Judas Iscariot, martyr of sinners

Judas, martyr of sinners

I

The night was dark and silent. The streets of Jerusalem were empty, and only the echo of a man's hurried footsteps could be heard. The man was Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve disciples of Jesus.

Judas was nervous. He had made a crucial decision, knowing his life would change forever; he had decided to betray Jesus.

Questioned by Jesus about his immense work, Judas replied:

“You do this out of madness. No one in their right mind dedicates day and night to healing the sick and raising the dead.”

Before his teacher could refute him, as he often did, Judas got up and left the tent. That would be one of the last discussions he would have with him.

Judas had been a faithful disciple for a long time. He had followed Jesus from the beginning, witnessing his miracles and hearing his teachings.

But lately, Judas had started to have doubts. He disagreed with the way Jesus challenged religious authorities, and he didn't believe Jesus was the Messiah the people were expecting. His lashings against the merchants, his defense of adulterers, and his closeness to John and Mary Magdalene disturbed him.

Judas also had a secret that haunted him. In a time when lust was condemned, Judas judiciously hid his excesses, causing inner frustration and anxiety. He considered himself the most normal of Jesus' disciples. He had accepted his calling because, like the other disciples, he was poor, and like any normal man, he wanted to contribute to a better world. But he believed that if Yahweh was with Jesus, the heavenly armies would descend to destroy anyone who dared to disrespect or speak ill of the Messiah.

But none of that had happened throughout three years of mundane preaching. That partial magic of Jesus, akin to that of the priests of Baal, as muttered by a Pharisee on a certain Sabbath, made him impatient. He had asked the Creator for a Messiah capable of parting the sea like Moses. Why did Jesus flee from his pursuers every time they attacked him instead of confronting them?

Judas received complaints from those who saw Jesus as an imposter and stored them within, balancing the faith his figure initially inspired in him. Sensing his disaffection, Judas took refuge in the rituals and traditions of his Jewish faith, meticulously observing the obligations of the Sabbath. He was upset by the way Jesus challenged members of the Sanhedrin, the council of high priests, elders, and scribes who decided on legal, political, and religious matters in the Jewish community. His zeal was such that he would flee from the Temple every time his fellow disciples murmured that Jesus would heal the sick on the Sabbath.

Judas often vented his frustration to Peter, Jesus' most irascible disciple, who would nod in agreement at all his diatribes, adding an ironic smile.

“I trust my master,” Peter's invariable reply was, nevertheless.

Judas didn't like Jesus' preference for drunks and wealthy people, whom Jesus frequently invited to parties and gatherings. He felt that Jesus' behavior contrasted with the teachings of the Jewish faith and the behavior of the more decent.

“He silenced the doctors of the law when he said he came to heal the sick,” Peter replied to his diatribes, “not the healthy.”

Judas knew that Jesus was a loving man to everyone, so it was hard for him to accept that he would smile at prostitutes and sinners, including those who, unlike him and many others who hid their private lives, enjoyed their lust openly in their community.

“Just seeing the teacher ,” said Mary Magdalene, “quiets the demons of lust.

Judas began to ponder that if Jesus disappeared, the people of Israel would rid themselves of a harmful magician.

One night, Judas approached Jesus and told him that only he would have the courage to stop his disrespect for authority, for the priests of the Temple in Jerusalem, for the Sanhedrin, for Caiaphas, for Rome, for the Caesar.

Jesus was disappointed but not surprised.

“I feel the fervor that intoxicates you, Judas; you're filled with anger.”

Judas didn't appreciate Jesus' sincerity about human nature and the weaknesses of the body.

Judas told himself that such behavior was inappropriate and unbecoming of a leader; to announce to everyone what he held in his heart, be it anger or sadness.

“Couldn't you conceal my feelings for once?”

He turned away and walked away, fearful of his teacher's wisdom, feeling that he had to do what was necessary to protect the teachings of his Jewish faith about prudence and the well-being of his community.

