The Prodigal Son, As Played by Judas

The Return of the Prodigal Son, Rembrandt

I think if you asked me, at any point in my life as a Christian, whether I thought there were limits to God’s love I would say no. Even tonight at church, we sang, “How wide, how long, how high, how deep, how endless is your love for me,” in a song of gratitude for God’s love of “dirty sinners like you and me.”

But last spring, in a collection of essays for Lent, I read a piece by Madeleine L’Engle, in which she included this story:

…There is an old legend that after his death Judas found himself at the bottom of a deep and slimy pit. For thousands of years he wept his repentance, and when the tears were finally spent he looked up and saw, way, way up, a tiny glimmer of light. After he had contemplated it for another thousand years or so, he began to try to climb up towards it. The walls of the pit were dank and slimy, and he kept slipping back down. Finally, after great effort, he neared the top, and then he slipped and fell all the way back down. It took him many years to recover, all the time weeping bitter tears of grief and repentance, and then he started to climb up again. After many more falls and efforts and failures he reached the top and dragged himself into an upper room with twelve people seated around a table. “We’ve been waiting for you, Judas,” Jesus said. “We couldn’t begin till you came.”

That floored me. I was deeply moved, and deeply confused. Judas, even Judas, might be forgiven and welcomed back to the table? Jesus said that heaven throws a party every time one sinner repents, but does that include when the ultimate traitor weeps repentant tears in the prison of his own darkness? When L’Engle heard the story about Judas at a clergy conference, many of the other priests and ministers were utterly offended by the idea of Judas being welcomed back into Jesus’s inner circle. But she says, “I was horrified at their offense. Would they find me, too, unforgivable?” I see her point. How many times have I betrayed Jesus and turned my back on him? All of his disciples ran away, and yet he came to them with great joy in his resurrected flesh, and breathed peace into their lungs before they had a chance to beg his forgiveness.