Betrayal! Jesus’ Friends Deserted Him

Friendship is one of the most precious gifts we humans can enjoy. It is one of the four types of love that were so perceptively described by the late CS Lewis.

Even a cursory reading of the gospels shows how much our Lord welcomed others and established bonds of friendship with them. The fact of so many following him and hanging on to his words and delighting in his company is testimony to his abundant capacity for friendship.

What a blow it must have been to him to suffer, besides the physical torments of his passion, the emotional blow that betrayal by friends must have caused.

The gospels record three incidents of Jesus being betrayed by his friends. There is the flight of the disciples who abandon him to his fate and disappear. Bluff, big-mouth Peter who swore eternal fidelity, then when challenged by a servant girl denied his association with his Lord. And the final betrayal by Judas, one of the twelve, by a kiss. Surely one of the most tragic and depraved incidents recorded in the gospels?

Mark records our Lord’s warning that his disciples will abandon him on the way down to the garden of Gethsemene after the last supper: You will all become deserters; for it is written, I will strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered (14:27).

John incorporates Jesus foretelling the dispersal of his disciples into the last supper discourse: The hour is coming, indeed it has already come, when you will be scattered (16:32). There is, in Mark explicitly and in John implicitly, a citation of the prophecy of Zechariah about the sheep scattering once the shepherd has been struck.

In the betrayal by Judas, this is foretold at the last supper by our Lord and is likewise linked to an Old Testament prophecy from Psalm 41: Even my bosom friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted the heel against me.

And when they had taken their places and were eating, Jesus said: Truly I tell you one of you who is eating with me will betray me. They began to be distressed and to say to him one after another: Surely, not I? He said to them: It is one of you twelve, one who is dipping bread into the dish with me (Mark 14:18-20).

John makes the incident more dramatic by recording that it was Jesus who was troubled in spirit and then citing the psalmist and stating that it is the fulfilling of the ancient prophecy.

In John’s account the incident is made even more poignant because Jesus, replying to the questions of the Twelve: Is it I, Lord?, responds It is the one to whom I give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish. So after he had dipped the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas, son of Simon Iscariot. After receiving the piece of bread, he immediately went out (13:18-19, 21-30).

The next sentence, And it was night, can be easily overlooked if one is not aware of one of the major themes of John’s gospel, namely the conflict between the light that God and his Son Jesus bring into the world and which is threatened by the darkness of sin and evil.

Of course, as John states in the prologue to his gospel: The light shines in darkness, and darkness could not overpower it (1:5). Hence that neat touch that Judas goes to his infamous task in the dark.

The denial by Peter is not linked to any prophecy. Our Lord’s awareness is based on his perception of Peter’s character and familiarity with his style. John’s version closely echoes Mark’s. Peter said to him: Even though all become deserters, I will not. And Jesus said to him: Truly I tell you, this day, this very night, before the cock crows twice, you will deny me three times. Peter responded vehemently: Even though I must die with you, I will not deny you (14:29-31).

Peter declared: I will lay down my life for you. Jesus answered him: Lay down your life for me? Truly, I tell you, before the cock crows, you will have denied me three times (13:38). After his denials of Jesus we are told, He went out and wept bitterly (Luke 22:62).

Although he lost his nerve and did not have the courage to accompany his Lord on the sorrowful way to Calvary, he did not lose his faith in Jesus. It is only John, or one of his disciples, who records in the epilogue to John’s gospel Peter’s threefold protestation of love to Jesus. This is a powerful parable of God’s willingness to forgive and restore us to friendship no matter how we have failed.

Despite the claim of the so-called Gospel of Judas, recently discovered and publicised by the National Geographic Society, that seeks to whitewash Judas of any hint of him betraying Jesus, there is too much evidence accepted by the first Christians of his badness to be fictional. He is just too evil to be false and fictional. What of the horror of that kiss of betrayal? A public handshake, an embrace, a kiss committed by the two persons to increasing levels of closeness in loyalty, friendship and mutual assistance.

Mark cannot avoid painting the action of Judas in the most shameful colours possible. Now the betrayer had given them a sign, saying: The one I will kiss is the man; arrest him and lead him away under guard. So when he came with the armed crowd, he went up to Jesus and said: Rabbi! and kissed him. Then the guard laid hands on Jesus and arrested him (14:43-6).

To betray someone after a kiss is shameful; to betray with a kiss is unspeakably infamous. Unlike Peter and his denials that did not lead to loss of faith in God and Jesus, the utter black remorse and self-detestation of Judas drove him to suicide rather than contrition and seeking the mercy of God.