I was once asked, “If you could take a look into the life and mind of one person from the past, who would it be?”
Instantly my brain cracked open its spine and pages of referential people run through my head like Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King, even a John Calvin, Jeffrey Dahmer, Augustine but strangely my thoughts became obsessed with the idea of being invited into the heart of someone we all know as Judas
A man beckoned by the son of God to follow him. Follow Him like twitter was reality. Paralyze his eyes on a hill of a God who had place himself on the inside of a woman that He intricately created Himself eternities before birth even existed. Judas walked with Jesus
I picture him Jewish. Cold coloured hair, dark brown eyes, twinkling with a seed heart beating with wonder towards this Christ whose features where just like his. Could this man really be God is what I'm sure is what plagued his dark mind as he watched Him
He watched Mary's 30 year old-something son shovel the remains of rocks and d**h into his hands called dirt and bring forth spit from the same mouth that lit every star in the galaxy. He mixes them both, painted them into the pupil of man whose eyes were only acquainted with the canvas of black, blind from birth. God was the first thing that man ever saw
His last name Iscariot, first name Judas stood front row and center to a concert of God's glory. I wonder if he saw himself in the scenario beforehand. Maybe not but he continued to watch as Christ walked towards of the cave of a man who had been dead for almost a week with a heart that had not beat for four whole days. Ears that would only work at the sound of something greater than d**h, “Lazarus! Come out!” Jesus yelled with the authority of the Alpha and Omega branded to his breath. A fraternity of power coming forth, for the same voice that spoke everything into existence with nothing that existed – just Him. Judas saw a corpse come to life. A dead heart beat to the soundtrack of a resurrection. A metaphor of why Jesus came, right in front of his eyes, and I could watch him think, and I don't think he saw it yet and yet he watched as a year's salary of oil was worshipped unto the Son of Man's feet. Mary used her hair like a wash rug to wipe the foot of her Lord and I wonder if Judas was just confused. Confused at why this woman would give up so much just for Jesus? Could it be that her reverence was a sign that she might have seen this Nazarene called Christ for what he was worth? Possibly! But he kept watching. He watched as the guards grabbed the man he'd identified with a kiss to prepare him for a d**h that the world deserved unaware of the resurrection that only the elect would share in. If I could, I would a**ume that he looked into his palms – followed his fingerprints into the 30 pieces of silver lay dead in his hands with joy tapping dancing in the cemetery of his own ghost of destruction rising up in his bones. Those dark brown eyes staring at the receipt for what He just gave up and I bet he didn't even see the reality of what he thought God was worth. Nothing you see!
Betrayal is easy when you kiss God goodbye in a heart that is only loyal to itself. It was Jesus who was being led away to the cup of God's wrath, Judas coiled his head inside of a noose and the truth is, though he was sad, his conscience made him conscious of the fact that he had betrayed an innocent man but the blindness in his mind and drive, the navigation in his eyes to find that same man who was able to forgive him of all his sins so he made suicide his saviour as I watched a rope hang his throat, I just wished I could let him borrow my eyes so he could finally see. See, he, was the blind man that needed the hands of Jesus to rupture the scales from his brown eyes like brail plates danced from Gods fingertips. Let him rent my mind so he could have understand that he was a Lazarus by nature – dead, a corpse with breath, sleeping in a cave of sin, desperate for life. He walked with the one person who save him from the pitch black night right underneath his eyelids for three whole years but try, try asking a blind man to lift his eyes towards the sky and tell you the colour of the sun. He can't see. He will never understand his need for light so darkness will be all that he knows
As I watched the body of Judas lay dangling dead from the tree, reminiscing of the piece of food that birth his inherent blindness in his genes, I actually saw myself hanging
“In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” 2 Corinthians 4:4
“For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,' has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” 2 Corinthians 4:6