Betrayal

It is remarkable that so many progressive legal scholars who want Donald Trump under the jail have, overnight, reacted somewhat despondently to Alvin Bragg’s case. You don’t have to believe me. Just believe the Vox kids and the pundits on MSNBC. They got up on Tuesday morning and dressed for a celebration and by evening acted like they’d come from a funeral. I am going to write on this later this morning. I think I have to given the historicity of it.

But let me again focus on something else first — a different betrayal.

Two thousand years ago, Judas plotted his betrayal of Christ on this Holy Wednesday. I want to look at the other Judas though.

Judas had worked as part of Jesus’s ministry. He had seen the miracles. He knew God. But Judas still rejected him. There was another man named Judas. This man was either the half-brother or first cousin of Christ.

To distinguish this Judas from that Judas, we call this one Jude.

Jude rejected Christ in life. Jesus’s best friend, John, documented that Jude and Jesus’s other brothers kindly suggested Jesus get out of Nazareth, take himself to the big city, and see if he could attract a following. The implication was basically, “Try not to get killed, nut.” Jude, James, the other brothers, and even Mary at one point tried to stage an intervention to save Jesus from himself. They told the crowd Jesus was out of his mind.

At Jesus’s execution, Jude would not come. Jesus had to pass Mary off to the Apostle John because none of the brothers came.

But history tells us Jude became a leader in the church. He authored a book of the New Testament. In that book, Jude, the brother of Jesus, writes something amazing. He proclaims, “Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.” The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Jud 5). (2016). Crossway Bibles.

Jude, Jesus’s brother who rejected him in life, claims Jesus saved the people from Egypt. In other words, Jude is calling Jesus “Yahweh.” He identifies his brother as “I Am.”

Historians in the era document the Romans exterminated Jude and his family, killing them all, along with every other presumed blood relative of Jesus still living.

Jude went through much of his life rejecting his brother’s divinity, but after the resurrection proclaimed Jesus his Lord and the great I Am. Judas, who embraced Christ in life and saw his miracles, betrayed Jesus in the end.

Two men of the same name went in opposite directions when encountering God made flesh. So too do many in the world. What we know, however, is that Jesus lives and God is sovereign.

We have arrived in turbulent times. Jesus tells us not to worry, but cast our worries on Him. He tells us not to dwell on tomorrow but focus on today. Here, right now, in this moment that you are reading these words, you are more closely connected to Jesus than in the past or future. Each present second is a present presence of the divine.

It’s hard not to worry or fret. Bad things can happen tomorrow. But God’s got this and you and the whole plan of salvation. So instead of fretting, be like Jude, who proclaimed:

Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy,

25 to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Jud 24–25). (2016). Crossway Bibles.