"Gospel of Judas" reviewed by Dr Stephen Haar

The media claims that the Gospel of Judas has the Church worried. But, the truth is we only wonder what all the fuss is about. We say, “Read the Gospel of Judas alongside the New Testament gospels to discover why.”

The Gospel of Judas consists mostly of a long conversation between Jesus and Judas, during which Jesus gives special and secret knowledge to Judas alone. Jesus talks about Gnostic deities and angels, and then asks Judas to betray him in an act of obedience so that his mortal body will be killed and he can be reunited with the spiritual world. Judas agrees to go to the high priests and betray Jesus. That’s the end of the gospel text.

This ancient manuscript lay for many centuries beneath the desert sands of Egypt before being found nearly 60 years ago. It was not lost, just buried. It was not suppressed by ecclesiastical figures, as in the Da Vinci Code novel, but withheld from public view by unidentified figures in the black-market antiquities trade. Their motive was not protecting the faith, or the advancement of historical knowledge, but greed.

The 26-page Gospel of Judas is part of a 62 page ancient papyrus book, containing several writings in Coptic and Greek language, dating from the 3^rd or 4^th century. It is an authentic ancient text, but not ancient enough to tell us anything new about Judas or Jesus. In fact, the text contains a number of religious ideas that would have been alien in the first-century, but became popular later in the second-century. An analogy would be to find a letter claiming to have been written by Ned Kelly in which he talks about the movie Star Wars and his collection of computer games. Historians will use such out-of-place clues to decide the truth of claims that the gospel represents the spoken or unspoken words of Judas.

The National Geographic release of the recently found ‘lost’ Gospel of Judas, on April 9, was accompanied with all the glam and glitz of a made-for-TV spectacular. The Society has plans for magazine articles, television specials, and a book to follow. With the credibility of National Geographic they will probably enjoy instant success. But like Hans Christian Anderson’s The Emperor’s New Clothes, the fabric of most claims about the Gospel of Judas is genuine fake.

A common saying is that we believe what we want to see. It is less often recognised, although equally true, that we tend to see what we believe.

The reason why some scholars and so many members of the press promote the Gospel of Judas as a giant leap in our understanding is that it fits with their theory of early Christian history as a battle between competing ideas about Jesus. On the one side stood those who called themselves ‘orthodox’ Christians holding the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. On the other side stood others, including the Gnostics, who had their own gospels. In the end the orthodox happened to win the battle.

The truth is that this theory is both simplistic and misleading. As we know from modern denials about the truth of the holocaust or the landing of man on the moon, the existence of conflicting ideas and debate does not demand equal weight and historical credibility be given to all.

On grounds of historical reliability the canonical gospels have no equal. They describe historical events that can be fixed to the first century. Their written form today has remained substantially the same since around 100 AD. Every shred of evidence we have from the first-century supports the claim that the physical life, death, and resurrection of Jesus was at the heart of earliest Christian belief.

On the other hand, the Gnostic gospels began appearing from 120 years after the life of Jesus, and were a reaction to mainstream Christian belief. They are remarkable for their lack of interest in history. Characters in their stories, like Judas, Peter, Mary, and Jesus are gurus of spiritual insight rather than people concerned with history and going about their everyday lives. In view of their literary character, it is impossible to suggest that they add or subtract anything we know about the historical Jesus or Judas.

The Gospel of Judas is by no means a new discovery. A second century Christian bishop, Irenaeus of Lyons, comments on this document in one of his writings. Irenaues claims it was written by the Cainites, a group belonging to the religious movement called Gnosticism. Gnosticism took on many forms, but most Gnostics taught a special knowledge (gnosis) was needed to release the divine spark in humankind to reach its full potential. The true nature of humankind was hidden and imprisoned in its physical body by an evil creator god. Like many other Gnostic groups, the Cainites taught that the Old Testament God was evil and hostile to the human race, so all physical realities of his creation needed to be rejected in favour of higher levels of consciousness.

As a result of this belief the Cainites turned all traditional beliefs and symbols upside down. For example, they despised the memory of Old Testament heroes and friends of God like Moses, considering them traitors, and revered Old Testament villains instead. They were especially fond of Cain, the murderer of Abel, and were given this name because of this affection.