To him, betraying Jesus would be a difficult but necessary sacrifice, a decision he would assume with a heavy heart out of duty.

He felt a presence at his side, and when he turned, he saw Jesus' compassionate face.

“The way you challenge the Sanhedrin and break traditions!”

“They fall into their own intentions.”

“This isn't the way things are supposed to be done!”

“I serve a greater purpose. It's my father who asks this of me.”

“But how do you treat people? Look at what you did to those merchants in the Temple! Look at how you respond to your mother when she asks you to greet your brothers! You associate with drunkards and don't hesitate to accept the perfumes used to wash your feet. You don't give us the importance we deserve.”

“If I were an earthly king,” replied Jesus, “you would bow for me to wash my feet.”

“But you're not!”

“Because I came to teach myself as the weakest among you, the most fragile and helpless, The lamb that anyone could hurt if they wanted.”

“And for what?”

“So that when you see me in glory, and I demonstrate my forgiveness, you know that I loved you for your sins.”

Judas was moved, much to his dismay, by his teacher's infinite love; for a moment, he paled, considering that Jesus could indeed be the Messiah.

“And your relationship with Mary Magdalene and John?” he continued harassing Jesus with questions whispered to him by Satan. “It seems you have favorites among us.”

“I love everyone. Mary and John are dear to me, but so are you and the others, even if a demon tempts you and confuses your duty with what is right.”

“It's you who tolerates so much depravity!”

Judas ran off, furious, and went to the Temple in Jerusalem, where he found the religious leaders. He told them he didn't share Jesus's way of subverting the values of their society; he assured them that messiahs and prophets were a topic from a past already surpassed by Mosaic law and offered to hand Jesus over to them.

“The Messiah cannot be embodied in a leader of drunkards, prostitutes, and tax collectors,” he told Caiaphas. “This will prove to his delighted followers that God doesn't protect him, and you will deliver him to the Romans to be crucified like a common thief.

The religious leaders agreed, and they established to give him thirty pieces of silver in exchange. Judas was initially reluctant to accept them, but in the end, he insisted that it wasn't for the money, but to eliminate a sick man who believed to be God’s Prophet on earth. They agreed that the signal for Jesus to be arrested would be a kiss, because if there was anyone who accepted all types of affection from his enemies, it was his questioned teacher.

After Jesus himself challenged him during dinner to betray him in front of all his fellow students, Judas went out in search of the Sanhedrin guards. He returned to them, illuminating the darkness with torches, and kissed Jesus with sudden passion.

Jesus looked at him with sad eyes, without reciprocating his exaggerated affection.

–Do you betray me with a kiss?

The Messiah was arrested and put on trial.

Captured by sudden visions of demons that tormented him, Judas understood that he too would be a martyr for Jesus' sake; not by taking his testimony and being killed for his cause, as he envisioned all of his disciples would do, but by taking on the evil that Jesus' behaviors aroused among his contemporaries.

Both the growing envy that Jesus caused by his miracles among the Jews, whether they were laymen or priests, and the hatred that his love for the poor and unprotected aroused among the rich and thieves, led to a common feeling of betraying Jesus.

Among all the members of his community, only Judas dared to embody the role of his representative, driven by his sense of duty towards his people.

Initially amazed by his miracles and wonders, such as walking on water and multiplying loaves, the crowds now viewed Jesus with disdain and jealousy. The Jews in particular were questioned by their demons about the Messiah's reluctance to attack the Romans with lightning and disease, and they questioned among themselves who Jesus really was, a sorcerer or an envoy of Moloch.

The healing of the centurion's slave was the last straw that broke the camel's back of his credulity and caused them to doubt his identity as the Son of God. But none of those thousands dared to confront Jesus directly. Only Judas launched anathemas, more and more openly, against the Master who delivered him bread from house to house every day. Judas was said to have attacked Jesus not out of personal envy or hatred – although it was greater than he admitted, but out of the general resentment that Jesus aroused among the majority of Jews and pagans.

