Surely Not I, Lord?

A psychological analysis of Judas who betrayed Jesus

By Xu Mu-shi

Bach, the great composer, wrote a masterpiece Good Friday, which was based on the scene of the Last Supper in Matthew chapter 26, a masterpiece which touches the heart of everybody who has a chance to hear it. The most touching part is when all twelve disciples of Jesus sing in unison: "Surely not I, Lord?" Then all confess that Jesus had been arrested because of their sins. This section often strikes at the hearts of the audience like a dagger.

Who arrested our innocent Lord? Who inflicted wounds on him? Who sent the Son of God to Golgotha to be crucified? Was it Judas Iscariot? Or Caiaphas, the high priest? Or Pilate, the Roman governor? Or was it the rioting crowd who shouted and demanded the crucifixion of Jesus? Indeed, the blood of an innocent man stained the hands of all these people, representing as they did the forces of wickedness in the world. Nevertheless, these people were far from being alone. All mankind was responsible. The wicked have always helped the malicious (Exodus 23:1). All the dark forces of the world worked together to attack Jesus. They brought false accusations against him; they bound him and mocked him. They confronted him and flogged him. Then they made him carry the heavy cross on his wounded shoulders and drove him to Golgotha where they hanged him on the cross.

Not all human wickedness is obvious, but at the foot of the cross nothing can be covered up, everyone reveals their true self. The cross completely reveals the sinful nature of human beings, not just the outward appearance of evil. We cannot but exclaim with the chorus in Bach's masterpiece: "Oh Lord, it is our sins that have bound you."

Among all that were directly involved in the crucifixion of Jesus, Judas who betrayed the Lord seems to be the most prominent. Throughout church history there have been many writings giving psychological analyses of those who murdered Jesus. Caiaphas, the high priest, wanted to eliminate Jesus because he realized that his position in the Jewish Synagogue as well as the power he received from the Roman governor was under threat. Pilate wanted to sentence Jesus to death in order to remain loyal to Caesar and avoid any riot that could destabilize his regime. These reasons were pretty obvious. But what reasons could Judas have for betraying his master? Judas was one of the disciples of Jesus. He had lived with Jesus and should have been saturated in the humble love of Jesus. He saw with his own eyes how the Lord loved people; he heard with his own ears the countless teachings of the Lord. He knew very well that Jesus never sinned and he even testified to his innocence. Why, then, did he betray his teacher? Many offer various answers to this question, but it does not seem easy to come up with a common conclusion.

Most people conclude that greed was the main reason for Judas' betrayal. This is by no means wrong. According to the Bible, he was a thief after all (John 12:6). Although he was listed among the disciples, he never turned away from his spirit of avarice. But his act of betrayal was not merely for the thirty silver coins, nor was his following Jesus simply a strategy for providing against difficult times on the offchance that he might make thirty silver coins by betraying his teacher. If we had believed this was the case then we would have under-estimated Judas as well as the endless desires deep in his heart.

Judas was no doubt one of the more capable of Jesus' disciples; otherwise he would not have been picked to manage financial matters for the small group. But the key is that Judas never really understood the idealism of Jesus, nor did he understand the mission of the Messiah who came to this world. Judas joined the disciples with his own idealism and he never wanted to abandon his ambition of being rich. He could have figured it out this way : Jesus must be a very capable person, able to cast out demons and to restore eyesight to the blind. He was able to feed five thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fish. He was even able to restore the dead to life. With all these tricks, nothing could stop him from doing anything. Wouldn't it be great to help him seize political power and establish a kingdom for the Jews? Wouldn't it be great for him to lead the nation in battle against the Roman Empire? At that time, as one of his early followers, I could become famous. There would be no end to my fame, renown and wealth. Or even if none of these came true, Jesus was still able to heal all kinds of diseases, which could easily translate to tremendous wealth. So it would be of great advantage to stay close to him, the source of wealth. Apparently that was what Judas had in mind when he first decided to follow Jesus. To his great surprise, however, three years had passed and Judas had yet to meet up with the slightest shadows of wealth. Even the moneybag of which he was in charge was often empty. Despite the fact he often stole from the bag, it was still hard for him to make much out of it.

Furthermore, over the three years he had constantly heard from Jesus these teachings: "Blessed are the poor... Blessed are those who hunger and thirst..." "I come to serve, not to be served"; "It is better to give than to get... You must carry your cross" and so on. These words were not only foreign to Judas; they were simply foolish statements. These were teachings completely at odds with what Judas had expected when he first joined the group. As a result, he was disappointed at Jesus. From disappointment came anger. He believed he had wasted three years by following the wrong person. Then came hatred and contempt followed by disgust. Finally he agreed to betray the Lord with thirty silver coins, the price of a slave at that time.

There is a famous religious painting that depicts the scene of The Last Supper. Judas is the main character in the painting. The painting was based on John chapter 13 where Judas took the bread the Lord handed him, left the table and stepped out of the room, about to commit the most wicked act in human history.

In the painting, Judas is opening a door and is about to go out. Outside the door there is deadly darkness in contrast with the bright light in the room - the light glowing from the face of Jesus and light from the burning candles. The only caption on the painting is: "And it was night." (John 13:30)

Night symbolizes darkness. The poet Milton said: "Where there is no goodness, there is evil; where there is no light, there is darkness." When somebody falls, he is showing his willingness to walk away from the light and fall into the darkness. Judas' state of mind was exactly like that. It was night, for Judas had already sold himself to Satan and become his slave. Now he couldn't help but be controlled by the evil force of Satan.

The author was a college professor. Now he lives in Boston.