Mozaic Ministries
Judas Iscariot – Traitor or Troubled?
I've thought for a long time that Judas gets an unnecessarily bad press. He is vilified as THE disciple who blew it, big time. He even outranks Peter when it comes to spectacular falls from grace. Judas - he misunderstood, he misjudged and he mistimed. Well, here’s the truth. Hands up - I'm guilty of those things too, especially in my relationship with God.
We know very little about the background story of Judas Iscariot. We have no specific account of Jesus calling him to ‘Follow Me’. We do not know his profession, unlike Peter, Andrew, James, John and Matthew. His first name is a Greek translation of the Hebrew 'Judah' – meaning 'God be praised'. His 'surname' – Iscariot – is not a family name but an indicator of where he was from. Most scholars agree that Iscariot means 'man from Kerioth'. Kerioth was a town in Judea, thus marking Judas as a non-Galilean. He was an outsider.
Like the other disciples, Judas was likely to have been in his late teens or early twenties when he was chosen by Jesus as one of his 12 specific disciples. Judas spent time with Jesus, hearing him explaining the parables and witnessing the miracles, including raising Lazarus from the dead.
Judas was given authority by Jesus to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness (Matthew 10:1-4). Interestingly, the 12 disciples were instructed not to take any gold, silver or copper with them on this exercise. I wonder if this was the motivation behind Judas stockpiling for himself some of the contents of the common purse that he had the responsibility of managing? Maybe his thinking was that if Jesus sent him on another mission, he would need to be better resourced than last time? Maybe he and his partner had found it difficult to find a welcoming host family or they had been hungry from missing a meal or two? Certainly, none of the other disciples seemed to have been aware of his financial mismanagement. Remember that the account in John 12: 4-6 naming Judas as a thief and liar was written after the event. It is not a diary entry.
What about the 30 pieces of silver? Was this the amount that Judas had stolen from the group? Was he hoping to replenish the coffers and so keep his secret safe? Remember that Peter had already sworn undying loyalty to Jesus, should he be arrested as he kept telling them he would be. Peter had been publicly rebuked by Jesus for trying to undermine his mission – "Get behind me, Satan" – as recorded in Matthew 16:23 and Mark 8:33. Jesus did not publicly expose Judas as his betrayer. He simply told him to go and do what he needed to do. This was after they had shared a bowl to dip their bread in. This means that Judas was sat next to Jesus at the supper table. Jesus treated Judas with compassion, grace and love.
Whatever Judas' motivation for betraying Jesus' whereabouts to the authorities, he was filled with remorse afterwards. Although we cannot be sure about what the exact circumstances of his death were, it seems that he was alone and frightened.
One day, I hope I'll be able to give Judas a great big hug.