The Pharisees and the doctors of the law were the first to approach Judas, inviting him to dinner in their mansions, in order to prepare their attacks on the Temple. But that night, after handing Jesus over to them, all their doors were closed to him.

–We do not rub shoulders with traitors –was the excuse of one of them when questioned by Judas.

Satan himself abandoned him, like a beast that abandons the prey that he has already locked in its lair after breaking its spine. Judas was thus the first man to recognize Jesus without a doubt as the Messiah, because he understood the words of his teacher: “Woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would be better for that man to have never been born.".

He sought out the priests to return the coins, but they rejected him with contempt. Judas then threw them into the Temple's alms chests, shouting that he had sacrificed innocent blood. His pain, of having betrayed his own creator, disfigured him, and the children pointed him out with contempt as he passed through the streets of Jerusalem.

He also felt pain in his body; Wherever he went he fell, stumbled or broke a bone. He knew that such was the punishment of those who lost the mercy of Yahweh. He wanted to attack one of the teenagers who were throwing stones at him, but he remembered another admonition from his teacher:

“And whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble, it would be better for him if a donkey's millstone were hung around his neck and he were drowned in the depths of the sea.”

“Maybe,” he said to himself, “if I abide by his conditioning—that is, if I threw me into a pond before his imminent crucifixion, he would forgive me in the afterlife!”

“I won't be able to reach the pond,” he said to himself, sensing that he would soon be paralyzed.

He providentially noticed a rope tied to the neck of a donkey rotting on the side of the road, over a swamp. He jumped into the mud, grabbed the rope, hung it from the nearest tree and hanged himself.

The next day his body was buried in a plot of land purchased with the coins that Judas gave to the Temple, and it was called "Field of Blood" or "Potter's Field", so that posterity would remember the high price offered for the betrayal of Jesus.

II

Jesus descended into hell and there he saw, in the coldest circle of all, Judas, alone and burdened by eternity, along with hundreds of martyrs of evil, such as Marcus Brutus, Nero, Salieri, Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin , Mao, Pohl Vuh, Fidel Castro and Horacio Serpa.

But even they all avoided Judas.

Jesus approached Judas, who was shouting that he should not approach him, that he was not worthy of his forgiveness, and spoke to those faces with eyes lacerated by their tears and despair.

“You all know that you are unworthy of me. But what wouldn't a father do for his most wicked son? What would a noble and prosperous brother not do for his brothers despised by the world because of his crimes? In each generation you will return to the world reincarnated, until you correct your mistakes.”

Screams of horror emerged from their throats to be immediately suppressed by the presence of the Son of God.

“But you will not do it with the same protection that I gave you throughout your former lives; Your poverty and health will become increasingly worse, which will require a more sincere conversion to goodness.”

“You only enslave us!” Marcus Brutus bellowed with a cavernous voice, turning his back to Jesus.

“It is true,” said Jesus, “because evil requires greater evil to be counteracted. Just as a farmer uses cats to control a plague of mice, so I sent you into the world to control the evil of your contemporaries. But now you will be mice and vermin forever and ever, suffering in the meantime the review of your actions.”

Everyone was silent; There was nothing more to add, because Jesus had spoken, offering them a faint hope.

“But you, Judas,” said Jesus, “you will have a different destiny. You will not be reincarnated, because among all the martyrs of evil you were the one who had the greatest burden, that of sacrificing yourself for the good of humanity, betraying God, as prescribed by the theologian revealed to an Argentine writer, Nils Runeberg. For my sacrifice to be possible it was necessary that a man, representing all men, made a sacrifice worthy of mine. You were not only evil, Judas, but the executioner, and as such you were the first among all men to recognize his fault.

Judas threw himself at the feet of Jesus.

“You will return to the world year after year to feel the evil of your brothers, those you chose to represent, until the day I return in glory to judge the living and the dead and recover the world for my father.”