'And Jesus said unto him, Friend, wherefore art thou
come?'--MATT. xxvi. 50.
We are accustomed to think of the betrayer of our Lord as a kind of
monster, whose crime is so mysterious in its atrocity as to put him
beyond the pale of human sympathy. The awful picture which the great
Italian poet draws of him as alone in hell, shunned even there, as
guilty beyond all others, expresses the general feeling about him.
And even the attempts which have been made to diminish the greatness
of his guilt, by supposing that his motive was only to precipitate
Christ's assumption of His conquering Messianic power, are prompted
by the same thought that such treason as his is all but
inconceivable. I cannot but think that these attempts fail, and that
the narratives of the Gospels oblige us to think of his crime as
deliberate treachery. But even when so regarded, other emotions than
wondering loathing should be excited by the awful story.
There had been nothing in his previous history to suggest such sin,
as is proved by the disciples' question, when our Lord announced
that one of them should betray Him. No suspicion lighted on him--no
finger pointed to where he sat. But self-distrust asked, 'Lord, is
it I?' and only love, pillowed on the Master's breast, and strong in
the happy sense of His love, was sufficiently assured of its own
constancy, to change the question into 'Lord! who is it?' The
process of corruption was unseen by all eyes but Christ's. He came
to his terrible pre-eminence in crime by slow degrees, and by paths
which we may all tread. As for his guilt, that is in other hands
than ours. As for his fate, let us copy the solemn and pitying
reticence of Peter, and say, 'that he might go to _his own_
place'--the place that belongs to him, and that he is fit for,
wherever that may be. As for the growth and development of his sin,
let us remember that 'we have all of us one human heart,' and that
the possibilities of crime as dark are in us all. And instead of
shuddering abhorrence at a sin that can scarcely be understood, and
can never be repeated, let us be sure that whatever man has done,
man may do, and ask with humble consciousness of our own deceitful
hearts, 'Lord, is it I?'
These remarkable and solemn words of Christ, with which He meets the
treacherous kiss, appear to be a last appeal to Judas. They may
possibly not be a question, as in our version--but an incomplete
sentence, 'What thou hast come to do'--leaving the implied command,
'That do,' unexpressed. They would then be very like other words
which the betrayer had heard but an hour or two before, 'That thou
doest, do quickly.' But such a rendering does not seem so
appropriate to the circumstances as that which makes them a
question, smiting on his heart and conscience, and seeking to tear
away the veil of sophistications with which he had draped from his
own eyes the hideous shape of his crime. And, if so, what a
wonderful instance we have here of that long-suffering love. They
are the last effort of the divine patience to win back even the
traitor. They show us the wrestle between infinite mercy and a
treacherous, sinful heart, and they bring into awful prominence the
power which that heart has of rejecting the counsel of God against
itself. I venture to use them now as suggesting these three things:
the patience of Christ's love; the pleading of Christ's love; and
the refusal of Christ's love.