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A Kiss is just a Kiss, isn't it?
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Luke 22:47-53 (New International Version)
Jesus Arrested
47While he was still speaking a crowd came up, and the man who was called Judas, one of the Twelve, was leading them. He approached Jesus to kiss him, 48but Jesus asked him, "Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?" 49When Jesus' followers saw what was going to happen, they said, "Lord, should we strike with our swords?" 50And one of them struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear. 51But Jesus answered, "No more of this!" And he touched the man's ear and healed him. 52Then Jesus said to the chief priests, the officers of the temple guard, and the elders, who had come for him, "Am I leading a rebellion, that you have come with swords and clubs? 53Every day I was with you in the temple courts, and you did not lay a hand on me. But this is your hour—when darkness reigns."
A Kiss is just a Kiss, isn't it?
Did you watch Westerns as a child? The younger members of the congregation will need to indulge this journey down memory lane, but the childhood of people my age was marked by good guys and bad guys and always being sure which was which. In my six channel universe when the Lone Ranger came on he was the good guy. Never any doubt.
When my dad came in from the garage on a Saturday afternoon to watch wrestling, Whipper Billy Watson was the good guy. Never any doubt.
Today we are presented with heroes who deal with the complications of modern life and their own inner conflicts. We may want them to be good guys but they struggle against the demons within and insist on telling us about it even when we are convinced that’s just too much information.
It’s hard to know who the good guy is in the wrestling ring these days—if taking steroids is cheating, then even the good guys aren’t so good after all.
But in the story of Jesus, we are certain about who the bad guy is. In Dante’s Inferno, a fictional picture of hell is created. When you go deep down into hell, in the very pit, at the bottom one finds a lake of ice. But even beneath the lake of ice, at the core of hell, there is where one finds Judas. We know enough of the New Testament to know ice doesn’t figure into the Biblical concept of hell, but the idea that Judas has the cell at the core of this place of torment, surely that is a true picture. In spiritual terms, Judas is the epitome of the bad guy.
Let’s take a look then at what happens when Judas leads the Temple officials to the place where he knew Jesus would be found away from the protection of a crowd of admirers. The question of why Judas would betray Jesus has fascinated many people through the centuries, and while it is impossible to know exactly what was in his mind, we can make some good guesses.
Luke provides a simple answer. Then Satan entered into Judas called Iscariot, who was one of the twelve; he went away and conferred with the chief priests and officers of the temple police about how he might betray him to them (Luke 22:3, 4).
Matthew’s telling of the story does not include the idea of Satan’s influence. Rather in chapter 26 of his gospel, he tells about Jesus being anointed with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment (26:7). Matthew then goes on to tell of the reaction of all the disciples who were angry and referred to this act of devotion as a waste. The very next paragraph in the story begins, Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests (26:14).
Why the kiss? What’s that about? Something I have never thought about before is looking at the sort of customs and conventions of the time and asking what might be communicated when Judas comes to kiss Jesus.
Moses Aberbach, a Jewish scholar, in his commentary on the New Testament said this. In any group of teacher and disciples, the disciple was never permitted to greet his teacher first since this implied equality. When approaching a disciple would greet other disciples first and the teacher only at the end, showing appropriate deference. Judas’ sign therefore was not only a signal to the temple authorities, but a deliberate insult—an act of independence. It was Judas saying to Jesus, “I’m as good as you.” “I can decide for myself what direction life is going to take.”
I recognize that one must be careful when putting a bit from this gospel together with a bit from another. However, I think it is valid in this case and makes some sense. Let me step very carefully in these next moments, because I think it is possible that what’s going on is that Judas is the first of the disciples to have some certainty about where Jesus was going and he tried to put a stop to it.
Jesus is at what we would call a dinner party with the disciples. The courtyard in which the dinner was held was accessible to streets and a woman who knew Jesus came to anoint him with some expensive ointment, what we would call lotion. The anger of the disciples is directed at both the woman and at Jesus. She initiated this waste and Jesus permitted it.
I’m not sure what the disciples were expecting but if they thought Jesus was going tell them he had made a mistake and they were right—that’s not what happened. He said the woman had prepared his body for burial and that her act of devotion would become the stuff of inspiration and encouragement.
I think it is possible that Judas had a moment of intellectual and spiritual clarity in which he realized that Jesus had no plans to raise an army of revolutionaries and that his way was always going to be to give up his life for his friends. Judas thought that was nonsense and he began to look for a way to knock some real sense into Jesus.
