Up until a few years ago if you asked anyone from 12 years old and up what the most notable example of betrayal was, the names of our Lord Jesus and Judas would have come up. This is what Judas is most remembered for, and indeed it is the most memorable example of betrayal in history because of the people involved. The Son of God who became Man who preached the Kingdom of God, who elevated those who were not even seen, those who were faceless, into the light and dignified them, who came to share our own life, was betrayed by one of His chosen twelve apostles, one from his inner circle, one who spent 3 ½ years with Him, saw His miracles, and shared in the preaching of His Gospel. And the type of betrayal is most memorable because he sold his Teacher for money, and not for any other reason.

Yet, there is a lot we can learn from Judas the former Apostle because no one can come into contact with the Son of God, especially in close contact, and their own lives cannot become a lesson of what it means to have come near God.

Judas by Fyodor Bronnikov, 1874

Lessons from Judas

Lesson # 1: You cannot change unless you choose to respond to God

The first lesson we learn from Judas is that a person cannot change (no matter what) unless they choose to change. In the case of changing into what God wants, we must choose to respond to God’s call.

Judas spent 3 ½ years watching God Himself Incarnate preaching and showing the Way to him, the way to deal with our neighbors, and how to live according to the purpose with which God created us. He saw countless miracles more than anyone has ever seen except for the other apostles. He had the Teacher and Shepherd who over the course of history has had billions respond to His call and who have followed Him. Our Lord Jesus is the Teacher and Shepherd who began the largest revolution in the history of humanity, but with all this, Judas still fell.

This teaches us that if there are some who fall, it is not always the fault of their teachers, shepherds, parents, or families, but in the end it can and often will be because of the person himself or herself.

To illustrate, imagine this: You have the greatest elementary school teacher on the planet. They can take children who don’t know how to read at the beginning of the year and who are coming in far behind what a student their grade level should be performing, and this teacher has been proven time and time again. Now, imagine that you have a student in that class who refuses to listen, goes on to the computer only to play games and chooses to not learn. The student himself or herself understands that the teacher is highly skilled; they have seen the work of the teacher evident in the lives of the students around them, but this one student doesn’t care at all. Their only response is a grudging acknowledgment, but their actions are totally focused on gratifying themselves.

This was Judas. His only focus was on what he could gain from our Lord Jesus, not to live according to His life, but to follow Him in order to get something to gratify himself.

Lesson # 2: Judas could have been a name we all name our children

This leads us to the second lesson we learn from Judas:

Judas could have been a name we all name our children. What?! Why?! Because Judas could have been the greatest example of repentance. It is interesting to see that in the narrative of Judas’s betrayal, the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke also focus on the Apostle Peter’s denial, which was a betrayal by mouth. This creates a contrast between two people who acted against our Lord Jesus Christ and thus lost hope, but one dealt with his loss of hope by taking his own life, and the other by remembering, remembering Jesus, and how He taught repentance, had hope, and eventually repented.

To make a connection with the worship of the Church, there is a haunting ritual on Holy Thursday in the Coptic Orthodox Church. It is a hymn and a procession. The name of the hymn is “Judas.” That hymn has a tone that is unlike any other hymn in the Coptic Orthodox Church. And for the only time in all of Coptic ritual, the procession around the church is done clockwise, which is opposite of the counterclockwise motion which all processions do. In addition, those playing the cymbals invert the cymbals so that they clang.

Everything is turned upside down and goes backwards.

The hymn is 4 stanzas long. Each stanza is preceded by the refrain calling “Judas” 6 times, the number that signifies imperfection, having fallen short of 7, and calls him “the breaker of the law” or “the lawless one” (in Greek ou paranomos). It tells Judas:

1. What he has done
2. What happened to our Lord Jesus Christ
3. How our Lord Jesus Christ died
4. How He rose from the dead.

Of course, there are several sad ironies in all this.

First, Judas did not consider and grasp what his actions were going to ultimately lead to. Even though he knew that the Pharisees and chief priests were plotting to kill Jesus, he was blinded by his love for money.

