Salvation through Judas

I was taught that only God can bring good out of evil. Not that he creates evil, evil is the deterioration of the good, but God can bring good out of evil choices we each make.

The biggest example of this is the Crucifixion. Jesus was beaten, battered, flogged, tortured and murdered for no good reason. He was executed in a brutal way as if He was the most dangerous of criminals even though He was sinless. Even if you believe the charges made against Him by those who called for His death, it did not warrant the evilness and brutality of His death. And yet, it was through that death on the Cross that we are saved.

What got everything going was Judas. It was Judas who betrayed Jesus with a kiss on the cheek in the garden after conspiring with the Pharisees to have Jesus arrested and killed. This is where the story of the Passion begins. Jesus knew Judas was going to do it but he didn’t stop it from happening. Why? Because Jesus knew that through this betrayal the salvation of man would begin. This is how He was going to save us all.

Everything about the life of Jesus is an example for us. He became man to become one of us. He wanted us to know that everything we go through, He has been through. He shares with us in our humanity and in our sufferings. When we feel alone in our own conflicts and doubts, He gets it. When we feel betrayed and like everything is crumbling, He gets it.

At this moment, that is how I feel. I feel frantic, betrayed and like the worldview that I have come to believe in is crumbling all around me. But I also feel some responsibility to act and to do the right things. I have no idea what those things are at the moment but I know that walking away is not one of them for me. I understand that others feel the opposite of that, but I feel firm in my faith.

Part of the reason why I feel so firm in it is that of Judas’ betrayal of Jesus. In that, I have an example of how sometimes it is through betrayal and evil choices of humans, even men who are ordained as priests by Jesus Himself, that God saves us. God does not rejoice in those evil choices. Jesus said that it would have been better for Judas to never have even been born.  But God can and does bring good out of all things.

In my own life, I have come face to face with this knowledge after the suicide of my son. I could not figure out how God could watch my son hang himself and do nothing. What I have come to realize is that allowing us to make choices that are evil (in the theological and real sense of the word, not just the hyperbolic sense of the word) is the price of giving us free will. He cannot take that freedom away from us. The only thing He can do is to bring good out of it. Which does not take away the suffering brought about by the evil choice. That is a consequence.

I will always suffer from grief after losing my son to suicide, but the good that has come from it is that I have grown closer to God even in all my anger at Him. Also, my family has become so much closer and we rely on each other in ways that we never did before. I have also been blessed by so many people who don’t even know me but who have prayed for me and my family and Anthony. I have been loved through it which I needed because I don’t know if I have ever been loved through anything else in my life.

I do not know what good will come from the chaos in the Church right now, but God is not gone. We will find Him in the Truth of it all. And regardless of everything else, people on every side are unified in demanding the truth to be found.

Whatever it takes for the Church to realize the days of secrecy and lying are over. Whatever it takes for the hierarchy to remember that they serve God, they are not CEOs or experts in PR. Their job is to protect the sheep.

Whatever it takes.

Even if smug and arrogant people who don’t give one bit of care about the Gospel feel like they got a win because their hobby horse rode the fastest. It isn’t about winning at all. It is about getting down to basics so we can evangelize the world who is in desperate need of knowing they are loved.

Sometimes salvation comes begins with Judas.

Romans 8:28

We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.