The Human Side of Scripture
Why I Refuse to Have a Simple Traitor
There are stories we like because they leave no dust on our hands.
In the old story, Judas is easy.
You say his name and the matter is closed.
The traitor.
The one who sold the Master for thirty coins.
We nod, the page turns, and the rest of us remain clean.
But sometimes a name refuses to stay in its narrow place.
When I wrote the poem Judas for an international anthology dedicated to human rights and peace, I was troubled by that simplicity. I began to wonder what would happen if we stopped looking at Judas from the distance of centuries and walked a few steps closer. Not to excuse him. Only to see him as a man who once sat at a table, who once broke bread with the others.
History often keeps the act and forgets the trembling that came before it.
In my mind the story begins on the evening of the supper. The room is still warm. Bread passes from hand to hand. The wine glows softly in the cups. Yet, something has already begun to change.
Judas looks down and the wine seems too red.
The bread, which only a moment ago tasted of mercy, now feels dry in the mouth.
Nothing has happened yet.
But he senses, with the uneasy instinct of a man who loves too much, that the one he follows is already walking toward a place where no hand will be able to hold Him back.
It is a strange fear, the fear of losing someone not to death, but to destiny.
Perhaps Judas feels that the Teacher is slipping away into something larger than friendship, larger than companionship, something that will soon belong to the sky more than to the earth. And in that quiet moment a small seed of panic begins to grow.
Many terrible decisions begin like this, not with hatred, but with the fear of losing what we love.
The Gospel tells us about the thirty pieces of silver. Coins counted carefully, placed into a waiting hand. It has always seemed a light price for such a heavy moment.
But money is rarely just money.
In the poem I imagined those coins as heavy things. Heavy as the silence of a mother who has lost her child. Cold as the hand that no longer reaches out when someone falls beneath the weight of his own choice.
Perhaps Judas did not feel richer when the coins touched his palm.
Perhaps he felt something sinking inside him, like stones slipping into deep water.
We often imagine evil as something clear and deliberate. Yet human actions are rarely so simple. Fear mixes with love. Loyalty grows tired. Confusion speaks in the voice of certainty.
In the poem I wrote a line that stayed with me:
“He was not evil, only too human.”
It is possible that Judas did not want to destroy the one he followed. It is possible that somewhere in his restless heart he hoped to delay what seemed inevitable.
One more miracle.
One more evening around the table.
One more night before the shadow of the cross appeared on the road ahead.
Love sometimes carries this strange wish.
We want the one we admire to remain close to us, still human enough to sit beside us, still reachable by our hands.
But destiny is rarely patient with such wishes.
Then comes the kiss.
Painters have often shown it as a signal, a quiet sign given to the soldiers waiting in the dark. Yet a kiss cannot be only a signal. It carries breath, warmth, the memory of closeness.
In the poem I wrote:
“He kissed Him
not like a friend,
but like a wound
that could not be spoken.”
There are moments when love and violence touch the same place in the human heart. Judas may have stepped into that place without fully understanding it.
Afterwards, the story grows silent. The Master continues toward the cross. Judas walks alone into the night. The Gospel tells us that he finds a tree.
I have always imagined that tree as one that no longer bears fruit. Not because the season has passed, but because questions have replaced the fruit.
They hang there, trembling in the wind.
Why?
Why this road?
Why this choice?
Perhaps those questions are the only inheritance Judas leaves us.
At the end of the poem I thought of him as a bridge.
A narrow bridge stretched between holiness and fear.
A bridge burned at both ends.
On one side stands a truth that cannot be bought.
On the other side stands the fragile human heart that tries to buy safety with whatever coins it finds in its pocket.
And somewhere in the middle, we cross.
History has many such bridges. We walk over them without always noticing the names carved into their stones. Traitors, collaborators, informers, people reduced to a single act and left there forever.
Yet each of them once had a face, a trembling moment, a night when the wine suddenly looked too red.
This is why the poem found its place in a human rights anthology. Not because Judas should be forgiven easily, but because even the most condemned name deserves to be seen in the full light of its humanity.
Condemnation is quick. Understanding is slower.
And sometimes, when we look long enough at the bridge we are crossing, we begin to hear the faint echo of our own footsteps there.