The other day I was reading in the book of Luke and I came across this in Luke 6:
One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles: Simon (whom he named Peter), his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon who was called the Zealot, Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.
The thought occurred to me, "When Jesus chose Judas Iscariot, did he know he would betray him?" He's Jesus, so maybe the answer is simple, but the text doesn't come out and say it. I have to think, however, that he did. He must have.
Yet the Gospels don't exactly record Jesus treating Judas any differently than the other disciples, do they? When Jesus taught the crowds he didn't ask Judas to go away or conveniently ask him to run some errand. When he performed miracles he never said, "Sorry, Judas, but you're not allowed to watch this." When he ate meals with the disciples he didn't make Judas sit at the kids table. And when he washed his disciples feet he even washed the feet of the one who was just about to betray him.
When Jesus preached, "Love your enemies," Judas was right there in the crowd and Jesus must have known exactly what he was going to do. And so Jesus lived out this command to a greater degree than most of us will ever have to. Yet this is a struggle for many of us.
I know it's not easy for me to love someone who has stabbed me in the back just as much as those who have been loyal to me. But if we are to follow Jesus, this is the kind of life he has called us to - a life of love, even for those who would betray us.
Side note - I talked about this at devotions the other day with the kids at work and while a lot of them resonated with it, one of the guys had this question: "If Jesus is God, and he prayed to God, wasn't he just praying to himself? That's kind of weird." Insightful kid... I have to admit, some implications of the Trinity are quite hard to understand.
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4 comments:
I don't believe Jesus knew Judas would betray him because I do not believe it was Judas' destiny. Judas did not have to betray Jesus, even after Jesus called him on the carpet at the last supper.
We all have a choice. Even Judas. The future is not settled.
Well, I guess we both know we'll disagree on that one.
Actually, how can you say that even when Jesus said Judas would betray him that Judas still had a choice? Wouldn't it have made Jesus a liar if Judas hadn't followed through? Why would Jesus had made his prediction if Judas was still in a position to change it? Why wouldn't he have attempted to sway Judas in a different direction?
Maybe the prediction was an attempt to sway Judas to take another path. Maybe Judas had taken actions that made his near future very predictable, but nothing about human free will is completely predictable. For example: Jeremiah 3:7, 3:19. Sometimes people do things that even God is surprised by.
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