More Judas than Jesus

I was reading Luke 22 for an email Bible study that I just started and as I was reading the verses about Satan entering into Judas before he betrayed Jesus, a rather frightening realization hit me.  As much as I like to claim that I am a Christ follower and fully seeking to be Christlike in my life, attitude, service, relationships,etc..... I realized that I have a lot more parallels to Judas than Jesus.  Judas is well vilified in Christian circles for his heinous act of betrayal in turning over Jesus to his accusers for money.  The truth of the matter is though that Judas was one of Jesus’ core twelve for years.  He presumably was not a slime bag traitor throughout his time traveling with Jesus.  In fact, he was trusted to handle all the money for the group.  When Jesus suggested that someone of the twelve was going to betray him, the group didn’t all look at Judas with accusation on their face and run him out of the room on a rail.  They all looked at each other in confusion.  It simply didn’t make any sense to them that anyone in that room might do something like that.  This is pretty scary to me because truthfully, I wonder if I’m even close to half the Christ follower that Judas was.  Judas traveled with and served along side Jesus faithfully every day throughout his ministry.  I’m lucky if Jesus averages out to a few minutes a day.  Judas was present and active in most if not all of the miracles that Jesus did and also in the mundane moments of walking from town to town talking and listening to Jesus, learning from the great teacher.  He saw so many things that were impossible to explain and yet, somehow, he managed to turn on this man who had loved, mentored, chosen, and  invested in him every day for years.  If someone who was a close and loyal to Jesus as Judas could betray him, what kind of a cautionary tale is this for the rest of us?  How many of us can claim the kind of closeness that Judas had to Jesus or even get in the neighborhood?  What can be done to protect ourselves from betraying Christ?  What can be done to protect Jesus from a horrible betrayal at the hands of a trusted friend.

The truth is that sadly, we all will betray Christ.  The even greater truth though is that Christ doesn’t need our protection.  He knew Judas would fail just as he knows we will.  The greatest tragedy of all is not the story of betrayal.  The greatest tragedy is that while Jesus forgave Judas before he ever betrayed him, Judas was so overcome by grief and shame, that he didn’t ever get to experience that forgiveness.  I may not be half the Christ follower in life that Judas was, but I’m thankful that I know about and experience daily, the forgiveness that Jesus provided.  

My Letter of Lament

We are talking through the Psalms of Lament during our season of Lent in church.  It's been pretty thought provoking stuff and it's made me assess my own lament's.  I chose to write a letter since I'm no poet.  Here you have it.

Dear God,

I don’t always want you around.  It’s nothing personal, I just want my space.  I’m not really comfortable with the idea of somebody knowing me completely.  I’ve been thinking about how to convince you of this.  It’s just not practical for you to be with me every second, of every day.  I’m sure you have much more important things to do with your time than hang out with me. You are supposed to be a pretty big deal after all.  It’s great to know you are around when I’m having a good time and things seem to be perfectly in their place but is it so wrong to want and even demand a bit of privacy when things aren’t?  Especially when it seems that you could do so much to improve those situations but I can’t really tell what you are doing.  It can seem, if I’m not being too presumptuous, that sometimes you just sit and watch things happen to me rather than doing something to help.  You say that you know what’s happening and that you are concerned with my life and you claim to know ridiculously small details about me that frankly, even I don’t know.  If that’s the case, why don’t you just fix me.  Why do you let me go through some of the stuff that you have.  I think I would be happier sometimes with some completely random, superficial, dare I say, empty relationships than I am with you and your constant presence. When I see you as I hang out with those “other friends”, it scares me.  I know you aren’t happy about it.  You tell me all the time that they are nothing but bad news and I should leave them.  Truth is that I’ve tried to walk away, sometimes from them, and sometimes from you.  I’ve tried to sneak out.  I’ve gone places that I “know” you wouldn’t go, only to see you there.  I’ve confronted you, I’ve lashed out physically and emotionally.  I’ve screamed obscenities at you, just to drive you away only to see you stay. Sometimes, I don’t see you right away, and I “hope” that somehow it worked and you missed what just happened. Then, of course, I get mad that you left. Whenever I look closer though, I see that I was wrong and you were there the whole time.  You say you won’t ever leave me because you love me and if you left, you would be abandoning me.  You try to hold me to some “higher standard” and tell me that you value me more than anything.  Maybe I’m beginning to believe you.  While your actions don’t make a lot of sense to me, I also don’t see you wasting your time on empty things.  Maybe you somehow know that your point gets proven when you don’t stop me from my stupidity.  After all, it’s never more clear than after I run, that I am a whore, but you are faithful.  You really are faithful and I am thankful for that.  Forgive my arrogance, my anger, and my doubt.