Then, as the chanter calls Judas to hear, we know that Judas cannot be moved by any words because his mind has been set on gratifying himself.

Third, our Lord died for everyone’s sake to forgive us our sins including this betrayal had Judas chosen to repent. The chanter calls Judas, but there is no answer, because ultimately there was no answer from Judas, no response that looked to Christ, but it was all centered on the self. He had the spark, the moment of awakening, when He saw what was happening to our Lord Jesus and when he felt remorse, but the response was self-centered having chosen to take His own life instead of facing what He had done and repent as our Lord taught.

While there was another Apostle who was named Judas, because of the intolerability that the name Judas brings to mind, in certain languages the name is slightly modified in pronunciation. For example, the other Judas is called Jude in English. When was the last time you heard someone named Judas? Now, when was the last time you heard the name Peter? The reason the name Peter is so common is because of what he did following his denial of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Apostle Peter, on the other hand, also betrayed our Lord in a sense. He denied knowing Him after all they had been through together. He is the one who told our Lord Jesus “See, we have left all and followed you.” “To whom shall we go?” (Matthew 19:27; John 6:68). Then, when he denied our Lord Jesus Christ, He did it in sight of our Lord, and even our Lord turned to look at him (Luke 22:61). This added to the pain and suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ. He was not only under trial, but now He was alone emotionally in addition to physically.

Yet, the Apostle Peter did not lose hope. He might have been in a state where he was spiritually homeless not being able to know where to go and what to do, but with the Resurrection of our Lord, his hope increased even more that He could make things right.

At the end of the Gospel of John, our Lord asks the Apostle Peter three times about whether he loves Him (in Greek agape, which signifies the highest Christian love, one that is unconditional). The Apostle Peter is honest by replying the first two times with the words philo se , which is a lesser type of love, one that is conditional, which can be translated “You’re my friend,” meaning he is acknowledging that he has not risen to our Lord’s command for love which was agape. Our Lord had characterized agape as the love for which one is willing to die for His friends, which our Lord Jesus Christ did.

But the third time our Lord asks the Apostle Peter, in Greek he changes the question to ask the Apostle Peter if he loved Him with philia, that is, friendship. That grieves the Apostle Peter because he feels he has nowhere to go, and he answers again as truthfully as possible saying that he does love our Lord as his friend, that is the lesser type of love. Our Lord then prophesies about how the Apostle Peter will meet his end, and while it may not be clear to English readers why our Lord Jesus would bring this up after these questions, it is because the Apostle Peter’s end is exactly what agape is and does, which is to lay down one’s life for his friend. Our Lord Jesus is restoring the Apostle Peter’s hope by showing him that one day he will indeed get to that type of love. He restores him as at the beginning and tells him, “Come, follow Me.” So the Apostle Peter now knows where to go and what to do.

That could have been Judas too. While God does bestow His love and grace upon us, it is up to us to accept His love and grace. Judas didn’t, but the Apostle Peter did.

So in the end we learn something from all the Apostles by their responses to our Lord Jesus Christ who is God Incarnate. No matter what anyone does including God Himself, we have to participate in our own salvation by responding to and accepting the gift of God. We do this by first repenting, and then by following Him, putting His desire first and ours in accordance with His.

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Positivity

Positivity is defined as “the practice of being or tendency to be positive in attitude.”  Positivity also means “consisting in or characterized by the presence or possession of features or qualities rather than their absence.”  So, a positive person is one who focuses on the presence of specific characteristics as opposed to what is lacking.

Further, the way this word is used in common speech refers to a personality trait where a person focuses on the good things, and not only focuses on the good things but focuses on them all the time, usually to a point where they are always the type of person who creates desirable feelings in other people and in a consistent fashion.

This attitude is highly desired in people.  I think this is because it leads to a more productive work environment.

