Hope: Laying it on the Line

Last Wednesday's reading can be found here.

Matthew gives a vision of Jesus, I think, as someone who frequently lays things right on the line and forces people to make a choice. This gospel passage really lays it on the line today; it reminds me of one of the old Looney Tunes cartoons where the villain sharpens an ax and then plucks a hair from his head and splits it on the sharpened edge.

Avery Cardinal Dulles wrote an article entitled "The Population of Hell" in part based on this saying of Jesus about Judas that it would have been better for him to have never been born. He uses it to say that maybe we can, in fact, say that there are some people in hell. Otherwise, how could what Jesus says possibly be true? This is truly a harrowing thought.

There is a flip-side to this frightening notion, though. What we see here is Jesus continuing to choose Judas even though he knows that Judas will betray him. Right to the very end, Jesus doesn't give up on Judas. This is a source of great hope for us. In Jesus Christ, we have a master and teacher who chooses such disciples as Judas and Peter. We have a master and teacher who is always making a choice on our behalf no matter what. There is no way we can fall so far that we get beyond his reach, there is nowhere we can fall that we can't be caught… so long as we let ourselves be caught.

Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory Forever!

~J