The Impossible Disruption of Good Friday
(Image by Max Kuzma)
It’s safe to say that in the biblical story of salvation, Judas Iscariot is a controversial figure. His legacy is that he was directly responsible for the death of Jesus due to the fact that he identified who Jesus was to the Roman guards, and even worse he did it for money. To betray God himself feels like a pretty unforgivable thing to most of us!
Judas’ story reminds me of another story and controversial figure from the Bible: the prodigal son.
When I was in a high school youth group, I was chosen to give a talk on the Prodigal Son for one of our bi-yearly Antioch style retreats that we put on over a weekend. The themes for all the talks were all pre-selected and we were all provided a possible outline of topics to discuss in relation to the theme. For the Prodigal Son story, the emphasis was on the redemptive power of learning to admit your mistake and humble yourself before your father, representing God in the story.
Instead of talking about this aspect of the story, I decided to talk about how I related to the older brother in the story. About how frustrating it would have been to watch the younger brother make those decisions, and how jealous and disappointed he was when his father welcomed the brother back without any hesitation or judgment. I revealed that the story challenged me because it highlighted my own hypocrisy for the times I have been judgmental, thinking I know someone else’s story in enough detail that I could make a better judgment about them than my father.
Honestly, it’s a tale as old as time—and, of course, a distinctly modern problem, especially when it comes to terminally online Christians and Catholics. I remember the first time I discovered that “Catholic Twitter” was largely a toxic measuring stick group composed of a fair number of bullies and simply just unkind takes and replies to all manner of minutiae. Basically a community inspired by the worst impulses of social media: instant judgment, rampant assumptions, and the desire to publicly humiliate and correct others. You can see why this reminds me of the attitude of that older brother.
I wonder too, if that attitude is the one we often take about Judas. No matter that Jesus was going to be found and crucified by the Romans either way; they could not tolerate the disruption that his radical message of peace had in the world they had successfully dominated through blood lust and reliance on controlling the population through emphasis on base human instincts, treating people like their “animal needs'' defined them (as seen in their most popular entertainment being blood sport in the coliseum and the hedonistic sexuality of the day).
Jesus knew all about the disruption he was causing. At the last supper he makes it clear that he understands that the society he lived in would demand his death due to the things he had done and the life he had lived. He knew people could not accept the way he ignored social hierarchy by meeting people where they were, healing them, teaching them, loving them. Society had a clear pecking order and when someone so charismatic, popular, and loved started demonstrating that the pecking order had all the foundation of thin air, the people on the top of the tower started to feel like their power was being threatened and their fortress was shaking, heading for collapse. Their two choices were, one: to face the disruption and experience a transformation that would forever change their lives: or, two, get rid of the disruptor in order to consolidate their power in a more defensible position, hoping the social movement would lose steam without the extremely likable leader.
We all know the decision they made.
Pontius Pilate shows up as the man tasked with the deed, and honestly does what almost any one of us would have done. Evaluating Jesus, he clearly sees a good person who nonetheless threatens the institution that Pilate is deeply embedded in. To flip the script and allow Jesus to walk out of that trial would only have delayed the inevitable and Pilate would have gone down along with Christ, because the powers that be would just find another reason to put Jesus back on trial—and put the disloyal Pilate away forever. He shows what he thinks of the proceedings by quite literally washing his hands of the matter and using passive language to make it seem as though he doesn’t have any power to take a stand, stop the unjust guilty verdict for an innocent man, or make a statement of his own by going off script.
This, I think, is perhaps what the older brother of the Prodigal son story, Judas, and Pilate might have in common. What makes all of these characters so easy to cringe away from is that we can see how each of them took the easy way out, the path of least resistance. We can also hardly blame them, since we all know what they each were feeling in those moments, and yet we feel we have to judge someone who is willing to betray God and allow him to be murdered. How could you be willing to betray God himself?!
We also know God did not have to die. Much has been said on this topic, usually with people taking the view that the significance of God allowing himself to be brutally tortured and killed by human hands is primarily a sacrifice designed to highlight just how bad humans are. They may also teach that the treatment Jesus receives is not only the treatment all of us should have received in response to our fallen natures and sinfulness, but that we should learn to endure treatment like this (suffering in general but also making personal sacrifices) willingly to emulate Jesus.
Undoubtedly all of us can learn something from Jesus’ orientation toward suffering and the meaning of his ultimate sacrifice. But I also think that the bigger reason Jesus allowed himself to be brutally abused and killed was because he knew it was the only way he could really reach the people who were so determined to destroy him and everything he represented. He knew that if he allowed this to happen and then rose from the dead, the people in power would be forever shaken and their belief in their own “power” would never be the same again. After all, if you can’t kill Jesus, that means his message might just be more powerful than what you’ve been unquestioningly believing for your entire life about yourself, the way the world works, etc. This, then, is the clincher: Jesus chose the most undeniable way to spread his message.
And he did it in such a way that does not place blame on those characters we are so quick to judge. Remarkably, he is not actually keeping score. Our human minds are doing that, frowning when we hear about Juda’s conduct or listen to the recounting of the trial with Pilate, but Jesus is not. “Forgive them, father, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:24).
This behavior of Jesus, then, is truly worth emulating. Not specifically submitting himself to mistreatment, (since that is only the surface level of what’s going on here), but the larger play of discerning how to do the impossible, since it is only the impossible act which will be able to shock the hearts and minds of those who have set their hearts in stone.
In 2023 America, doing the impossible doesn’t have to mean doing miracles or being crucified. It can be lots of little acts, (one illustration being St. Therese of Liseux). Jesus spent his whole life going against the grain, doing the things he wasn’t supposed to do. All of those things are up for grabs when we think about how to model our lives after him. In fact, he strongly endorses counter cultural behavior as an act of resistance against a cruel world: he is close with society’s rejects and stands in solidarity with the marginalized.
Sometimes, that act of solidarity feels like the most impossible task. Maybe it’s because we’re like the older brother in the Prodigal Son story, resenting that we’ve always been faithful and yet the “irresponsible” one gets the red carpet treatment when he comes back. Judas knew that Jesus was aware of what he was going to do, so it felt inevitable to him in a way. And as for Pilate, he didn’t want to lose his job, cushy lifestyle, and maybe even his life if he went against the Roman government. Being an ally to people who are socially different is a task that will always come with risk—and there are plenty of other characters in the gospels who take that risk (examples that come to mind are the men who lowered their friend through the ceiling to see Jesus, and the roman soldier who believed in Jesus’ ability to save his daughter).
We are all called to love God, our neighbor, and ourselves in ways that might be just as disruptive as the impossible, improbable love Jesus has for each and everyone one of us that he demonstrated on that Good Friday so many centuries ago.
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