bad rap

Wednesday April 4th, Mark 14: 10 Then Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, went to the chief priests to betray Jesus to them. Judas does get a bad rap. It is nice to have a villain on which to place blame. It absolves us of our responsibility. What Judas did was place his own agenda ahead of Jesus’ plan. He tried to get Jesus to do what “he” wanted him to do. The messiah was recreated in “his” image. Not much different from the rest of the disciples. Not much different from you and I. It has been going on since that tree thing in the garden. The disciples didn’t get what the unnamed woman with the perfume got. Judas didn’t get what the unnamed woman got. Judas’ sin was that he acted on his inclinations as opposed to the other disciples who did nothing. It is so easy to get caught up in that take charge doing, and in the process put Jesus in the back seat. It is so easy to use Christianity to control others. It is even easier to not get it at all and do nothing. It is so easy to choose power and death over servant and life. Judas stands as a warning to us all on how easily we can, and do slip into that same mindset as Judas and set in motion what we would want Jesus to do. It is also a warning not to slip into the mindset of the rest of the disciples and do nothing. Where are you on that continuum?