The second thing I want us to see is how close every disciple of Jesus is to Judas. Let me tell you a story. Those of you who are parents will recognize the participants; you’ll just need to change the particulars.
From October to April most Sunday afternoons of my childhood and adolescence were spent playing ball hockey. I have a brother who is six years younger than me and one who is ten years younger. From the time each of them could stand upright and grip a hockey stick they would join me on those Sunday afternoons.
More than one of those glorious afternoons ended with Fred, the youngest, swinging his hockey stick and chasing Rick and me down the street to our place while the two of us laughed like the silly fools we were and are. When the three of us came through the door, what do you think my mother said? That’s right—“What did the two of you do him this time?” There was never a question in her mind of who might be the guilty party. We had done something, likely teased our younger brother, until he could take it no longer.
If you have your Bible open to the text—it’s on page 86 of the New Testament in the pew Bibles—or look on the screen behind me, look at Luke 22:23. Jesus has predicted that one of the disciples will betray him. Look at this verse. Then they began to ask one another which one of them it could be who would do this.
I know how unfair it is to compare one’s children but the reality is that once Rachel came into our lives, Chris and I were glad Michael had come first. If it had been the other way around, we would not have known what hit us. Michael was simply always on the go. Rachel was always a sweet and quiet child who would stay put for hours. If we left them alone and something ended up broken, there was very little guesswork involved in figuring out the culprit—not exactly rocket science.
When Luke reports the story he had been told, isn’t it amazing that not one of the disciples took a look at Judas and said to the others, “I bet he’s the one.” It wasn’t obvious he was the bad guy.
Why do you think that is? I believe it’s because the other disciples recognized there was something within them that was always, almost ready to deny the way that Jesus was showing to them.
Luke pretty much tells us this is so. No sooner do they finish discussing who might be the one to betray Jesus, Luke says they went on to another topic—A dispute also arose among them as to which one of them was to be regarded as the greatest (22:24). Friends, let me put this as plainly as possible. If a group of people who claim to follow Jesus are sitting around arguing about prestige and stature in the group, they are about one step away from betraying their Lord. If Christians are talking about who’s great and who isn’t, they are at least implying the way of Jesus needs to be revised.
There’s one more thing to see. Judas was a disciple, chosen by the Lord. I don’t know about you, but I must admit I am still working though this business of free will and predestination. If God is God then his knowledge of me and my world must be complete, but if I am going to be responsible for my choices, they must be true choices. Jesus picks people to be his disciples even knowing that you may be the one to betray him, that I may be the one who offers him a kiss of recognition while at the same time telling him that I am not going to be obedient to the way he has made known to me.
I see this as a wonderful aspect of the good news of God. First of all, if you are a disciple, if you have chosen to follow Jesus, you need to know that Jesus welcomed you to his family knowing there will be days when you are an effective and faithful servant of the kingdom of God, and, there will be days when you will betray him even as you kiss his cheek, and take the side of those forces of darkness and despair that are trying desperately to undo the work of grace and love and justice. You will not accept his way; you will insist you know better. Jesus knew that about us when he chose us. He knows how hard it is to take up the cross every day and follow him.
This is good news also if you have not yet made your choice to accept the love offered by God in Jesus. I think that sometimes people who have not been a part of the church for their whole lives look at those of us who have been and assume someone is either born into the church or you really never get a chance to be part of it.
Here’s the reality. I was born into the Norman family. I have got that half-Newfie DNA programmed into my very being. I was also born into the church, but not because my mother took me from the time I was a baby. Rather I was born into the church, into the family of faith, because as child on the edge of adolescence, I said to Jesus, I accept you as my Saviour and Lord. I will be thankful from now and into eternity that my mother introduced me to the spiritual reality that is faith in Christ, but I was only born into this family when I accepted that faith as my own. I didn’t do it because I already had all of life figured out. I did it because I knew despite every inclination to go my own way, that the way of Jesus was the way to life.
Take care, disciple, as you follow Jesus this week. “One of you will betray me,” he says.
Could it be you? What about him? Do you think it might be me? It could be any of us. It could be all of us. But he has invited us on the walk of faith because there is a chance also that by his grace we will obey, because of his strength we will follow, through his example we will recognize that by forgiving we are forgiven, by losing we gain, and by dying we are born to eternal life.
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