Sermon for 11/13/2011

Jesus choosing Judas tells us nothing about Judas--but it tells us everything about Jesus.

Luke 22:1-6

The Plot to Kill Jesus

Now the festival of Unleavened Bread, which is called the Passover, was near. The chief priests and the scribes were looking for a way to put Jesus to death, for they were afraid of the people.

 Then Satan entered into Judas called Iscariot, who was one of the twelve; he went away and conferred with the chief priests and officers of the temple police about how he might betray him to them. They were greatly pleased and agreed to give him money. So he consented and began to look for an opportunity to betray him to them when no crowd was present.

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For those of you who are football fans, you doubtless have heard of a little event held every year called the NFL draft. It's the time of the year when professional football teams gather to draft the college players for their team. NFL teams spend untold amounts of money scouting for this huge event—they want to be sure they pick the best player. Any number of websites will offer up their opinions on who the biggest draft busts are—players who were picked very highly, who were expected to perform at the highest levels, and often ended up being out of the league within a few short years. Somehow, the scouts missed something and didn't predict that a certain player just didn't have what it takes to make it in the NFL. The NFL is an uncertain business, and one mistake can cost a team millions of dollars.

I want you to hold the NFL draft in your mind—it's an event where each team does whatever is possible to draft the absolute very best player to ensure their future success. If you were responsible for running a football team, or any other type of team, you'd want the best and the brightest, too. If you're hiring someone to fill a job, you want the absolute best person you can get, right?

So imagine that you had the responsibility of picking Jesus' disciples—how would you choose? You'd probably go to the biggest and best synagogue and pick the brightest and most promising disciples, right? Being humans, with our limited knowledge, we wouldn't know how each one would turn out, but we'd pick the most qualified and believe that they couldn't be topped in terms of potential. You'd feel even more pressure if I told you that Jesus Christ would be crucified, and the twelve disciples would be largely responsible for the future of the Christian Church once Jesus ascended into heaven. You'd be so worried you'd spend hours questioning each candidate to make sure the church was in the best hands possible to ensure its survival.

That's what we would do if we were in charge of choosing disciples, right?

Which is yet another illustration as to why we're not in charge.

Jesus goes for a slightly different route than the one we would select. He goes and chooses fishermen, men who may have aspired to be priests and Pharisees but just didn't make the cut. Jesus chooses men who weren't quite good enough, who longed to qualify as religious leaders but didn't measure up in the eyes of the leadership of the day. Jesus goes for them. It's a curious selection, we would say, and one in particular is more curious than the rest.

Judas Iscariot.

Now, we believe that Jesus knows everything, and that He knows what is going to happen. So, basing off that, we can say that Jesus knew that Judas was going to betray him. Which makes most of us wonder why Jesus chose Judas to be a disciple in the first place. If I'm Jesus, and I'm clearly not, I would have had Judas stay as far away from me as possible. But Jesus chooses Judas to follow him, invites him in to a fellowship of disciples and spends three years with a man who will voluntarily betray him. Jesus knows this is going to happen and chooses Judas anyway.

Why?

Why choose your betrayer to be one of the twelve people in the world who are closest to you?

Why choose a sinner who will not turn back until it's too late?

Why choose a man who will not be able to control himself in the face of temptation?

Why?

That's the kind of God we worship. We worship a God who doesn't always make sense, who doesn't choose people for the reasons we would choose people, who doesn't follow the wisdom of the world. We worship a God who loves freely, who extends grace to everyone, and who desperately longs for each one of his children to come to him in repentance. We worship an amazing God, and it's in stories like this one, in the tale of Judas, that we realize how incredible our God is.

Jesus picked Judas because he loved Judas. Jesus wanted Judas to be a part of the Kingdom of God, to know God's love and to worship God with all of his heart. It's the same thing Jesus wants out of each of us—to love him completely, to live a full life that can only be found when lived under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Jesus picked Judas because Judas was loved just as much as every other child of God.

Did Jesus know Judas was going to betray him?

Absolutely.

But Jesus loved him anyway.

Just as much as Jesus loves you and I, even when we betray him.

Now, it's easy to see the betrayal of Judas when it leads to the cross. But I believe that we just as often betray Jesus Christ when we choose sin over Him in our modern world.

As I've watched this appalling story of child abuse and neglect at Penn State break out, I see a betrayal of Jesus. I see sins of omission—adults with a responsibility to love and protect children failed in that responsibility. They failed to act to protect children, and in their inaction, they sinned. Sin isn't simply doing something wrong—sometimes we sin when we fail to do the right thing.

But sin doesn't have to be big and public. It can be small and private, in the depths of our hearts, a sin that never knows the light of day. Whatever your sin is, it's different from the sin of Judas by a matter of degrees, not type. When you and I choose sin, when we choose to worship something other than Christ, we betray Jesus in some big or small way.

And yet Christ has still chosen us. He has still chosen to live for us, to die for us, to rise for us. He has still reached out in love and mercy to extend the grace of the Gospel to each and every one of you. He didn't cast you down or refuse to choose you because he knew you would sin. He didn't opt not to offer salvation to you because he knew at some point you would turn your back on him. Instead he chose love and grace, forgiveness and mercy, and for that reason we gather here today, so that the hearts that beat within our chests might cry out in love and gratitude for all that God has done. We live out a life of thanksgiving, because Christ has chosen us. Not because we were worthy, not because we were the best, not because we were the most qualified, but because he is a God of love, mercy and grace, and we are the ones that he loves. For no other reason but love did he die on the cross, and so it is my utmost prayer that each and every one of our lives might be a loud song of praise, of thanksgiving, and that we might have the courage to live as disciples of the great and merciful Lord Jesus Christ.

Let us pray.