I have a question. I’ve been wondering it for a while, asking myself, trying to dig out my own answer. What did you come to Jesus for? What did you expect you would get if you did?

Who says I came to get anything? Perhaps you say, offended. Or, maybe from Sunday school you say – eternal life. That’s all we’re supposed to want, right?

But dig into your heart for a moment, and see what else is there. What drove you out of your own self-reliance into the arms of Christ? Help with your life’s biggest problems? A miracle, maybe, or boundaries that fall in pleasant places, like David’s. Nothing too ambitious, just something – secure. Or maybe an accolade, finally someone saying, “Well done.” Acceptance, perhaps? Somewhere to belong? Relief from the guilt that plagued you, maybe? Did you come for the shelter, to be protected from pain? Were you desperate to avoid hell? Were you looking for heaven, thought you deserved it, and someone told you this was the only way? Or had you already despaired of heaven, already broken your own standards, already knew you needed another way?

Why did you come?

When Jesus walked this earth, people came. People came by the thousands. They came for healing. They came for food. They came for teaching that gave them hope, not just more rules they could not keep. They came because he took care of them, and that was something unexpected in their world. They came because they saw power, and they wanted it for their own ends; they had enemies they wanted to see pay for what they’d done. They came because they had problems, lots of problems, and in him, they saw a fix.

Messiah, the whispers started. Savior. The promised king.

Judas heard their whisperings. He had been chosen by this man, hand-picked. He might have started to imagine things: himself in Jesus’ government, a trusted official, a confidante, an advisor, a friend. Maybe he imagined himself in expensive clothes, eating expensive food, surrounded by servants to do his bidding. Important, his imagination maybe whispered. Rich.

Judas liked money. I get that, I like it sometimes, too. I don’t know where Judas came from that made him believe money would solve all his problems, but from what I’ve experienced, I’m guessing at some point in his life, he struggled to make ends meet; it’s hard to not have enough. Judas liked money. It made him feel good things; powerful, maybe, strong. Safe. He cheerfully took charge of Jesus’ moneybag. He listened to Jesus’ coins clink when he counted them. He collected offerings. He took his cut, whenever it suited him. After all, it was his to take; no one said anything. No one minded. They all agreed; Jesus gave it to him. It was his to take. However he reasoned it, Scripture is clear: Judas was a pilferer. A thief.

Jesus knew all of this. So what did he do? Remove Judas from his duties by force? Ditch him on the side of the road? Cast him out in infamy? No.

He let him fiddle with the money bag.

Jesus knew how much Judas loved money. So he put it right in his hands, and he gave him a choice. For years Judas followed Jesus, saw his miracles, ate at his table, experienced his love. All the while, clink, clink, clink went the moneybag at his hip. He had everything he wanted. He had both – Jesus and money. No choice necessary. But then.

Jesus started to break the rules.

He healed people on the Sabbath day, which was a legal gray area the Jewish leaders had blocked off with caution laws. He told people they had to eat his flesh and drink his blood, which was definitely outside Levitical law. He claimed to be equal with God – uhh. Dude. BIG “do not enter” sign. He broke the laws of nature, too – this was bigger than turning water into wine, making the blind see or the deaf hear, healing lepers, or casting out demons. He stopped a storm. And then he raised the dead. And some well-connected people who really liked laws started to get kinda… upset. Especially when he insulted them. In <gulp> public.

The whispers took a turn to murder. And clink… clink – the moneybag started to get thin, and Judas began to think he’d chosen the wrong team.

That’s when Jesus started talking about dying like it was the plan all along. He who was supposed to be the richest, most powerful king Israel had ever known, took off his outer clothes, wrapped a towel around his waist, and started washing his friends’ feet, telling them to do this for each other when he was gone. Whoa.

That was not what Judas signed up for, folks. What happened to the fame, the glory – the riches? It became glaringly clear that Judas was not going to get what he had come for.

So I will ask again. What did you come to Jesus for? And what will you do… if you don’t get what you thought you would?

What if the church rejects you. What if you stay broken, stay sick. What if you can never do more than make ends meet. What if you lose your job, your house, every last penny in your bank account. What if your loved one still dies too young. What if a fellow churchgoer tells you you’re doing it all wrong. What if your marriage crumbles. What if it’s even a little bit your fault. What if you keep making mistakes with huge consequences, and what if you still have to suffer them. What if your kids mess up. What if they blame you for it. What if people you trust doubt your faith. What if every time you walk through the doors of God’s house, you’re reminded that you’re not enough.