Positivity has also taken center stage in many self-help books.  Look at titles such as The Power of Positive Thinking, Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude, and The Power of Positive Leadership.  And unfortunately, as many churches have been confusing self-help with the Christian message, this attitude has entered our churches.

Yet, this attitude is gravely misguided.  And it can harm us spiritually and by extension socially and personally if it is closely adhered to.

What?!

Consider that one of the oldest images of the Church is that of a hospital.  When people go to the hospital, they don’t talk about the good things. They talk about the bad things.  This in turn leads to healing.

So am I saying that someone should be a negative person?  Absolutely not. That is the other extreme of this continuum.  Negative people can cause others to never see the good, which often times is plentiful in and around us.  They can also cause others to develop emotional dysregulation, and shut down their motivation to do any type of good in the world because they feel like nothing they do can or will have significance.  This is certainly not an attitude anyone should take.

Holy Negativity

Yet, there is a type of negativity, which is modeled for us in the Bible, that leads to holiness and ultimately goodness.  This must be practiced if we are ever to grow spiritually. 

Where is that in the Bible?  And how can we practice it?

First, we see this in the Psalms.  Out of all the Psalms, 60 of them are laments, which are songs of sorrow.  This is 40% of all the Psalms.

The Book of Jeremiah and the Lamentations are also books which model holy negativity.

The Book of Job too is a very negative book because it deals with one of the most fundamental problems of the spiritual life which is: why do bad things happen to good people?

But why though?

Reason # 1: Sometimes there are much more negatives than positives

Because sometimes there is nothing to be positive about.  This is the first reason for holy negativity.

Negativity properly means “characterized by the absence rather than the presence of distinguishing features.”  It does not properly indicate a bad attitude. For example, if we say we are unnoticed, this is negative. It means nobody gives us attention, not that we receive bad attention.

Also, often there are many things that are not present in our lives such as peace, harmony, predictability, and happiness.

In the case of Job, he went from being a very rich man living in comfort and blessed with ten children to being poor meaning lacking wealth, to suffering meaning lacking comfort and peace, to being childless.  He also lost his health and became sick with something similar to shingles.

Had the Judeo-Christian tradition been nothing but self-help positivity, we would never have received the Book of Job.  This book is one of the most thought-provoking texts ever written, and it has inspired reflection from Jews, Christians, and even those outside of these two religious traditions for thousands of years.  Indeed, the longest of all the books of the Church Fathers is The Moral Reflections on Job by St. Gregory the Great, which in modern editions is nearly 2000 pages in length.  This length did not discourage people from reading it; it was the second most produced book in Medieval Europe.  Some even risked life and limb and traveled across countries in order to get copies of this book and bring them back to their own lands.  Why? One of the many reasons is that the Book of Job powerfully destroys the idea that bad things happen due to a person’s sins or due to God’s grace leaving someone.  It elevates us to understand the providence and goodness of God.

Also, the books that Jeremiah the Prophet left us are very negative.  In his prophecies, God told Jeremiah that there was no way out for the Jews.  This was because God gave them the course of action they should follow to escape the destruction of their land, which was to submit to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon.  But the Jews were going to continue to listen to the false prophets who told them that they would not fall to the Babylonians, so the Jews including the king and rules resisted the Babylonians.

Jeremiah intercedes with God to prevent this, but God does not hear him. Then Jeremiah even writes down his own thoughts and reflections at the end of many prophecies.  After the final destruction which God has foretold happens, Jeremiah writes a second book called the Lamentations. It is a poem whose imagery is piercing.

In chapter 2:11 of the Lamentations he writes, 

“My eyes fail with tears,

My heart is troubled;

My bile is poured on the ground

Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people,

Because the children and the infants

Faint in the streets of the city.”

Then in Chapter 3, we find the most piercing of all the lines Jeremiah the Prophet ever put to paper,

There is the idea that if we are faithful to God and we ask in His name, then whatever we ask for will be granted us.  Our Lord Jesus Himself said this in the Gospels. He said, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Matthew 7:7).

