Judas, the betrayer

I

If I could see past my tears,

I would look to understand.

If I did not choke on the words,

I would ask His plan.

If my ears did not burn with the treason He preaches,

I could follow all the maxims He teaches.

Jesus, why do You turn away from me?

Are You not the Messiah from Galilee?

If You are, then why do You anger those You need?

Was I wrong?  Are you not the one I seek?

II

He will bring the whole world down on us

If He doesn’t watch His step.

The priests are angry.  The crowds feel betrayed.

My attempts to dissuade Him have proven

Inept and inadequate,

He never listens to a word I say.

I tried to explain that His high ideals

Were getting in the way of business,

And that if He wasn’t careful He’d soon turn away

The very ones we needed most to help us.

‘Open your heart, Judas,’ was His challenge to me,

‘See with it and not with your eyes.’

But my heart could not look, for it was

Troubled by all the lies

I seemed to hear Him say –

Why, if He was the Messiah, didn’t He act that way?

Where were His armies?

Where the approval of the tribes?

All there is that I can see, is the hatred

Smoldering and burning in the Pharisee’s eyes.

III

The crowds are displeased with Jesus.

If we aren’t careful they will seize us,

And all of our hopes will be crushed.

All thought of victory lost.

Jesus, why do you choose to anger the Priests?

Now our cause will be lost.

Perhaps if I could speak to them

I could explain His thinking,

And they in turn could speak to Him

And make Him see a King

Has certain duties to perform….

Certain people to warn….

They would make him understand

That He may love some, but must hate others…

That only the Jews and not the Romans are our brothers.

It’s worth a try, for I fear,

If I do not speak to them here,

They will misunderstand and blame all of us

And not just this man, Jesus, who has lost His way

And chooses all the wrong things to say.

And if speaking to Him will not change His mind,

Perhaps they will prove more than kind

Enough to kelp me pray….

That we get to Him some other way….

IV

My story is old, much has been told

Of the way I lived and died.

But the story so true, you never knew

Was of the tears I cried.

I loved my Lord, it was so hard

To hand Him over to them.

But it was He – not truly me –

Who sent me to those men.

I sat at supper there in the upper

Room along with you,

Disciples dear, didn’t you hear

When He told me what to do?

Why don’t you speak?  Are you too weak

To think for yourselves?

Why can’t you see?  Listen to me.

I knew Him all too well.

He was a teacher and a good preacher,

But not God’s only son.

You are too serious.  Too Heaven-delirious!

He couldn’t have been the one!

For when I saw the crowds He could draw,

The threat to you and me,

I had to leave Him.  Had to deceive Him….

Don’t you see?

And yet He knew, He knew what I’d do

And He sent me on my way.

It’s what He wanted.  Where His life pointed.

This is His day!

And now we’ll be safe, not cast like the chafe

On the wind to blow away.

I’ve done a good thing –  but how the wind sings –

I must be on my way.

Oh, how I’ve cried.  Oh, how I’ve tried

To forget His words to me,

But with a kiss I come to this –

Despair and a lonely tree.

So, by my word, the life of my Lord

Will be taken away by men.

It is without hope that I turn to this rope,

For it is my only friend.