by CCW | 24 February 2026 20:00
One cannot think about St. Matthias without thinking about Judas and the betrayals of our own hearts. He is the disciple chosen by lot and by prayer to take the place of “the traitor Judas,” as the Collect says, and so to be of the number of the twelve Apostles. Yet this is a real blessing for it opens us out to the grace of God which is greater than our hearts of betrayal. Out of Judas’ betrayal comes Matthias’ faithfulness.
All we know is about his being chosen as the lesson from Acts tells us. About his ministry and personality, we know nothing. That is in keeping with the Scriptures as a whole which does not cater very much to our modern inclinations towards psychological and sociological assessments of human character, not to mention the gossip that goes viral on social media as a result. In contrast, we are given a theological account and one which complements the inward journey of the soul in Lent. The theme of betrayal goes to the heart of human sin; our betrayal of God and ourselves, the betrayal of love, as Augustine’s On Christian Doctrine helps us to understand.
The theology that we confront here is the theology of substitution, the theology of atonement as belonging to the logic of redemption. Matthias takes the place of Judas. Why does he have to be replaced? Judas betrayed Christ and out of remorse killed himself. Why not just carry on sans Judas? Because of a larger consideration that swirls around the number twelve. The twelve apostles look back to the twelve tribes of Israel and ahead to the Apostolic foundation of the Church. We are part of something more and greater than ourselves, namely, the community of redeemed sinners in the “One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.”
Peter’s address to the disciples and Mary happens in the same Upper Room where at the Last Supper Jesus spoke of his betrayal by one of the disciples. Peter here quotes a verse from Psalm 69 and from Psalm 109, (verses which unfortunately and rather perversely are omitted from our 1962 Prayer Book), that speak directly to the desolation of Judas’ betrayal, on the one hand, and to the idea of another taking up his office, his episcopé, on the other hand. He mandates a feature of apostolicity, namely, choosing one from among those “which have companied with us” during the time of Jesus’s ministry, one who is to be “ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection.” Apostolic ministry is grounded in Apostolic witness and doctrine.
“I am the vine,” Jesus says, “ye are the branches.” This last and perhaps greatest of the so-called “I am” sayings of Jesus has to do with God’s relation to us through divine self-relation. The “I am” sayings echo the divine revelation of God to Moses in the Burning Bush, “I am who I am.” It is a ringing endorsement of the essential divinity of Christ. Significantly, this is the Gospel chosen for The Feast of St. Matthias.
This feast stands mid-way between two other major commemorations as they have come down to us in the Prayer Book tradition and as part of a much older ecumenical sensibility, namely, Candlemas, that double-barreled feast of Mary and Jesus, the Presentation of the one and the Purification of the other, and Mary’s Annunciation, which marks Christ’s conception in the womb of Mary, the beginning in time of the Incarnation. It opens us out to the deeper wisdom not just of the Scriptures themselves but also to the way in which the Scriptures are read and understood which can scarcely be ignored since that provides us with the means of engaging the Scriptures. This is the burden of Augustine’s On Christian Doctrine, the mode of ascertaining or discovering what is to be known from the Scriptures and the mode of making that meaning known.
In this case the historical narrative is informed by the theological through these readings and in the centuries old pattern in which we have received them. The Lesson from Acts focuses on the act of choosing, implicitly confirming the scriptural insistence on the Apostolic Ministry in spite of human sin and as based on a profound theological insight. What is that insight? The form of our indwelling God through the Word made flesh and the way in which that truth is made known to us; in short, Annunciation and Candlemas. “I am the vine, ye are the branches … abide in me.”
The Feast of St. Matthias shows us the logic of the Incarnation through the theology of substitution. Christ has come to die for us; tempted for us, as we saw on Lent 1 which anticipates his being pierced for us on Good Friday. Such is redemption. “While we were yet sinners,” Christ, the one who is like us in all respects except what unmakes us, namely sin, “died for us”. That miracle of salvation extends to the life of the Church. Matthias is chosen to take the place of the traitor Judas, not as another traitor, but as one who knows the deeper truth of our abiding in Christ, our abiding in the love of the Son for the Father. This is the love which is greater than our treacherous hearts and a love which is only possible through Christ’s Incarnation.
The love that redeems and restores is able to make something good and holy out of our treachery and betrayal. Matthias takes the place of Judas not as a second Judas but as a faithful Apostle. What does that mean? Simply what the Collect identifies as what is always needed, that Christ’s Church may “always be preserved from false Apostles” and “be ordered and governed by faithful and true pastors” who are faithful and true to what has been received and passed on. Such is the apostolic ministry, all our betrayals notwithstanding.
Powerful stuff especially in a world and age which demands conformity to itself. But that is the way of Judas not Matthias. His feast day calls us to the nature of our life in Christ.
Fr. David Curry
Feast of St. Matthias 2026
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