Destined to be lost – and found?

Destined to be lost – and found?
John 17:12, Acts 1:15-17,21-26, Matthew 27:3-10, Easter 7

If one or some are destined to be lost
in order that your word might be fulfilled,
are they not also yours, O Lord? What cost
to Judas when his desperate hope was tossed
upon the temple floor with silver spilled?

For when he saw his friend condemned to die,
he tried to change his choice and buy him back,
but “What is that to us?” was their reply.
The silver bought a field where strangers lie,
and Judas took his life at mercy’s lack.

Did Jesus find him then beyond the grave,
and offer absolution in his need,
restoring him to love he still must crave?
Can there be those eternal Love won’t save,
those destined to be lost, not found and freed?

There may be some with evil so imbued,
they set themselves upon a path apart
from God and love in some unending feud
that gives no space to turn to life renewed,
no chance to soften to a change of heart.

Yet God still wills that love should save us all,
and Christ can heal the ills that warp the mind.
Nailed on the cross, he raised us from the fall
the world has suffered under evil’s pall,
restoring hope to all of humankind.