One school of Cainite thought is that Jesus came to save the human race from suffering. In order to do so he had to suffer and die himself. The forces allied with the evil Creator God of the Old Testament, however, conspired to prevent Jesus from suffering; thereby stopping his work of salvation. By arranging the arrest of Jesus at the hands of the high priests, Judas becomes the hero in the sacred text of the Cainites called the Gospel of Judas.

So, this question is asked of the media: “What’s all the fuss about?” The claim that Judas received exclusive mystic revelations from Jesus is not unique in itself. The same claims are made about Thomas in the Gospel of Thomas. Also, there is no evidence that the Gospel of Judas enjoyed popularity as an alternative to the four canonical gospels, or that it was ever considered for inclusion in the New Testament. Still, along with others interested in the history of earliest Christianity and its environment, the Church welcomes the publication of this ancient manuscript and hopes it will not be the last writing from that period to reappear.

Instead of being troubled by the publishing of the Gospel of Judas, the church welcomes this opportunity for people read it alongside the New Testament gospels. Those who read will discover behind the hype and shine put on these Judas clothes there is nothing new that undermines what Christians have believed throughout the centuries.

For more information contact Dr Stephen Haar North Adelaide, SA stephen.haar@lca.org.au

B, Easter Sunday - 1 Corinthians 15:1-11 "Passive Power"

1 Corinthians 15:1-11 (with the original Greek passive “he was seen” put back in)

1 Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2 By this gospel you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. 3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he has been raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he was seen by Peter, and then by the Twelve. 6 After that, he was seen by more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he was seen by James, then by all the apostles, 8 and last of all he was seen by me also, as to one abnormally born.

9 For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. 11 Whether, then, it was I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.

Sermon

Anyone who drives between Chinchilla and Dalby can’t help but notice the huge monolithic structure growing on the Brigalow horizon. This structure is surely one of the greatest achievements of this area. Massive amounts of steel have been welded and bolted together; tons and tons of concrete have been poured. This structure is certainly a monument to the ingenuity of our times; it’s a construction of humanity’s passion, potential, productivity, and power. And when finished, it will supply us with power from the rich coal resources mined from the Kogan Creek area.

Humans empowered to create electrical power, so we might be powerful and prestigious. The construction of the coal-fired power station at Kogan together with the gas-fired stations, being built along the Condamine highway, have brought many benefits to the Darling Downs. Employment opportunities have exploded in recent times; there has been a boom in the local economy. But so too, has the cost of housing, and rent. It seems that with all this power, the powerless, those not riding the crest of the financial wave, are being overpowered. The success of some seems to be the downfall of others. The power, passion, pride, and prestige that the power station might represent and bring to some, is resented by those who have had pressure increased on their purses.

Our society needs electrical power that is for sure. This is not a witch hunt on modern infrastructure or power stations; these are built because of demand. Rather they reveal things about who we are, as a self-centred society. More and more power is needed to power the consumables we buy, so we might appear to be more powerful as we power these appliances. However, the ugly by-products of humanity’s projects to provide us with power are, people’s dominance over the powerless, and our one-up-man-ship — having to have the best of everything. An imbalance appears very quickly in society. Life becomes more about me—“look at what I’ve got”—rather than about the wellbeing of our community’s weak — locally, nationally, and globally. The top dog proudly stands on a pyramid of beaten broken people.

Today we celebrate God’s power! His power is found in the passion of Jesus Christ. And this power is counter-cultural. It doesn’t work in the same way as does the power of humanity, whether it is collectively as a community, or individually through the achievements of one. The power of God is not revealed in success, potential, productivity, or in the collective power of the populace. No! The power of the passion; falls on the shoulders of one man, who became powerless and passive to all that went on around him. God’s power is found in the passivity of the passion; God’s power is found in the obedience of Jesus’ death, where in the tomb Christ had no power to bring himself back from death.

