What about Judas?

What about Judas?

With all the Easter bonnets put away, and the joyful hymns a distant echo, I find myself wrestling with the darker side of the Easter story. The evening of shadows in the garden was made all the darker when Judas arrived and kissed Jesus. He’d turned him over, betrayed him, and that it was done with a kiss only made it worse. Later, after all that happened happened, and the disciples were scared and huddled beside one another in the upper room, they must have been seething when they thought about Judas. “How could he,” and “Wait till I get my hands on him,” must have been the kind of things they said. Soon, they would learn the rest of the story, see the miracle of Easter, and, over time, comprehend the power and magnitude of God’s love.  

But, what about Judas?

“Woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man” Jesus’ humanity declared, and yet I wonder if Judas wasn’t the first fruit of God’s uncontained love. If Christ died for all people, then do we have any business dividing, or picking and choosing, just who “all people” are? It’s easy to include Peter with his unharnessed passion, Thomas with his doubts, but Judas? Really? Shouldn’t he be the one exception? Maybe we should have a loop hole for people like Judas, Hitler, … Oh wait, if you do that, where do you stop?

I confess, I have my Judas, a person I think shouldn’t make the cut. Jesus might love all people, but if there’s an exception, this person would be that exception. If I’m honest, I’m sure I’m someone’s Judas as well. So, I come back to my original question, what about Judas?

I can only pray God is bigger than I, that God’s grace is far more abundant than what the church offers. I read somewhere that light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it. I wonder if Easter isn’t the most spectacular illustration of that. The darkness of the garden losses out to the brightness of the morning, the hatred that killed one man was destroyed by a love that saved (and continues to save) all people, including Judas, you and me.

Reading Circles

Just thinking about it causes me to sweat and squirm in my seat. Once a week, in Mrs. Dennison’s third grade class, we were called up in groups of seven for Reading Circle. While others worked independently, those of us who were summoned approached, with book in hand, to read aloud. Mrs. Dennison always went first, then we took turns, starting on her left, reading a paragraph at a time. I always sat far enough from her so I could count the paragraphs and begin practicing mine in advance. I never listened to the others, and only wanted to make it through the paragraph assigned to me. I, then, quickly counted paragraphs to begin preparing again. 

No matter how hard I tried, I always messed up. Sometimes it was only a slight stumble, but other times it was big enough to cause the others in the circle to roll their eyes, snicker, or even laugh. Their laughter only made things worse, and, like a rolling snowball, mistake one led to number seventeen. One time, Mrs. Dennison just gave my paragraph to the person next to me, hoping I might recover before we went around again.

I try hard not to think about Mrs. Dennison’s reading circle, but I couldn’t help it, recently. I was gathered with a group of recovering alcoholics and addicts, taking turns reading from what is called “The Big Book.” Like the circles long ago, we went around the room, and even though I’m almost sixty, I still found myself counting paragraphs, so I could prepare.

Some of the readers were new to the circle, others were well-versed in such meetings. Some read with ease, others struggled. What stood out, however, was no one laughed when a reader struggled. I guess we all knew it was more important that a person feel comfortable, than that he or she read well. Getting and staying sober is hard enough. We don’t need to add to it with rolled eyes, snickers, or all-out laughter. 

I don’t remember anything we read, but left the circle with a lesson I wished I had learned long ago.

Leave the Dents

One of the pieces of my mother’s jewelry given to me after her death was a gold bracelet with a watch embedded in it. I picked it because I remember her wearing it, and it “looks like her.” When I hold it, it feels like she’s just stepped out of the room and will be right back. I wish that were true.

I took it to the local jeweler to get an estimate for getting the watch to work again, and, when I heard back, they said it needed only a minor fix, but added “we won’t be able to remove the dents." “The dents?” I replied, surprised. “Oh, please leave the dents!”

The dents remind me of the woman to which it once belonged. I can picture the creation of each dent. One, I’ll bet, came when she got up suddenly from the dining room table when I told her I’d somehow smashed the car against the wall in front of our house. Another might have come when she hit her wrist against the bleachers, cheering for my brother at a football game or wrestling match. I’m sure one came from pounding the kitchen table, as she demanded my sister eat three mouthfuls (a family rule) of liver, and another when nervously sitting on an airplane, desperate to get home to her other daughter after she was in a terrible car accident. The dents, however they were made, are what make the bracelet Mom's. Without them, it would just be another piece of jewelry.

Unfortunately, our world has an aversion to dents. Both in the things we own, and the lives we live, we seem determined to remove (or hide) the dents, when, in fact, it’s the dents that tell the stories of our lives. It’s the dents that make our things, and ourselves, real.

I can’t wait until I get the bracelet back and let my wife wear it. No doubt, she will add dents of her own.