A Poem for Second Sunday of Easter

                 Encountering Judas - Gillian Hick

 As the week of Easter liturgies draws to a close,

As the women, faithful and unwavering to the end, linger in their liminal space,

As the Apostles, having hastily departed, slowly regroup,

As Jesus meets them on The road to Emmaus,

I can’t help but wonder,

What about Judas?

 

In the Gospels,

They conveniently wrote him out.

According to Mathew, he hung himself.

In the Acts, his blood spilled in Akeldama.

And Matthias was quickly shuffled in to conceal the empty chair at the table.

But still I wonder,

What about Judas?

 

In a magnificent painting depicting the Last Supper,

Jesus sits surrounded by his chosen people -

The eleven, mimicking him, with hands held piously to heart and heads encircled by a holy halo.

Only Judas stands back,

Behind Our Lords left shoulder,

No hand to heart, no holy halo.

Skulking,

Lurking.

Excluded and separate.

And I wonder,

What about Judas?

 

Judas too had been called and chosen,

Just like each one of us.

And did we not also cry ‘crucify him’ of Our Lord when his message of unconditional love and forgiveness challenged our own identity and self-righteousness?

Have we not, each one of us, washed our hands, as Pontious Pilate did, when we look away from the homeless man on the street, lost in a haze of the abandonment of addiction?

Have we not cried out for ‘the other’ to be stripped and whipped and led away when we can not recognise ourselves in them?

Or perhaps the self we see in ‘the other’ is so close to our own darkness that we need to quickly and definitively push it away where it can no longer threaten or challenge our own identity?

Our own sense of worthiness and belonging?

And so I wonder,

What about Judas?

In crucifying Judas, do we not also crucify the one who loved him into being?

 

In his dying moments, Jesus gave us the message of eternal life.

‘Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they are doing’.

This message belongs to each one of us.

We ‘know not what we are doing’ when we exclude the other,

When we exclude our own inner leper,

When we frantically push our own self-righteousness to the front of the picture and hide away our Judas shadow.

And yet he forgives us.

But what about Judas?

 

Without Judas taking his place at the table,

The picture can never be complete.

This is the resurrection.

When all are included.

Each one of us, made in the image and likeness of God.

Each one of us loved into being.

Each one of us forgiven.

Each one of us,

Although we may not know or understand,

An integral part of creation.

Even Judas.