Friday, April 22, 2011

Why I think Judas is in heaven

Judas has a bad press, and rightly so for the man who betrayed his friend for 30 pieces of silver. And to make matters worse he killed himself, which in the eyes of many is an unforgivable sin. So why do I think he's in heaven now?

I don't think money was his motivation for betraying Christ; if it had been he got what he wanted and he'd have been happy. So I tried to imagine what went through his mind before his decision to betray and after Christ's death and I wrote what I think could have been his last prayer.

Our Father in heaven, have mercy on me.
Have pity on a poor sinner, oh, God have mercy on me.

Hallowed be your name.
You are the great and mighty God; you know the secrets of my heart; you know what I've done.
God have mercy on me.

Your kingdom come; that was all I ever wanted.

(Continued on my other blog)


3 comments:

Katney said...

Very thoguht provoking, Liz. And no, we can never really know anyone's motivation. I've seen this thought before--expressed less eloquently--that he was jsut trying to get things moving--get Him arrested so that the protests would bring things to a head, and he despaired when he realized where the chief priests and Sanhedrin would take it. Things got out of hand because he took things into his own hands. Good lesson to let go and let God...

Gledwood said...

I looked pretty closely through the Bible for verses condemning suicide. Because I was in depression. But I couldn't find any. Which is weird. Judas is the only explicit suicide I can think of; but there's also Samson, who God gave strength to so he could knock down 2 pillars killing all the Phillistine aristocracy (except anybody who was lucky enough to be on the loo at that moment)... and of course killing himself in the process. Isn't that a kind of assisted suicide? I've heard people, who probably never had a mental health problem in their life, really sounding off condemning suicide which nobody does unless in the grip of utter despair (or completely delusional; or both)... yet these same people proclaim a "merciful" God. I'm not saying suicide is right but I can't see that God would condemn someone who never of course chose to be born, opting out of a life they just couldn't cope with. Know what I mean..?

Ole Phat Stu said...

The bible keeps us in suspense.
Another example is in Matthew 27:50ff (if I remember correctly) which has two verses telling us about the rise of the zombies (aka undead), surely a rare event, but then doesn't tell us what happened to them nor where they ended up.

Most frustrating.