Before his crucifixion Jesus told his disciples, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:42-45) Jesus told his disciples that power is not enforcing one’s rights over someone else, or keeping up with all the latest fads, but rather true power is trusting God’s power, in our weakness, in our service — in sacrificing our rights for the sake of others.

Death is the weakest state in which any person will ever be! None of us can do anything when we are dead. Yet this is exactly from where the power of God is revealed — from death in the grave. In Christ’s totally humiliated state he was dead; the Son of God, an eternal divine being, dead in a grave! Jesus listened to his Father, and so he was obedient unto death.

Imagine humanity saying, “Don’t build us more power stations! In fact we don’t need any more consumables, what we have is good enough. We will make do with what we’ve got. Save your electricity, save your coal, keep it for when we really need it.” At least a part of us would die if we gave up our most loved consumables. Humility has never been a strong point of humanity. Unlike Christ, we, with the disciples and all people, are more concerned with prestige and power.

However, Jesus is honoured now because of his submission. Saint Paul tells us of Christ’s passivity in his first letter to the Corinthians. Unfortunately most English bibles lose the passive emphasis which Saint Paul intends for his hearers. But listen as the passive emphasis is reintroduced, “For what I (St Paul) received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he has been raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he was seen by Peter, and then by the Twelve. After that, he was seen by more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he was seen by James, then by all the apostles, and last of all he was seen by me also, as to one abnormally born.” (1 Cor 15:3-7)

Jesus died! We know he was passive in his death. He said nothing against the accusations against him, nor did he nail himself to the cross. He was buried. He didn’t bury himself! Now praise the Lord, he has been raised from the grave. He was raised from the dead, something he had no power to do in death! He was seen. He didn’t rise from the tomb at Easter and reveal himself in a show of almighty power! Rather he was seen by God and by those whom God allowed to see him. Jesus’ power is revealed in weakness, both before and after his resurrection.

The passivity of the gospel is the source of great hope for us, for when we are dead we will not be able to raise ourselves either. The passivity of the gospel is also a great template for our lives as we move towards death. Our power is not in our productivity, prestige, or popularity. In fact while we focus on these things, Jesus is not to be seen. However, the power is in the passivity of the passion of Christ and his subsequent resurrection by God the Father, seen only by faith, which is also a gift of God. We are called to lay down our self assumed authority and power, surrendering ourselves to Jesus Christ, as he did for his Father. And the good news is this: That when we were powerless to lay down our sinful natures, God came to us in baptism. We don’t even need to have power or ability to be powerless before God. In his power God came while we were totally lost in our sinful natures.

So as we continue in this life, baptised into Christ’s passive death, we know there is no need for us to prove ourselves through popularity and power in this life. That in itself is liberating. We don’t need to keep up with the Jones; we don’t need all the latest gizmos and gadgets. Like Christ we can be passive; trusting only in God the Father’s love and justification, through God the Son’s grace and means, by the power of God the Holy Spirit’s gift of faith and fellowship.

We know that Jesus is risen! We know that he is glorified! And God calls us to trust him, even while we struggle, to be truly humble and to rid ourselves of our desire to be popular or powerful. God calls us to rest in the hope of our resurrection to eternal life. Just as Jesus trusted in God and was raised; we are called to trust in the grace of Christ so we too might be raised to life with him together with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

Like Saint Paul, consider yourselves as the least in this life; instead point to the power of God in the resurrection. Bring glory to him. Know that by the grace of God you are what you are, and his grace to you is not without effect, even though we still struggle with sin in this life. When you work harder than all people—know it is not you, but the grace of God that is with you. Just as Jesus trusted and was raised from the dead; trust that you too one day will be raised from the dead to be glorified with him, but only because of his death and resurrection.

Today we celebrate God’s power in Christ over, our weakness, sin, and death. We are called to repent for our desire to be top dogs and hear that we are forgiven for Jesus’ sake. We live totally dependant on the Holy Spirit’s power, to bring us into the power of Christ’s death and resurrection, so that in hope, one day we will be powerfully glorified and live forever with our Father in heaven. Amen.

A few thoughts and observations on Good Friday in Australia.

