“The Betrayal of Grace”
Palm/Passion Sunday C –
Luke 22:1 - 23:56
Brothers and sisters in Christ, Grace and Peace to you from our Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Betrayal. A dark word. A sinister word. Jesus himself says at the moment of his betrayal and arrest, “this is your hour and the power of darkness.”
He spoke these words to the chief priests, the officers of the temple police, and the elders. But was he not speaking also to Judas? Wasn’t Jesus speaking to the disciples who failed to obey his command to stay awake? To Simon Peter, who would shortly betray his Master, and his own confession of faith by denying he knew Jesus? Was he not speaking those words to you and me?
Betrayal. Our entire gospel today hinges on that word, especially the twenty-second chapter of Luke. But all of holy week pivots toward that moment in the garden, when God himself is betrayed. When one of his intimate friends, a disciple, a man who had shared in Jesus ministry. A man who had just shared dinner and fellowship with Jesus betrays him, not with a knife in the back, but with a kiss.
But that is the nature of betrayal, isn’t it? The really powerful betrayals are not cold-blooded mafia hits. Real betrayal is an act of intimacy, of close relationship. An act that shatters intimacy and relationship by turning love and trust and faith into a thing -- a weapon, thirty pieces of silver, physical safety, power, and yes darkness. Jesus betrayal did not happen at night by chance.
The betrayals in our lives show the same profile, don’t they? Adultery, the betrayal of wedding vows, for what? Corporate and governmental scandals betray the trust and faith of investors, customers, and the public, for what? Doesn’t it always seem that when the betrayal is finally revealed, when the dark deeds are exposed to the light, that the supposed reward is hardly worth the effort? Whether it’s Judas’ reward, extramarital sex, fancy cars, or gaining a position of power, whatever the so-called reward, it is made petty, laughable compared to what was lost trust, shattered family life, love turned to bitterness and hate.
This is the stuff we read in the papers and see on TV every day. And so when we hear this gospel today, the betrayal of Jesus Christ is easy to accept. In some ways, it is the mother of all betrayals. If we can betray the Son of God to his death, what’s so bad about selling your vote or using shady accounting practices?
As H. Richard Niebuhr writes, “Our experience of human existence is such that we are quite ready to agree that given Jesus’ faith in God, his loyalty to all people, sinners and righteous, despised and esteemed, he would be the object of distrust and betrayal. Everything he preached and taught and lived challenged the.
Jesus shows us the personal relation of a faithful, trusting loyal soul to the source of its being -- which is an astonishing thing. This is a superhuman thing according to your and my experience of humanity And yet, the Bible and especially the gospels tell us that through the grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ, it is possible for you to be a faithful, trusting loyal soul. In fact, it is who you were created to be. This is who you would be, if you were not the victim and perpetrator of betrayal and distrust.
Do you want to see the face of betrayal and distrust? Do you want so the face of Judas? Look at Gollum in the Lord of Rings movies. His lust for the One Ring of Ultimate Power has turned him from a man, Smeagol, into a creature, Gollum whose nature is pure betrayal -- anything to get and keep what he has named his precious.
Notice how that Gollum talks to the ring, coos and strokes as if it were a baby. Normal relationship has been betrayed and broken into obsession with a thing. And not just any thing. This ring’s power betrays and breaks the person holding it to its own evil will, to the powers of darkness. And it accomplishes this by getting the holder of the Ring to betray those they love and trust, and who love and trust them.
There is no way for the Ring to be controlled. It will control anyone who tries. The only way to deal with the Ring is to return it to the hellish fires of
Which, believe it or not, is very much the journey of Lent. We stand now, not at the foot of
Gollum and Judas both seem to us figures who are beyond redemption. Their repeated betrayals, the lust of one for the gold ring, the other for pieces of silver, all of this makes us repelled and fascinated at the same time. Both Judas and Gollum die because of their betrayals. Both get what they want, in the end. And their so-called success is also their death.
And yet, and this is a big “as yet”, the betrayals, the lust for power and wealth, end up at the same place -- a place of death that is also a place of life. A place where power and death appear to have won the day becomes the place in which life and grace ultimately triumph.
As Gollum falls to his doom in the lavas of
In Luke’s gospel, Judas is, in spite of himself and his betrayal, a witness to the triumph of God’s grace. By means of the encounter between Jesus and Judas the superior power of grace is made visible. It is only in the gospel of Luke of all the gospels that holds out the possibility that Judas could be forgiven -- in the words of Jesus on the cross -- “Forgive them Father for they know not what they do.”
The cross is the sign of that hope, that possibility for us. The power of the cross calls us to repentance. From the cross flows gracious forgiveness and hope for anyone who repents and believes in the power of the cross. The same blood and suffering that so terrifies us, calls us out as we are -- betrayers of Christ -- and then washes that betrayal away in an abounding grace that is beyond our deserving or comprehension. It that gracious power of Jesus Christ, and only that power, that makes it possible for us to forgive those who have betrayed us. And to accept forgiveness from those we have betrayed.
This week we complete the Lenten journey that brings us not to
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