(Please read the Scripture passage before reading the homily.)
This is a hard Gospel .Jesus is in charge. He knows who will betray him. He does not reprimand. Some say that Judas actually had tried to prevent Jesus’ death but failed. I cannot answer to that.
I can say this. Jesus died for Judas and for all the other serious sinners. This list includes me and you and all our friends. If we think that we have a chance to get to heaven, then we have to believe that Judas is there also. If we do not think that Judas made it, then we have to say that God, who is all powerful, failed to save somebody. This means that God is not all-powerful. If this is so, then our salvation is at risk because if God failed Judas, he can also fail us.
But if we believe that we can make it, then we have to believe that all the other notorious sinners, including Judas, made it. There is enough between a person’s dying and a person’s death for God’s grace to sneak in and do its job.
Mathew later will tell us that Judas hanged himself. Suicide was something that the ancients had a hard time handling. To them it was unimaginable that person could do such a drastic deed as to murder himself. In our day, we have come to understand that a person who commits suicide is not in his right mind and therefore not guilty of an unforgiveable sin. We now honor people who have killed themselves with proper burial. We do not bury them at crossroads or drive stakes into their chests. We bring them to church and bury them in family plots in decent graves.
If we can do this for people who commit suicide, then God can bring them into the kingdom of light and life. We do believe this One who said, “You have said so” died and rose from the dead for all people, Judas included.
This is what we celebrate the next four days, Thursday evening through Sunday evening. Today is the last full day of Lent. Tomorrow evening begins the solemn liturgical celebration of the Passion, Death and Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. I shall not have a blog for Friday of this week. I shall resume them Easter Sunday and Monday.