This morning as I drove the 46 kilometres to Miles I was stunned by the amount of business open on Good Friday. As I drove from Chinchilla there were many industrial businesses open. I noticed men painting a sign at the golf course and another group sign writing a business in town. On my way home I noticed a person checking the railway tracks in a vehicle with those little train wheels on the front and back so they can travel on the lines. And there was the continuous stream of cars heading towards Roma for the “Easter weekend celebrations” which the town hosts.

Then it occurred to me that in recent years there are people absent from church. That may not sound very surprising; so let me explain. When I was a child there would always be plenty of fringe members who came to church on Good Friday, Easter Sunday, or on Christmas Day. But these days they don’t even come to these services. Less and less fringe members are coming, even at these special times in the church year. Christ is falling off the agenda for most people.

On the ABC this morning, I was told that the announcer was asking questions in relation to Good Friday, such as, “Are we good enough? What’s it mean to be good?” Sadly he interviewed church leaders who didn’t outlay the reality of Good Friday; i.e. none of us are good enough, we are sinners, left to our own devices we are bound to death. Jesus was the only one good enough but died for us, he was without sin but became sin for us. His death atoned for our sin, hence this dark day when God was crucified is paradoxically a good day, because we are spared the wrath of God and eternal death.

Good Friday is a day of clear and precise law gospel distinctions; i.e. our sin kills, our feeble attempts to save ourselves are but filthy rags to God. However, Jesus’ perfect obedience is given as a free but costly gift to us. It is costly because it meant the Son of God had to go to the cross so that we might be blessed unconditionally. But instead of proclaiming this central tenet of the Christian faith one minister carried on about taking Jesus off the cross, turning crucifixes into crosses; surely this is in total opposition to the reality of Good Friday – the centrality of Christendom.

Once when I was a kid I could turn the television on during Good Friday and watch a movie on the Passion, but all we see today is a bunch of advertisers passionately advertising their mammon.

It appears that a way to evaluate just where the conscience of our country is at, we can look at where and what society’s emphases might be on Good Friday. And from what I am observing, we are quickly descending, if not already descended, into rampant paganism.

Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy.

Pastor Heath Pukallus

Good Friday 2006

B, Maundy Thursday - Exodus 12:1-14 "Passing into; Passing over"

Text: Exodus 12:1-14

1 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, 2 “This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year. 3 Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household. 4 If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbour, having taken into account the number of people there are. You are to determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will eat. 5 The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats. 6 Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the people of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight. 7 Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs. 8 That same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire, along with bitter herbs, and bread made without yeast. 9 Do not eat the meat raw or cooked in water, but roast it over the fire—head, legs and inner parts. 10 Do not leave any of it till morning; if some is left till morning, you must burn it. 11 This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the Lord’s Passover.

12 “On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn—both men and animals—and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. 13 The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.

14 “This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord—a lasting ordinance.

Sermon

There seems to be an anomaly in the bible. Tonight we are going to address it, because it has everything to do with the Passover celebration around the time of Jesus’ crucifixion. In the synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke Jesus sits to celebrate the Passover meal with his disciples and institutes the Lord’s Supper at the Last Supper. However, in John’s Gospel the Passover meal is not celebrated on Maundy Thursday evening as it is in the synoptic Gospels.

We hear in John 18:28-29a, “…the Jews led Jesus from Caiaphas to the palace of the Roman governor. By now it was early morning (Good Friday), and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness the Jews did not enter the palace; they wanted to be able to eat the Passover. So Pilate came out to them.” The Jews who held Jesus before Pilate on the day which became known as Good Friday, the day of Jesus’ crucifixion, wanted to stay ceremonially clean for the Passover meal that night. The Passover in John falls on the Sabbath which would begin at six pm on Friday and end at six pm on Saturday night.

This is also why the Sabbath in John is called a special Sabbath, because it was the Passover as well as the Sabbath. We read again in John, “Now it was the day of Preparation, and the next day was to be a special Sabbath. Because the Jews did not want the bodies left on the crosses during the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken down. The soldiers therefore came and broke the legs of the first man who had been crucified with Jesus, and then those of the other. But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water.” (John 19:31-34)

When Jesus was hung on the cross on Friday afternoon it was the day of preparation for the Passover Sabbath. Between the ninth hour (three pm) and sundown (six pm, the beginning of the new day), Jesus was nailed to the cross and died, with, and, at the same time as, all the lambs which were being slaughtered for the Passover meal.

