The Betrayal of Jesus

We all know that in the story of Jesus, he is betrayed. But the deeper betrayal didn’t come from outside his movement—it came from what followed after. Not from Judas, but from the one who claimed to speak for him… and didn’t.

If Jesus existed as the gospels describe him, then there is no way around this simple, but perhaps uncomfortable fact: He was Jewish.

He lived as a Jew. He taught as a Jew. He prayed as a Jew. He stood inside the covenant of Israel and never stepped outside it.

There is no version of Jesus that floats free of Torah. He did not oppose it. He did not replace it. He did not “fulfill” it in a way that made it irrelevant.

He lived it.

He argued within it — the way Jews argue — pressing for depth, for integrity, for inward alignment. He called people back to the weight of the law: justice, mercy, restraint, humility before G-d. Not less obedience. More honesty.

So if someone says they love Jesus and, Lord knows there are many who do, but they have no interest in the actual life he would have lived — the disciplines he kept, the obligations he honored, the covenant he stood in — then, just what exactly are they loving?

An abstraction? A symbol? A spiritualized invention? Because it certainly isn’t a first-century Jewish teacher.

And this is where the fault line appears.

One man— Paul, wrote half the New Testament and, in it, he does not ask people to walk as Jesus walked. Instead, what Paul asks is for people to believe their way out of responsibility.

Where the Torah says, “Choose rightly”,

Paul says, “You cannot choose rightly—so just believe.”

Where the Torah insists, “The commandment is not too difficult for you,”

Paul insists, “You are inherently broken—and must be rescued from yourself.”

Where Torah calls for repentance, repair, restraint, and a life of embodied responsibility—

Jesus echoed that call.

But Paul reframed the entire story. He shifted the problem from moral failure to metaphysical defect. And the solution? Not disciplined growth, but belief in a cosmic loophole.

This isn’t a deepening of Jesus’ message. It’s a dismantling of it.

Paul doesn’t expand on what Jesus taught. He reverses it. He trades covenant for contract, responsibility for dependence, and disciplined action for passive belief.

The result?

A path that once called people toward ethical becoming is replaced by a doctrine that asks for philosophical castration—and calls it faith.

That’s not evolution. That’s betrayal.

Not by attacking Jesus outright, but by redefining him so thoroughly that everything Jesus stood for became irrelevant.

And that may be the most revealing detail of all: Paul’s version of Jesus does not require anyone to become more disciplined, more restrained, more accountable, more grounded in daily ethical practice. It requires belief — and very little else.

But love doesn’t work that way. Covenant doesn’t work that way. Torah doesn’t work that way. And neither did Jesus.

A Closing Prayer:

G-d of Jesus, G-d of Abraham, G-d of Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob, Leah, and Rachel—

Bring us back— not to comfort, not to abstraction. Back from distraction, to the ground beneath our feet, back to the weight of our choices, back to the path that requires something of us.

Strip away the versions of faith that cost nothing, the narratives that ask only for agreement but not alignment, the beliefs that promise relief without responsibility.

Teach us to love honestly. Not with words alone, but with action, with discipline, with lives that bear the mark of what we claim to honor.

If we say we love a teacher, let us be willing to walk his road. If we speak of light, let us be willing to order our days around it. If we invoke Your Name, let us do so with steady hands and a clear heart.

Give us the courage to examine what we’ve inherited, the humility to let false frameworks fall away, and the strength to forge ahead without a panacea.

Bind us again to what is real. To accountability over excuse. To repair over escape. To a faith that lives in the body, in the home, in the marketplace, and in the quiet moments where no one is watching.

May we step forward not just inspired, but oriented. Not absolved, but aware. Not certain, but willing.

And may our walking— slow, imperfect, deliberate— become our living prayer and our path back to You.

Amen.