A Devotion from J.B. Lightfoot

Jesus replied, “Have I not chosen you, the Twelve? Yet one of you is a devil!” (He meant Judas … who, though one of the Twelve, was later to betray him.)

—John 6:70–71

We are confronted with the archtraitor himself, whose name is [for] all generations branded with infamy. For he betrayed the friend who was the very personification of love; he betrayed the cause in which the eternal interests of humanity are bound up; he betrayed the country, the kingdom of heaven, where we all aspire to dwell.

When [Judas] was chosen, he was worthy of the choice; there was in him perhaps the making of a Saint Peter or a Saint John. Can we suppose that he alone made no sacrifices, suffered no privations, met with no reproaches during those three years in which he followed the Master? All this while, Judas was on his trial, as we are on our trial. He was not compelled by an irresistible fate to act worthily of his calling; he was free to make his election between good and evil; he rejected the good, and he chose the evil.

Christ’s little company was not intended to be perfect. Otherwise it would have conveyed no lessons to us. It had its coward in Peter, its skeptic in Thomas, and it had also its traitor in Judas.

Had he not heard [Jesus] as he denounced the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth? Amidst all distractions, through every discouragement, Judas had remained, had persevered, had listened—and yet he was a traitor.

And hadn’t he also witnessed those works that were the very credentials of [Jesus’] messianic claims? Hadn’t he been present when those five thousand were fed on the few loaves in Galilee? Hadn’t he seen the lame walk and the dumb speak and the lepers cleansed? and yet he was a traitor.

Judas had allowed one vile passion to grow unchecked in his heart. His office as treasurer of the little company had given him opportunities of indulging this passion. He had yielded and so fell.

When people placed in positions favorable to the development of the higher self do nevertheless give rein to some vicious tendency within, the vice seems to gain strength by this very fact. It can only be indulged by resistance to the good influences about them, and resistance always gives compactness and force, always braces the capacity, whether for good or for evil.