Jon

Fight Club

“I’m usually a lover not a fighter but in your case, I’ll make an exception.” Little Rascals

I get tired from time to time.  Not a mild case of needing a nap, but as the old saying goes, weary to the bone.  I wish this could be chalked up to my chronic overexercise, or the vast amounts of fun I have.  The truth is, my exhaustion can be traced back to all the fights I get in.  My fight club feels like it would make Chuck Palahniuk tired.  Not to spoil the story, but ironically, like the book/movie, the opponent most likely to inflict serious bodily harm on me, is myself.  I fight myself about everything.  Money, relationships, work, parenting, addictions, priorities, time, sex, food, service, etc....  Just to be clear, I also fight with my wife about most of those too but this time around, my beef is with me.  Sometimes, I find myself wishing to just stop fighting and just be who I am whatever that may be.  I roll around on the ground clutching my groin and crying, (metaphorically of course) and as the immediate pain starts to fade I start to think about what it would look like to stop fighting.  If I stopped fighting, I would be finally able to have peace. Right?  I wouldn’t have conflict with my wife or kids, with my work, or my addiction, I would have plenty of time, and I could eat/do anything I wanted, whenever I wanted to.  That sounds like bliss till I realized that the reason I wouldn’t have conflict is that all the things I fight with/about would be gone.  The thing about all this conflict is, at the end of the day, I’m not fighting with these things as much as I’m fighting for these things.  I’m fighting for my marriage, family and friends.  I’m fighting for my job and my health.  I’m fighting for my purity.  I’m fighting for my faith and my response to it.

The other thing that I realize as I think about just being who I am, is that I’m not entirely sure I agree with whoever defines me as an alone, lazy, compulsive, selfish man and maybe I should rethink who I allow to set my identity.  We sing this song at church and I really couldn't think of a better way to finish my pity party.



In Christ alone my hope is found
He is my light, my strength, my song
This Cornerstone, this solid ground
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm

What heights of love, what depths of peace
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease
My Comforter, my All in All
Here in the love of Christ I stand

In Christ alone, who took on flesh
Fullness of God in helpless Babe
This gift of love and righteousness
Scorned by the ones He came to save

Till on that cross as Jesus died
The wrath of God was satisfied
For every sin on Him was laid
Here in the death of Christ I live, I live

There in the ground His body lay
Light of the world by darkness slain
Then bursting forth in glorious Day
Up from the grave He rose again

And as He stands in victory
Sin’s curse has lost its grip on me
For I am His and He is mine
Bought with the precious blood of Christ

No guilt in life, no fear in death
From a life’s first cry to final breath


No power of hell, no scheme of man
Could ever pluck me from His hand
Till He returns or calls me home
Here in the power of Christ I stand



It doesn’t always feel like sins curse has lost its grip on me, but I think that grip can feel a lot like the wrong kind of freedom, and the less I fight for things, the tighter that grip gets.  The truth is that no matter how tight that grip feels it’s not real. My true identity is set by Christ and as the song says, “no power of hell, no scheme of man, can ever pluck me from his hand”. I think I like the identity that Christ sets for me a lot more than the one I came up with for myself, even if it does mean that I’m going to spend a lot of time in the cage.