Love, these are not hypotheticals. I’ve seen friends suffer every single one of them. I’ve suffered many of them myself. And I’ve grieved for too many people who left for whichever of the reasons above.

At the very moment Judas was realizing he was not going to get what he had come for, Jesus knelt down – and washed his feet. Until the very last moment when his choice was made, Jesus gave Judas the chance to choose something better. Him. Jesus knew Judas wouldn’t. How insulting it must have been for the God of the universe to watch a man who’d had every chance to get to know Him… choose the short-lived clink of money instead. Do you see it? Do you see how foolish we humans are? How many of us have done the same! And yet, Jesus – at that very moment when Judas was rejecting him, Jesus! chose to wash his betrayer’s feet. The feet that, only minutes later, would carry him out the door to sell Jesus to his enemies. Squeaky clean.

And do you want to know what the most amazing part of this whole story is to me?

I don’t believe it was that choice, that selfish, foolhardy choice, that condemned Judas. I believe that’s what Jesus was telling him when he washed his feet – I am still willing, Judas. I am still willing to wash away your sin.

Because here’s the thing – Judas was not the only disciple to jump ship.

Peter came closer than any of them to understanding. Impetuous Peter with his ADHD habit of blurting out what everyone was thinking and jumping into situations before he stopped to think – Peter came the closest to understanding who Jesus really is. “Even if all the others abandon you, I would NEVER,” Peter ignorantly boasted. That is not the choice dear Peter made. That choice, it turns out, is harder than we think.

In fact, funny you should say that now, Peter. “I assure you,” Jesus told him. “Before the rooster crows,” – only a matter of hours from now – “you will disown me three times.”

Not one. Three.

I got to wondering a few years back – what’s the difference between what Peter did and what Judas did? They both threw Jesus under the bus to get what they wanted – Judas, money, Peter, safety. Jesus knew they both would do it, and he made sure they knew he knew. So why do we applaud Peter and call him Apostle, and smear Judas and call him Betrayer?

“And when you have turned back…”

Because Peter came back. Peter, the great sturdy rock himself, swallowed his pride, hung his head in shame, and took the most courageous steps any of us have ever taken. He walked back up to Jesus, after everything was done. After Jesus was crucified, and Peter had done nothing to stop it, nothing to share it, nothing to relieve a single moment of the suffering, but rather abandoned him to save his own skin – after Jesus conquered death and came back to life, no thanks to Peter at all, Peter dared to come back. I wonder sometimes how close he came to making the same choice Judas did. How hard it must have been to show his face! Haven’t I felt that, too? Jesus owed him nothing. But before he took matters into his own hands – before he condemned himself – he came to ask. Just to ask. It’s all he had left to do – one last thread of hope. Three times, Jesus asked Peter to tell him that he loved him. Three times, Peter confirmed that he did. One confirmation for every denial. And Peter, wounded as he was that Jesus had to ask, was restored.

Judas, oh, Judas, I wish you had gone back! I wish you had understood a moment of your history, I wish you had listened to your king, I wish you had waited to see his victory! But Judas could not see it; the clink, clink, clink that had deafened him now so repulsed him that he cast it aside, and he did the same thing with himself. He could not see past his own failings to the redemption that would spring up from them; he destroyed himself in despair for the very mistake that God used to save us all. His pride could not bear to look at his own sin. Oh, Judas! He would have taken you back, too. I believe he would have taken you back; I must believe he would have taken you back. If only you had ASKED!

Was there ever a tragedy greater than this? Inches from restoration, Judas did not ask.

It says Jesus’s heart was greatly troubled. Judas chose to betray him, and that must have been a sting – but I believe it was because he would never come back that Jesus grieved.

Whatever it is you came for, dear one – miracles, safety, power, prosperity – whatever you have done to get it when it became clear Jesus had different plans – dear Judas, come back. Listen – I throw him under the bus probably every day. I do not pretend anymore to know what choices I will make in the heat of the moment because the moment I say I would never, there I go nevering. Jesus knows exactly how weak I am. I asked. You can too.

Ask. Jesus came back for you, too. Please just ask.

Grace to you, my Judas. I love you still, too.

-your Peter friend