Judas ate too: An essay on the love of Christ

Judas Iscariot was one of Jesus’ twelve disciples and is famous – unfortunately – for betraying his master. He betrayed him to the corrupt authorities who ultimately took him away to be condemned and killed.

The Bible verse of Judas ate too

What’s weird about this is that Jesus knew he was going to do it – but despite that he still invited Judas to be one of his disciples. He washed his feet along with all the other disciples in an act of love and humility. And on the very night in which he was betrayed he took bread and wine, blessed and hallowed it, and gave it to his disciples saying, “take, eat, this is my body” (1 Corinthians 11:24). Judas was there with the rest of the disciples. On a traditional understanding, this bread and wine were types of Christ’s own body, fed to his disciples to fill them with his life. It’s hard to imagine something more intimate than that. And yet Jesus invited Judas into this most intimate of gatherings and fed him freely, even though he knew he was going to stab him in the back.

Even though it’s very well-known, I think the meaning of Jesus’ reaction to Judas’ inevitable betrayal is still under-appreciated. It’s one of the most powerful images in the New Testament for understanding what it really means to be a part of Christ, as well as how Christ loves us and how we therefore must practice love towards others.

”Following” Jesus is not enough

I’ve always thought it was a little weird when people describe themselves as “followers” of Jesus or put a lot of emphasis on “believing” in Jesus. Believing in Jesus like you believe in Santa Claus barely counts for anything, at least as far as St. James was concerned when he pointed out that “even the demons believe” in God (Jam 2:19). Jesus even said that not everyone who called him “Lord” will enter into the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do “the will of the Father” (Matt 7:21). Later St. Paul explains that the righteous are not those who hear the law of God but those who actually do it – the ones who put it into practice (Rom 2:13). So clearly we have to do more than believe in Jesus in our minds. As for “following”, we follow things all the time: from sports teams to television shows to people we like on social media. You can “follow” someone in this sense by sitting on your couch; it’s not much better than doing nothing.

Clearly we have to put our beliefs into practice in some way, and Judas certainly did. He was one of Jesus’ disciples. He abandoned his former life and followed him around the country for years: working, sleeping, traveling, and eating with him. Much more than just following someone on social media, Judas followed Christ in his journeys, he sacrificed anything else he could have been doing to devote all his waking hours to being a part of Christ’s life and ministry. He knew Christ was real. He saw him perform miracles. He witnessed his power firsthand. And yet he did the unthinkable: he betrayed Christ in exchange for money, and sent him to his death.

This tells us that to follow Christ has to be something much deeper even than literally following him around. And that’s really saying something, because Judas was a real, active part in Christ’s life and ministry. It seems that Judas both believed in Christ and but that belief into practice by following him. But it wasn’t enough, because both belief and action are two steps in what is really a three-step process.

First you have to believe something, for example, that eating a healthy diet is good for you. Then you have to act on that, but avoiding junk food and buying healthy food. But the ultimate purpose of that action is to become a certain kind of person – in this case, a healthy one. Or, to take a negative example, let’s say you think it’s okay to lie (belief), so you lie whenever it’s convenient (action). Now you are a liar (becoming). We do have to believe in Jesus, and we have to put that belief into action, but the goal of both is ultimately to become a certain kind of person. In this case the goal is to become part of Christ, something that Judas didn’t succeed in doing.

Love others like Jesus loved Judas

So what is Jesus’ reaction to this man who said he loved him and devoted his life to him and then ultimately betrayed him to death? Jesus loved Judas. Earlier in the gospel, Jesus says to love your enemies, to pray for those who persecute you, and to do good to those who hate you (Matt 5:44, Like 6:27). He doesn't treat Judas any differently – even though he knows he’s going to stab him in the back.

Now the big question: do we love others like this? If you look at our culture as a whole, I think it’s pretty clear that we don’t. To the contrary, our culture almost seems obsessed with judgment and condemnation. In our everyday language we talk about who is “a good person” and who is “a terrible human being”. In politics, almost all the discourse is all about condemnation, about identifying who is good and bad so we can feel justified in hating them. And the world of social media is a savagely judgmental landscape where anyone who does anything wrong – or even who doesn’t have an opinion we find “correct” – is condemned in the harshest terms. If you’ve followed different bits of social media “drama”, you know that there have been instances where people have been bullied so badly on the internet that they commit suicide – which was then celebrated by the people who did the bullying.

This kind of judgement is insanity. Only God is really in a position to judge, as he alone has perfect understanding. So for us to condemn others in this way is like trying to push God off of his throne and declare ourselves to be God – at least that’s how one monk put it. But here’s something very interesting: because God has perfect understanding, he actually knows how woefully insufficient and flawed we are – even better than we ourselves know!  You would think that if anyone was in the position of being able to condemn, it would Jesus. Yet his response was to love us. Just as he knows our flaws and sins better than anyone else, he also responds to that with a love that’s more pure, selfless, and perfect than anyone else. He knew Judas was going to betray him even before he called Judas to be one of his disciples – yet he did it anyway. He loved him, he washed his feet, and he invited into his life through communion.

All of us are Judas

It’s easy to identify with the “good guys” in stories. After all, we all want to see ourselves as perfect, good, wise, and beautiful. But – if we’re being honest – we often have more in common with the villains than we’d like to admit. We’ve all been Judas at one point or another. You don’t have to betray someone to death to be a Judas – any betrayal, any cruelty, any disloyalty, however small, is a way that we deviate from the good. And because God is the good, is in fact goodness itself, whenever we step out of the good we betray goodness. And we all do it.

Once you realize this fact, it’s easy to become filled with anxiety or feel pulled toward depression. But you have to go farther: you have to really internalize the fact that God really does love us with perfect love despite knowing how insufficient we are. This opens the door for an infinite amount of hope, because no matter how badly we fall short, we can’t diminish God’s love for us or his desire to call us into participation in his life.

There is a famous line in one of the Psalms where the speaker asks God, “if you should keep an account of our sins, who could stand?” (Psalm 130:3; LXX 129:3). And of course the answer is that no one could stand – everyone would be condemned. But the speaker goes on to add, “but with you there is forgiveness”. This beautiful reality – that God sees our sins but still loves us – is a constant theme throughout the Bible and – I think – one of the most powerful elements in Christianity. Once we really internalize this truth, then we can avoid Judas’ error: we can accept the love of God in a way that fills us up and flows over into loving and forgiving others – no matter what they do or have done to us.