I do not know how much time passed, whether it was minutes or hours. But, then, I stood. I was seized with a reckless despair, so deep it cut to my heart like a knife. I began to walk amongst the pottery, the broken pottery, broken like my heart. I fell, and the pottery cut my arms and legs, and sliced deeply in my side. But still I proceeded. My sandal strap caught, and I fell again, bruising my face, and cutting myself again on the sharp pottery, cutting my hands to the bone. I tossed aside my sandals, and continued my aimless trek, bruising and cutting my feet deeply. And then I saw it. A rope, like a sign from God- or Satan. I picked it up, and continued to walk Then, I noticed something in the distance- a tree. Seeing it filled me with a wild, reckless, empty joy, and I ran, falling a third time. The shards of pottery were like thorns on my brow. But still I carried on, determined to reach the tree, broken and bleeding though I was.

Reaching the tree, I began to contemplate how I was to hang myself from the tree. Finally, I reached a solution, and looped the noose about my neck. I climbed atop a stump, and jumped

Something went wrong. My neck did not break. I hung there for hours, in agony. I began to see things, as if in a vision, and I knew somehow that these things were happening at this very moment. I saw a man, bruised and broken, hung on a cross, nails through his wrists and feet, a crown of thorns upon his head, and blood on his back. I knew this was what my act of betrayal had wrought- this was Jesus, the same Jesus who had so proudly ridden in on a donkey just the Sunday before. I saw myself, hanging there like a child’s rag doll, bleeding from my body, slowly strangling. And yet I felt no pain. I saw Peter, shocked by his own denial of Jesus. “See?” I wanted to say to him “Even the best of us, Jesus’s chosen, can do wrong!” I saw the others, hiding in various homes throughout the city. And I saw what was to come- Jesus, rising from the dead. Him healing, and helping, and saving. And rising back to heaven. I saw them all amass followers, John grow up, Peter crucified upside down (he had never done anything as expected), the others persecuted, killed for believing that Jesus was the one. I saw others write of these happenings, and unknown people, both Gentile and Jew killed torturously for believing. I saw us become accepted, and then rulers of the world. And then my vision returned to the present. Jesus, hanging on the cross, tilting his head back, and crying out:

"Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?"

And then, he died. My spirit was filled with a great longing, as I hung there dying myself. I wished to see Him, to apologize, to explain, to beg for forgiveness.

“I forgive you”

There, before me, stood Jesus. He was not as he had been in life- he was radiant and pure. I began to believe the wild stories Peter and John had brought down from the mountain that day so many months ago. He took my hand, and I was free. Free not only of my body, which, with my exit fell to the ground and burst, but free too of my sin, the sin of presumption and of murder.

“It was as it had to be, Judas. The Son of Man had to be betrayed by one of his own followers, had to be killed on the cross, and has to rise again. In your last moments, you saw, and you understood. You repented. And because of this, today you will join me in the kingdom of heaven. I looked at him, and spoke.

“Rabbi, the day I met you, the thing that drew me to you was this- you spoke of the kingdom of God, not as if it were an unattainable ideal, but as a true, real place, where they would go after death. Not Sheol, but Paradise! It was an idea I had never heard before, and it filled me with joy. As I followed you, I learned more. I have changed from the youth who joined you that day, and yet I am the same. I know this is how it had to be, but my guilt still remains. Am I truly forgiven?”

Jesus smiled his radiant, contagious smile “You have been since the Passover supper” And then, a joy filled me like a rainbow from the sky, a filling of my soul with purity, and understanding. I had done wrong, but I was forgiven. And forgiveness is the most beautiful feeling in all the world.

1- Matthew 26: 52-54

2- Matthew 26: 55-56