However, in the synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), the day of preparation for the Passover is on Thursday, not Good Friday as in John’s Gospel. The lambs were being killed as Jesus sends the disciples to prepare a room where they might eat the Passover, and as we know, institute the Lord’s Supper. We read in Mark’s Gospel, “The disciples left, went into the city and found things just as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the Passover. When evening came, Jesus arrived with the Twelve.” (Mark 14:16-17)

So we have two different accounts that place the Passover on different days. In John the Passover is celebrated on the Sabbath, after 6pm on Friday night, when Jesus is in the tomb. But in the Synoptic Gospels it is celebrated on Thursday evening, and Jesus eats the meal with his disciples instituting the Lord’s Supper, his body and blood physically present in the bread and wine, given and shed for us for the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.

This difference is no cause for us to go into a panic that the bible is in error. Although the bible has historical elements to it, this is not its ultimate function. The bible is a theological document: God inspired Word about God from God for our salvation. In the bible we receive the truths of God; in the bible the truth of God’s plan for humanity’s salvation is revealed to us.

However, this is for certain, there is no inconsistency: Jesus died on the cross on Good Friday and was laid in the tomb, dead, before the Sabbath began at six pm. The Passover, on the other hand, is used as a tool to demonstrate to us two essential truths about the Son of God; the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. So what are they?

In the Old Testament (Exodus 12) we have heard that the Israelites were commanded to follow a ritual, in order that the angel of death would pass over them and their first born sons would not die. So they prepared in haste, slaughtering their lambs, painting the blood on the doorposts of their homes, and then ate the whole lamb before morning. When the Lord did descend he passed over the homes whose occupants had complied with God’s command, and into the homes of those who didn’t, striking down the first born with a plague.

And so we read in Exodus, “At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner, who was in the dungeon, and the firstborn of all the livestock as well. Pharaoh and all his officials and all the Egyptians got up during the night, and there was loud wailing in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead.” (Exodus 12:29-30)

Jesus sits with the disciples and institutes the Last Supper at the Passover celebration and remembrance. He gives us a meal that gives us forgiveness of sins, life and salvation. The angel of death, God’s eternal wrath, passes over us. Every time we eat the bread and drink from the cup, the Lord’s death is proclaimed and we are reassured of his bodily presence with us. In fact, not only has God’s wrath passed over us, but the Son of God has passed into us. He is with us and in us. He has cleansed us: this is my body, this is my blood. This is the emphasis of the synoptic Gospels: Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

But how he cleansed us becomes evident in the Gospel of John. The wrath of God passes over us, but not over Jesus. Just as the lambs’ blood on the doorposts and the ritual eating saved the Israelites and gave them freedom and exodus from Egypt, Jesus’ spilt blood gives us freedom from the tyranny of our sinful selves, the evil in this world, and the devil. Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world; that is the sin of everybody — Jew and Gentile, man and woman, child and adult. Jesus is the Passover Lamb, he was not passed over but died, so we are passed over and have life because of his death. We have become God’s first born Sons, through the death of his one and only Son, Jesus Christ.

As we come to Holy Communion tonight and every time, the reality of the Passover in John’s Gospel and the synoptic Gospels is a reassurance to us. Jesus is with us, he is the one who breaks the bread and lifts the cup of wine to our lips. God is with us; he instituted the meal and he distributes the meal. He is our Immanuel; God with us.

But he is the meal too. He is the innocent lamb slaughtered for us to eat; his innocent blood has stained the cross. The bread and wine is his body and blood; the doorposts of our hearts have been doused in the blood of Christ. We have no fear of death; God’s wrath has passed over us onto Christ. He bore all of God’s anger against our sin, on the cross.

Jesus is our Passover Lamb and he is the host of the holy meal inviting us to come and receive forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. Amen.