and Leah. These are the stories belonging to the origins of the twelve tribes of Israel; stories, too, that pit human presumption and desire against God’s will and purpose, as if God could be made subject to human folly and human ambition. Somehow the providence of God is accomplished in spite of ourselves, even more profoundly, it is accomplished in and through our follies and wickednesses.
Joseph, the story goes, had managed to become an annoyance and a nuisance to his other brothers, particularly since his dreams seemed to suggest his rule and power over them. As a result, the brothers conspired to get rid of him, casting him into a dry well and then selling him into slavery. Placing the blood of a lamb on his coat, they informed their father, Jacob, that Joseph was dead. Meanwhile, sold into slavery, he ended up in Egypt where, having spurned the sexual advances of Pharoah’s wife, he was nonetheless falsely accused and thrown into prison.
While in prison, he came to Pharoah’s attention as an interpreter of dreams. Successfully interpreting Pharoah’s dreams, he was rewarded with the portfolio of Minister of State, we might say, and was put in charge of domestic affairs. In that capacity, or at least its Egyptian equivalent, he saw to the storing up of wheat and grain during seven years of plenty in anticipation of seven lean years. During those years of famine, the sons of Jacob, also known as Israel, came down to Egypt looking for food. So Joseph finally encounters his brothers who had betrayed him. What will happen? They are at his mercy.
Through the device of a cup – the cup of divination? – placed in their sacks of grain, the brothers are brought back to Joseph accused of theft. What will he do to them? After all, they had betrayed him and sold their own brother, the beloved son of their father, into slavery. What will transpire? Revenge? No, instead, reconciliation, but only through the conviction of recognition. The cup found in their sacks serves as the instrument that brings them into Joseph’s hands and into his presence for judgment and mercy. The scene is exquisite in its tenderness. Joseph, unable to contain himself, reveals himself to his brothers. They are at once convicted of their betrayal of their brother and yet are made to realize that God has accomplished a greater purpose through their evil. “I am Joseph, your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now, do not be dismayed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life”(Genesis 45. 4,5) A powerful and eloquent narrative that has, in turn, inspired others, such as Thomas Mann’s narrative literary classic “Joseph in Egypt.”
The story of Joseph is compelling and touching. It helps us to understand an even more compelling and touching story, it seems to me, the story of Peter’s denial of Christ that is so closely intertwined with the story of Judas. Luke is the master storyteller. At supper in the upper room, celebrating the Passover, the ancient ceremony that recalls Israel’s miraculous deliverance from Egyptian bondage, after Jesus had taken the cup, saying “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is shed for you,” he adds that “the hand of him that betrayeth me is with me on the table” (Luke 22. 20). It is, of course, Judas, but in a profounder sense, it is all of us. We are all the betrayers of Christ and the betrayers of one another in the sad and sorry tale of all our lies and deceits. Peter, in the course of the dialogue, protests his utter loyalty to Christ: “Lord, I am ready to go with thee both into prison and to death”(Luke 22.34). Jesus’ response was to say to Peter that “the cock shall not crow this day, before that thou shalt thrice deny that thou knowest me.”
Luke proceeds to capture just that moment when Peter recognizes what he has done. And all because Jesus “turned and looked upon Peter.”
What was that look? It is, I want to argue, the look of loving and infinite compassion which convicts us more surely, more strongly than anything else. It is the look of God’s love for us in the face of our rejection of him. If this will not move us, what will?
We are told what Peter’s response was to this look of Jesus. “Peter remembered the word of the Lord … and Peter went out and wept bitterly.” Such tears are the tears of repentance. They arise out of the recognition of the compassion of Christ for us. They arise out of a broken and contrite heart. They are salvation and grace. We confront ourselves in the sad tale of our betrayals and deceits but, even more, we confront the love of God. The awareness is everything.
“My dear lord/Thou art one of the false ones,” Imogen says, in the gentlest of rebukes to her husband, in Shakespeare’s play, Cymbeline. We discover with a kind of fall in our hearts that we, too, are the false ones. It is, actually, a fundamental aspect of Christian life signaled constantly in our liturgy in the confession of sins. For to know our falseness is the condition of our openness to grace and forgiveness. Lent would concentrate our minds upon these forms of recognition; Holy Week even more.
The cup in the sack of the brothers of Joseph served to bring them to the recognition of themselves as his betrayers but, more profoundly, it gathers them into the mystery of God’s redemption of our humanity. Another cup, the cup of blessing, also serves to recall us to God’s recognition of us and ourselves as the false ones, like Peter discovering with a kind of fall of his heart that he has betrayed “his own familiar friend,” as the psalmist puts it. It reaches the height of intensity in the Passion of Christ. Part of the story of our humanity, it is wonderfully captured in a liturgical act that reminds us that love is stronger than death, stronger than the death of our deadly sins of betrayal. The betrayals of his love become the redemptive way of our entering into his love.
And yet, the kiss of Judas leads to the refusal of contrition. There is remorse on the part of Judas, remorse leading to despair and desperation. Judas becomes the paradigm of unrepentant remorse that paradoxically serves to deepen our contrition and repentance.
In the mediaeval cathedral of Durham in northern England, a ritual known as the Judas Cup ceremony was instituted as part of the Maundy Thursday liturgy in the fourteenth century. It offers a stark and compelling image of the theme of betrayal. Following Holy Communion, a large cup or bowl called a mazer, known as the Judas cup, was placed before the monks. It was called the Judas cup “because the face of Judas was worked into its bowl so that when the monks drank from it they could see, as it were, the face of Judas looking at them and, in a sense, mirroring their own face” (Thomas Davies). We confront ourselves in these stories. They are the poignant spectacles of betrayal. We behold the Judas in each of us. Even more, we behold the pageant of divine love. And all because as Giotto suggests on Luke’s account, Jesus looks at Judas even as he turns and looks at Peter. At issue is our response.
“Judas, betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss?”
Fr. David Curry
The Kiss of Judas: Themes of Betrayal and Forgiveness in the Scriptures II
February 26th, 2013
Feast of St. Matthias (transf.)