I have been reading Ratzinger’s latest book on Jesus and I have found it incredibly well written, insightful and at times, provocative. One of those areas of provocation comes when he analyzes the nature of Christ’s betrayal.
The scene is the Passover that Jesus is celebrating with his disciples and comments he makes about being betrayed. Ratzinger points out that there is a level of confusion among the disciples about who would betray Jesus. They ask and Jesus says to them “it is he to whom I shall give this morsel when I have dipped it,” John 13:23-26.
“Jesus’ answer as given here, is quite unambiguous. Yet the evangelist says that the disciples still did not understand whom he meant. So we must assume that John retrospectively attributed a clarity to the Lord’s answer that it lacked at the time for those present.”
Christ says later in John 13:18 “The Scripture must be fulfilled: ‘He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me’.”
While the context and our perspective clearly see this as referring to Judas it should be noted that Peter also betrayed Christ. That every person at the table ate Christ’s bread. That each of us who participate in the community of Christ and partake of the Lord’s Supper eat his bread.
There is a deeper sense in the text that Christ is alluding to the world; to each of us. That the point of his sacrifice was to remedy the betrayal which would be our own undoing. Judas, in many ways represents each of us, as does Peter and all of the disciples.
The point is not to focus on the destructiveness of the betrayal so much as on the miraculous sacrificial act of Christ that overcomes our betrayal and all betrayal.
It should also be noted that Judas was still beloved by Christ even up to and I suspect beyond his suicide. Ratzinger brings this out beautifully.
“For John what happened to Judas is beyond psychological explanation. He has come under the dominion of another. Anyone who breaks off friendship with Jesus, casting off his “easy yoke”, does not attain liberty, does not become free, but succumbs to other powers. To put it another way, he betrays his friendship because he is in the grip of another power to which he has opened himself.
True, the light shed by Jesus into Judas’ soul was not completely extinguished. He does take a step toward conversion: “I have sinned”, he says to those who commissioned him. He tries to save Jesus, and he gives the money back (MT 27:3-5). Everything pure and great that he had received from Jesus remained inscribed on his soul – he could not forget it.
His second tragedy – after the betrayal – is that he can no longer believe in forgiveness. His remorse turns into despair. Now he sees only himself and his darkness; he no longer sees the light of Jesus, which can illumine and overcome the darkness. He shows us the wrong type of remorse: the type that is unable to hope, that sees only its own darkness, the type that is destructive and in no way authentic. Genuine remorse is marked by the certainty of hope born of faith in the superior power of the light that was made flesh in Jesus.
John concludes the passage about Judas with these dramatic words: “After receiving the morsel, he immediately went out; and it was night” – Judas goes out – in a deeper sense. He goes into the night, he moves out of light into darkness: the “power of darkness” has taken hold of him.”
What more could be said? Brilliant.