Peter is given a fresh commission, in spite of his own mistakes and weakness. Judas – well he did not stay around long enough to be freshly commissioned.

But think about this – an unresolved personal weakness is where this begins. It ends in suicide, but…

Before he commits suicide he is delivered of his personal weakness. Money no longer holds him as he throws it back to the religious powers. The death of Jesus is a delivering death,and even Judas is an evidence of this.

He takes his own life, but is more free than he realises. What would have happened if he had hung on another day or two? Maybe he could have been like the husband and wife on the way to Emmaus: we thought he would restore the kingdom, and he has been crucified, and now it is the third day (my paraphrase).

Judas might never have lived to experience th third day, but he died experiencing the love of Jesus and the delivering power of Jesus. And yes… I do expect to see him in the age to come.

I am too like Judas – maybe this is why he is one of the 12. Maybe too much of Christianity has modelled itself on Judas. Hidden personal weaknesses – who can we be vulnerable with after all? Personal knowledge that will help establish the kingdom; expecting that we will gain a position as we help Jesus out…

But there is always a fresh opportunity.

Good-bye Judas… yet hoping one day I will say ‘Hello, and glad to meet you – I learnt a lot from you.’

Yesterday I suggest that Judas carried with him an unresolved personal weakness – or maybe better an unresolved and hidden personal weakness. So honesty being such a key (a good and honest heart being the ‘soil’ that bears fruit).

When this unresolved issue connects to a vision of the kingdom, we have a problem. By this I mean – ok here is a scenario. Judas has a vision for the kingdom, for a different world, he connects to Jesus, believes in this Messiah, but as time goes on can see things Jesus cannot see. He can clearly see the pathway of peace, of non-violent resistance will never bring in the kingdom, but rather it will crushed. Jesus’ method and pathway is the pathway to captivity or even to martyrdom (and a futile martyrdom at that). So…

A plan is hatched. A plan that means Jesus will get a rude awakening. He will realise that to succeed there has to be a greater level of taking authority. After all, Judas believes in this Messiah.

So he arranges for a group of captors to come and he knows how Jesus will respond. He has been with Jesus who has raised the dead, walked unharmed through hostile crowds. This will be the moment – and in Jerusalem of all places – when Jesus will assert himself, and truly the movement will move into the next phase, the kingdom will advance. Success, rather than failure, will result.

Jesus will take his place… and of course the disciples will also have a place. Maybe even Judas will gain a key place, for his catalytic role in bringing about the next phase.

A likely scenario? I think a lot more plausible and makes more sense of the texts than the ‘Judas was evil and wanted to betray Jesus’ interpretation.

Yes, he betrayed Jesus. But maybe so much of what has been done in the name of Jesus, and done to help him, because we know better how the kingdom should come, has also betrayed him. Do we not hear again and again: Jesus, yes; but the church, no.

The kingdom comes, but how it comes is often a mystery. It comes in weakness. It comes when we feel we have been misunderstood, marginalised – and history records – even when we have been martyred.

Judas is shocked. He cannot believe that Jesus is captured. Personal weakness and his vision of the kingdom, his ability to know what will help the cause, brings him to the point of despair. Not unlike Peter, who cuts off the ear of the servant, and then goes on to deny Jesus.

I was talking to someone recently who had a challenging day. Challenging cos things were not working out, not being resolved. But it was really challenging cos of self-discovery. I have lived my life many times at a level of hiddenness – not deep hidden sin, but at the level of not facing up to the reactions (fears, anxieties, angers) that reside within. Discipleship – following Jesus, allowing him to shape us – seems to begin with a healthy dose of self-discovery.

Is there ever a breakthrough to a new level without self-discovery?

So back to JI and money.

Jesus deliberately gave him the money bag. Did he know about Judas’ weakness? I am sure he did. I believe he was provoking Judas to come to a place of self-discovery, and to go beyond that to the place of honesty. If only he had come to Jesus privately, and said…’I would rather not look after the money’ (in Greek or Aramaic of course), then I think Jesus would have been very happy to work with Judas in his weakness.

So here I think is a root. The weakness is not the problem. Denying the weakness is the problem. Honesty is where it all begins.

I think this is the thought behind the phrase in the Lord’s prayer: lead us not into temptation. It is a cry for self-discovery and a level of honesty to what we discover.

Judas and Peter might be on similar paths but perhaps there is a divergence right here.

We can have a weakness and seek to cover it, or we uncover it and find that there is a protection from heaven.

Judas carries with him an unresolved personal weakness.

I made a comment a few days ago about Judas… tempted to make this blog not wwjd? but wdjdwhd? Why did Judas do what he did? Not quite as slick and don’t think  it would really take off.

The conventional thinking is of Judas as evil throughout, the betrayer from the beginning. Maybe – but maybe there is another reading that fits better. I have long been provoked by the similarities between Peter and Judas. One denied Jesus – and not once but three times; the other betrayed him. One was heartbroken at his own failure – oh, yes, so was the other one and took his own life as a result. One lived to be restored – the other…

Could it have been different? (Now, please all flower lovers of the ‘T’-type allow me a little slack.) I think it could have been different. That gives me hope. Hope because there is a bit of  Judas in us all – and dare I say it a little more than a bit.

So let me track a few days with this disciple that Jesus chose.

It was my good friend Johnny Barr (I still miss him) who was the first one to speak about the connection of Judas weakness and the task Jesus gave him.

A love of money and looking after the money bag. Great choice for a church treasurer!

What is taking place? Many things: 1) Jesus is showing that he trusts his Father as his supply, not simply good stewardship; 2) that people are valued higher than money -people cannot be valued in monetary terms; 3) he is discipling Judas. I will pick up on this last point tomorrow.