L
Liberian
Guest
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Several decades ago, Dorothy L. Sayers wrote a series of radio plays on the life of Jesus titled “Man Born to be King.” In this series, she also had some brief commentaries on the Gospels, not as a scholar would comment, but as a playwright would comment. Her task was not to bring out what was true and what was false, but rather to create a coherent story that would hang together with human characters that one could believe really existed. In my mind, the plays and the accompanying commentaries are excellent.
Dorothy Sayers’ treatment of Judas deserves more notice, I think, than it has received. In her plays, Judas is a young, idealistic man who is looking for the coming of God’s Kingdom here on earth. He is looking for Jesus to establish a political kingdom and drive out the Romans. Through the course of the plays, Judas becomes more and more disillusioned with Jesus as Jesus is, and finally decides to force Jesus’ hand by putting Him into a situation where He will have to act decisively to overthrow the Romans or else face humiliation and death. Jesus, of course, does not act as Judas thinks He should, and chooses instead to go the way of suffering and death in order to redeem all humanity from our sins.
Dorothy Sayers’ Judas is a very believable, very human, and unfortunately all too common person. Not to point any fingers at anybody, I will say that I could easily have done the same thing that Judas did–betray my Lord in an effort to get Him to do what I wanted Him to do. With that knowledge, and with the deep knowledge of Our Lord’s infinite mercy and forgiveness, I cry out with the publican, “God have mercy on me, a sinner,” and I give thanks that I have not been given the opportunity to mess up as badly as Judas did.
Several decades ago, Dorothy L. Sayers wrote a series of radio plays on the life of Jesus titled “Man Born to be King.” In this series, she also had some brief commentaries on the Gospels, not as a scholar would comment, but as a playwright would comment. Her task was not to bring out what was true and what was false, but rather to create a coherent story that would hang together with human characters that one could believe really existed. In my mind, the plays and the accompanying commentaries are excellent.
Dorothy Sayers’ treatment of Judas deserves more notice, I think, than it has received. In her plays, Judas is a young, idealistic man who is looking for the coming of God’s Kingdom here on earth. He is looking for Jesus to establish a political kingdom and drive out the Romans. Through the course of the plays, Judas becomes more and more disillusioned with Jesus as Jesus is, and finally decides to force Jesus’ hand by putting Him into a situation where He will have to act decisively to overthrow the Romans or else face humiliation and death. Jesus, of course, does not act as Judas thinks He should, and chooses instead to go the way of suffering and death in order to redeem all humanity from our sins.
Dorothy Sayers’ Judas is a very believable, very human, and unfortunately all too common person. Not to point any fingers at anybody, I will say that I could easily have done the same thing that Judas did–betray my Lord in an effort to get Him to do what I wanted Him to do. With that knowledge, and with the deep knowledge of Our Lord’s infinite mercy and forgiveness, I cry out with the publican, “God have mercy on me, a sinner,” and I give thanks that I have not been given the opportunity to mess up as badly as Judas did.
- Liberian
