Judas: A Disillusioned Disciple Series

Series: A Day in the Life Of…

Judas: A Disillusioned Disciple

I’m beginning a new series leading up to Easter. My intentions are to go back 2,000 years, using Scripture as our guide and history and logic. As helpful assistants I want to determine what life was like for some of the key players in the Easter account. Today I want us to look at a day in the life of Judas, the disciple who betrayed Jesus and sold Him out to the religious leaders.

All of us are disillusioned at times, aren’t we? Think of the cycle that can occur when you start a new job. It begins with a naïve enthusiasm, and it can quickly move to disgruntled disillusionment, and from there it may lead to nagging self-doubt. You may say to yourself, “Maybe it’s not the environment or the job—I guess it must be me!!”

People can become disillusioned in a marriage as well. Maybe you met the perfect woman, the perfect soul mate. You charmed her, you wooed her, and you won her heart. Now you're married to her, and the honeymoon’s over.

Or maybe you feel like the wife who said, "I knew I married Mr. Right, I just didn't know his first name was ALWAYS!"

Did you hear about the extremely, wealthy older fellow? He was about to tee off on the 1st hole at his country club, when a beautiful young woman walked over from the swimming pool, came up and gave him a kiss and said, “See you tonight.” then she walked off.

The rest of the foursome said, “Who was that?”

The guy said, “That’s my wife.”

They said, “How did you get her?”

The guy said, “I lied about my age.”

They said, “Did you say you were 57?”

He said, “No--I said I was 97!”

Disillusionment can take on many forms!

There are also people who are disillusioned with the church. They have a “Pollyanna” mindset that there will be no problems and that all is perfect in a spiritual place like the church. So when they see a member who has an overbearing spirit or a foul mouth it taints their view of the entire church.

Years ago when televangelist Jim Bakker was involved with a financial and moral scandal with his national ministry, it really shook up the supporters of the ministry. One older couple who had given quite freely to PTL was honest in their assessment, they said, “Perhaps if we had not put him on so high of a pedestal, he wouldn’t have had so far to have fallen.”

You may have thought that the preacher of the church would have the knowledge of Billy Graham, the servant hood of Mother Teresa and the boldness of the apostle Paul –but instead all you got, was…ME!

Disillusionment surfaces; which explains why some people move from job to job, or marriage to marriage or bounce in and out of church. But today I want to focus on a disciple who was disillusioned—in fact Judas’ disenchantment centered around the most important relationship of all—his relationship with Jesus Christ.

We’re going to look at five snapshots of his life and in so doing we’ll see a dangerous, downward spiral of disillusionment. Let’s look at each stage in hopes of avoiding that downward spiral.

The first stage is…

1) Disappointment

Remember the scene at the Last Supper? Jesus is still reaching out to Judas.

He’s disappointed with the Lord. The scriptures don’t tell us specifically why Judas was disillusioned and disappointed—but they do tell us enough information to draw some conclusions.

Judas’ disappointment came from unmet expectations. Jesus didn’t fulfill the wants or plan of Judas or for the other disciples at times.

In Judas’s eyes Jesus had the wrong agenda. Let’s face it; the disciples didn’t always have a spiritual agenda. James and John made a special request to be seated on Christ’s right and left when He came in to His kingdom. Ross Brodfuehrer says, “Each of these men had a not-so-secret desire for power. They associated with Jesus in part so they could rule with Him in the end. When it looked more like the option was to bleed beside Jesus rather than reign beside Him, their conviction faltered.”

Judas was disillusioned that Jesus wasn’t doing what he had hoped, namely leading a revolution to set up a military or political kingdom. And it seems that since Jesus didn’t measure up to what Judas’ view of the messiah should be, Judas made it his agenda to silence Jesus Christ.

Judas probably also felt that Jesus was with the wrong people.

From the perspective of this disillusioned disciple, if Jesus truly was the Messiah, instead of just spending some of His time with the influential and the political leaders, the movers and shakers, He would spend all of His time with them. And rather than ticking off the religious leaders and hanging out with the handicapped, the hurting and the peasants, Jesus would change His friendship circle.