Spiritual Direction: If Judas lived, sought forgiveness

Here is a quick lesson about why one should never place anything before faith in God, specifically faith in God’s power to forgive and “fix” even the most horrendous error.

As an inspirational parable, imagine for a moment that the Apostle Judas did not commit suicide immediately after his betrayal of Jesus Christ. As readers of the Gospel know, Judas hung himself in despair after regretting his betrayal of Jesus. Despair is a sin against the Holy Spirit for this very reason: when one despairs as Judas did, one takes out of God’s hands the ability to forgive and to remedy.

If Judas had not killed himself, he would have either seen Jesus during the forty days between his Resurrection and Ascension into heaven or he would have certainly heard of it. Imagine that…. If Judas had held on to his remorse and only stayed alive, he would have seen the Messiah resurrected. It is very likely that Jesus would have sought him out and observing the abject remorse of Judas, he would have forgiven him, on the condition of course that Judas bear the ultimate witness to Jesus in evangelizing. As Jesus repeatedly said to sinners he healed and forgave, “Go your way and sin no more.” Imagine the incredible power of witness that Judas could have experienced and have shown that God can redeem the one who had been reviled as the greatest traitor of all time.

The idea that Judas had some “understanding” with Jesus to broker the death of Jesus is ridiculous. Recent “lost gospels” and so forth are nothing more than associates of Judas who sought to document “butt covering” propaganda, since anyone associated with Judas (he did have a family and associates like everyone else, after all) would have felt much shame and heat at his actions, especially after Jesus resurrected and saw their faith justified. So authors of apologetics on behalf of Judas were only looking to make their untenable position by association with him more acceptable long after the fact.

You also can be assured that Jesus would not make such an “arrangement” because the obvious “arrangement,” more properly called “God’s plan,” was that Jews would reject the New Covenant, but many would believe. Some believed as Jesus lived, and many more believed after he resurrected and the Apostles and disciples bore witness and evangelized. Judas had THE ultimate potential to be part of God’s plan, as everyone does. Judas could have just waited a mere three days and have found that he could have been forgiven and redeemed.

This is why presuming on the mercy of God in despair is such a grave offense against the Holy Spirit. Such a person is basically saying that there are some things God cannot fix. Jesus forgave his executioners AS he was being tortured and murdered! St Stephen, the first martyr, prayed for those stoning him to death AS they were doing it! So how could Judas not have understood that he could have repented and been forgiven? The answer is that he did not stick around to find out. He let despair grab him and he killed himself before Jesus even had the chance to resurrect.

So as powerful as the true story of Jesus as Messiah is, think about how you would feel, two thousand years later, if you were able to read that Judas controlled his despair long enough to actually have encountered again the resurrected Jesus. What a witness that would have been! Jesus taught that “with God nothing is impossible.” Jesus forgave those who killed him as they were doing so, through the infinite power of God the Father to redeem anyone and anything. Imagine how Judas could have been found by Jesus and forgiven – the ultimate “lost sheep.” As furious as the faithful Apostles and disciples were with Judas, if he had lived, sought forgiveness from Jesus and obtained it on the condition that he witnessed to the faith for the rest of his life, the Gospel writers would have verily recorded every bit of this, the ultimate story of redemption, conversion, and restoration. But instead, Judas thought he “knew better than God” because he took his own life thinking he had done something that was unbearable, unforgivable and unfixable. That is an incredible presumption upon God by assuming a human or any being can put a boundary on what God can do. Would not Judas, a zealot who was a firm believer in God, fear death more, facing God without having redeemed himself? In his despair he rushed to death and presumption, and thus lost the chance to have what would have been the most monumental and instructive forgiveness in the history of humanity. Imagine what Judas could have done as a forgiven evangelist. He had the chance and all he had to do was stay alive and believe in God as Jesus had instructed them all repeatedly, face to face.