Most people think this means that God will answer all of our prayers if we are faithful.  Yet this is due to a misunderstanding of what it means to “ask in His name.” These people think that this means that if we put his name on a prayer usually by ending it “in Jesus’ name,” then the prayer is in His name and will be answered.  This is actually true, but only partially.

What “in His name,” actually means is that what we prayed is within the will of God.  But as becomes clear, the will of God will lead to God not answering some of our prayers.

Many lose hope in God when some of our prayers are not answered, and this leads them to stop praying altogether and even stop believing in God.

But the example of how this situation will arise and how His not answering our prayers can lead to good is that our Lord Jesus Himself, who is the Son of God, had a prayer that was not answered.  This very fact should demand further reflection from us because it teaches us a valuable lesson.

Jesus’s Unanswered Prayer

On the night of His betrayal, our Lord Jesus prayed to God “Abba, Father, all things are possible for You. Take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will” (Mark 14:36).  This cup referred to His suffering.

Our Lord prayed earnestly, fervently, and even to the point that he was sweating, and sweating blood (Luke 22:44).  Sweating blood is attested in medical research as arising from extreme anxiety that leads to high blood pressure and elevated heart rate.  This is how earnestly our Lord Jesus Christ was praying, and God the Father did not answer His prayer.

Why?  Because it was God’s will that humanity would be saved by the suffering, death, and Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.  If God the Father granted our Lord Jesus His prayer, then we would not have been saved.

The reality is that it was greater for our Lord to suffer, die, and resurrect and “draw all peoples” to Himself from “every tribe, tongue, and nation” and across the centuries and to restore them to the image and plan God had for them in the beginning than to simply have come and taught like any other prophet.

His death reversed and defeated sin, death, and the powers of evil by exposing them and giving us a model of how to live our lives by imitating Him, the Son of God who became human according to the original purpose for how humanity was to be.

So what does His unanswered prayer and the results that came from it teach us about unanswered prayers in general?

1. Unanswered Prayers Show that God is Ultimately in Control

First, it teaches us that God’s plan is often beyond our grasp, and if we follow Him, then we must be ready to conform to His plan even if it is painful.  Further, if God answered every one of our prayers, then we would be God, and He our servant. But this is not the case because God is the creator, and is all-powerful, all-knowing, and present everywhere.  Since this is the case and since He is our creator, God has a plan for our lives, but that doesn’t mean we have no freewill. When we choose to follow what He says and where He leads us, we fulfill His plan in our lives freely.

It is like a marriage.  When a man first set his eyes on the one he married, he took note of her appearance and her personality.  Those attracted him, and this was out of his control. Yet something was in his control which was whether he continued talking to her or not, and whether he asked her out, and whether he continued dating her, and whether he asked her to marry him, and whether he continued to be married to her.  In all the following actions, he was fully free. And she, if she first found him attractive, and found his personality fitting, every time she said yes, that was fully in her control. In both cases, there was an element that was out of their control, but their responses were not out of their control.

Further, in marriage, challenges arise.  These can be due to life in general or to the marriage in specific.  Assuming both the man and the woman are faithful, when challenges arise, they will face the challenges together and with a mind to solve the challenges together, not to run away from them.  The challenges arising are out of their control, but their responses to those challenges are free.

This is how our relationship with God is.  He has a plan for our lives, and while that is out of our control, our responses to Him and the actions that follow are not.

2. Unanswered Prayers Retune Our Prayer Lives

Second, unanswered prayers also teach us how to pray for the things that last such as our personal spiritual growth, asking God to help us develop certain virtues, and asking God to grant us the grace of serving others to the glory of His name instead of asking God for material objects.

For example, “God please give me to work at this city because it is close to the beach, and my family, and it will be easy there” vs “God please put me at where I will be established, where I will be able to do good work, and where I will be able to make a positive change in the lives of others.”  The first prayer is totally focused on the material; the second prayer is totally focused on the spiritual. You will find that God almost consistently grants the spiritual prayers because they are in line with His will.