JUDAS’ KISS

HOMILY FOR PALM SUNDAY OF THE PASSION OF OUR LORD, YEAR A

Rev. Fr. Ezekoka Peter Onyekachi

The story of Judas’ betrayal in the passion of our Lord reminds us of the reality of betrayal. However, this concept of betrayal reminds me of an Igbo Language adage which says that “oke no n’ulo na-agwa oke no n’ama na azu no na ngiga.” Don’t worry! I will attempt a translation: “it is the rat living in the home that informs the rat living in the bush about the newly bought fish kept safe in the kitchen’s basket.” I know that the experience of rodents is a rare one in our temperate environment, but in the tropical regions where they are, people would attest to how those lovely creatures would co-inhabit with them even without invitation or approval by the home owners. 

Dear friends, to contextualize this idiom, it would mean that in every hurt and betrayal, there’s a deep sense of, or should I say, some sense of familiarity and closeness. Just as the rat living in the home brings in another rat that lives outside to cause havoc in the kitchen, so too betrayal is felt when people close to us disappoint us by causing us some harm. In the case of our Lord, it was his treasurer, Judas Iscariot. Let us then begin our reflection by talking about a phenomenon which we know so well - Kiss. A kiss is a ritual or social gesture to show friendship, to console someone, to honour, to congratulate and to greet. Isn’t it? It can also be used as a gesture of apology. In a general sense therefore, a kiss is used to show affection, friendship and love. However, can anyone say that Judas’ kiss falls within these descriptions? Consider his very words to the Pharisees: the one I kiss is the man; arrest him (the Gospel: Matthew 26:14 - 27:66).

By using a kiss as a signal for arrest, Judas perverts a gesture of love, honour and friendship. At this point, we call to mind the words of the Psalmist: even my friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread has lifted up his heels against me (cf. Ps. 41:9). Let’s understand this kiss of Judas more appropriately. The normal Greek word for kiss is philein; this was the type referred to when Judas told the Pharisees his planned kiss to indicate to them the Christ. But in the actual execution of the planned kiss, Judas went deeper than normal. The word used for the actual kiss was kataphilein, which is the word for a lover’s kiss, and means to kiss repeatedly and more fervently. Why did Judas do that? Was it to make sure that those who went to arrest Jesus didn’t make any mistake this time? Or was it to give Jesus the impression of extreme loyalty? These might be reasons behind it , but some scholars are also of the opinion that Judas expected Jesus to hide away as He did in Luke 4:30 when He slipped through the crowd and walked away. But when this wasn’t happening the way he planned it or expected, he was thrown into great confusion. And then, in great disaffection and regret, Judas kissed repeatedly.

Judas was blinded in many ways. Even before the kiss, he was blinded by his desire to trick the Pharisees and collect money from them, which made him not to see his planned action in the betrayal prediction of Jesus and the conversation he had with Him: not I, Rabbi, surely? Living in this blindness, Judas didn’t realize that the appointed time of his master, our Lord was coming near. Blinded by his greed and love of money, and trusting in his craftiness, he thought he would fool the Pharisees. Who knows whether he did fool them before? Judas was indeed blinded in many ways. He wasn’t able to understand that his kiss was leading to the suffering and death of his master. This lack of understanding was the beginning of his perdition. The son of man was going to die, but woe to that man by whom He is betrayed (cf. Luke 22:22). Woe to him because such a man let himself be destroyed by ignorance. My people perished for lack of understanding, says the prophet Hosea (Hosea 4:6). When we betray our friends, somehow, we might try to convince ourselves that they wouldn’t know or discover later on what we have done. This craftiness is in itself ignorance. This goes a long way to inform us that the regret over betrayal comes only when the milk has been spilt; this was the case with Judas when filled with remorse he went back to give the chief priests and elders the thirty pieces of silver for which he betrayed his master.  

Think about how hurtful we feel when we are betrayed by a loved one, and then try to understand the hurt our Lord felt when one of his disciples, his bursar betrayed him. The closer to us the betrayer, the more painful is the feeling of betrayal. Isn’t it? Wasn’t it the last stab by Marcus Brutus that actually killed Caesar, and not just the conspiracy planned by the 60 senators? The Psalmist expressed this hurt when he says in chapter 55, verses 12-14: if it were an enemy who betrayed me, I could bear it...but you, a person of my own rank, a comrade and dear friend, to whom I was bound by intimate friendship in the house of God. 

Let’s come down to ourselves today. Is there anyone among us who has never felt what it means to feel betrayed or disappointed? I’m not sure! How do we, as Christians react to these pains and hurts; pains of slander, pains of a violation of a confidential information, pains of discovering a pretentious lifestyle in a friend, hurts arising from fake promises and disappointments? Do we rely on our own ways of battling with them or do we remember how our Lord responded when he faced His? Jesus responded in silence and without no spirit to retaliate, but only to save and redeem because He knew that all those experiences were leading up to our salvation. He even kept on doing good to those around him to the moment he yielded up his spirit.

Realising like our Lord that the betrayals we face are necessary ways to our glory, we come to appreciate the words of the prophet Isaiah in the First reading (Isaiah 50:4-7), powerful words of reassurance in a God that has equipped us well. In his words, Isaiah assures us that the Lord has given us a disciples’ tongue (i.e, a well-trained; trained in speech) tongue and a well-opened ear (to listen to his directive) to help us grow in knowledge and to offer no resistance. We are sure of the abiding presence of the Lord; He knows it all. This season of Lent has indeed been offering us great opportunities of being alone with ourselves and God in order to invite the Lord to heal those hurts in us so that we can come forth to embrace one another in peace and forgiveness. May we then step into this Holy Week with a great spiritual energy that overcomes every form of hurt. Amen God bless you.