Week 37 Mark 14
Right near the end of Mark’s gospel Jesus said it would have been better for that man if he had not been born. As it turned out that man was Judas.
I got to wondering about how many people there are – that’ve ever been – that you could say that about.
Of course you’d not likely see it spelled out on a gravestone. You’d never see:
Joe Smith
1940 – 2005
Better If He’d Never Been Born
There are accepted rules about commemoratives and one of the common ones is: An Epitaph Should Be Nice. But here in Mark Jesus was concerned with accuracy (not necessarily nicety).
Anyway Judas was born and grew up and he got his chance at life & living.
I tend to think that Judas had a leg-up on most other people. He was in the Lord’s inner circle – one of the twelve really fortunate guys who got to spend more time with the Lord than anyone else. But even though from all external appearances he was solidly part of the in-group he somehow managed to stay on the outside-looking-in. He was resistant to the unusual & spectacular things he saw.
Walking on water?
A boy’s lunch feeding 5000 people?
A dead girl coming back to life?
None of it seemed to matter to Judas. Water-off-a-duck’s-back. He was immune to Jesus.
So in the end his life made no difference one-way-or-the-other. He might as well have not been born.
Note: quote from Mark 14:24 (ESV)