In honor of Easter, I will talk about an old biblical mistake, Judas betrayal of Jesus Christ (JC). Judas Iscariot was one of the 12 disciples of Jesus Christ (no introduction needed). The disciple’s main job was to teach the gospel of Christ and preach and heal others.
On the night of the Last Supper Jesus is conversing with his disciples when he all of a sudden drops a bombshell (figuratively) statement. JC drops that one of the disciples will end up betraying him, now JC doesn’t drop names but when all of the Apostles ask him is it them, and its Judus turn to ask JC drops a pretty good line implying Judus will be the one to betray him. Now somewhere after the last supper, Judas allegedly made a deal with the high priests to identify and give up JC all for the low, low price of 30 pieces of silver. JC’s messiah/miracle act was bad business for the priests. JC was like Uber/Lyft and the priests were taxies. The Disciples and JC were hanging out in the Garden of Gethsemane. when Judas goes up to JC and kisses him on the cheek. JC being all the wiser, responded by stating “Judas are you betraying the son of humanity with a kiss?” The point of Judas kiss was to identify who JC was to the powers that be. Soon after this conversation, Roman Swat team comes out of the woodworks and arrests JC. Judas betrayed JC just like JC predicted.
Judas act became known as the Judas kiss and became a term all on its own. A Judas Kiss is “an act appearing to be an act of friendship, which is, in fact, harmful to the recipient.” soon after JC was crucified. Judas didn’t realize JC was going to be crucified, I guess he thought they would just beat him up and just jail him but not crucify him. Judas then returned the money he received for betraying JC, his actions really started sinking in. Then Judas promptly hung himself, the guilt of betraying his messiah became too much. The priests used the returned money to buy a field to bury strangers in. This field was known as the “Field of blood” because it was purchased with blood money. Sounds like an exciting place to be buried at right? I mean who would want to be buried there?
Mistakes Were Made:
As the product of religious school upbringing, I’ve heard this story numerous times and there’s one thing I never could understand about it. To be a disciple of someone means you really believe in that person and his or her teachings. Judas essentially gave up his life to go around following JC and teaching others about him. How does one go from a disciple to selling JC out for 30 pieces of silver? The Modern day equivalent of 30 pieces of silver is $ 185- $ 205 dollars. To sell out your master and teacher for that paltry amount of money is just well, a crackhead move. Was Judas smoking crack? That would explain a lot of his actions. Did JC owe Judas cash for the last supper? Did JC get over on Judas in their turning water into wine business? Did JC steal Mary Magdalene away from Judas? What made Judas do what he did? Another more plausible explanation given was that Judas was possessed by Satan. That would also explain his actions.
If you look at the entirety of this whole story, this whole thing was prophecy. JC predicted he would be betrayed and by Judas no less and he predicted he would be crucified. One could reason that Judas was just a prop in JC prophecy and therefore shouldn’t be held responsible for his actions. This line of reasoning doesn’t take into account free will. Though Judas movements and actions were predicted down to the T, Judas could have thought better and not accepted the priests offer. Judas could have not gone through with identifying JC and broke the deal. JC could have pulled a double cross and set up the priests, Yet Judas did none of that, he went through with the exact same actions JC predicted he would do. Just because something is prophesied doesn’t mean the person has to go through with the act. Most people are so weak minded however that even with being told of their upcoming actions, still go through with them.
At the time Judas lived, the name Judas was a very popular name, however, you don’t see too many people named Judas now huh? That’s because the name Judas will always be associated with the man Who betrayed Jesus Christ aka as most peoples lord and savior.