JUDAS & OUR HEARTS

The theologian, Dr Joel Muddamalle recently wrote about the week that led up to the crucifixion. His focus though on this dark week wasn’t a triumphal entry nor was it a stone rolled away from a tomb but it was focused on deceit, the deceptive heart of man. And his focus was on Judas Iscariot.

Muddamalle wrote of a human heart compromised. Judas who was near Christ had a heart that was far, far from Him. He writes, Judas “spent his time with Jesus with the belief that Jesus would usher in a Davidic kingdom. Jesus would overthrow the Romans and finally set the people of God free.

However, Jesus wasn’t concerned with modeling the ethics of the kingdoms of the world because He was ushering in the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is paradoxical to the way of the world. In God’s Kingdom, kindness, generosity, love, patience and sacrifice are valued. In the world’s eyes these things are often simply a hindrance.” He goes on, “for Judas, the compassion and charity of Jesus began to compromise his heart and affection for Christ.

Judas began to see that his ambition and view of how things should go was drastically different from what Jesus was teaching and doing.”

And therein lies the rub. Judas became blind to this. He was set on what he believed Jesus should be doing and he wanted Jesus to give it to him his way. And only his way. The way of a man is fickle and inconsistent and prone to abuse and greed.

The Jews believed that their Messiah would come in power and might. Carrying a banner with raised sword to destroy Roman rule. And this freedom would be achieved by the means of force and bloodshed.

But that is not what Christ was about. He wasn’t about earthly power, of violence or rhetoric. He wasn’t about exclusion of all except His own people. He came for the human heart. Every human heart, regardless of tribe, politics or creed. This is what it was always about.

We want the Kingdom on our own merits and believe God will hand it over to us on a golden, winner’s platter. We talk of ideological power and we look on other people with differing views as our enemies while talking of the love of God. Our kingdom is not a nationalist kingdom and we are not the saviors of the planet. Our identities should be solely in Christ and He alone. We should never allow our national identity to shape our faith identity but it should be the opposite. Because this land is not our promised land and we are sojourners here looking forward to a shining kingdom, bright and true. That Kingdom will be one unified Kingdom of varied nations and peoples of all tongues. Reflecting on the reality of deceptive hearts and selfish ambition we would be wise to consider that any one of us could fall within Judas’s trap.

Muddamalle writes that what we really want is for Jesus to be our genie in a bottle, serving our every whim and desire. Validating our rights. We want Him to justify what we want and desire but Jesus isn’t a genie and we aren’t Aladdin. He is King and He is beyond our thoughts and ways and we are living in His Kingdom, it is not the other way around.

This calls upon us to have a rightly focused identity, solely in Him with no variance to the left or right or hold any idol, human or otherwise within His place. It is His alone.

Remember who you are. Remember who has called you. Your only true allegiance is to Him and Him alone.