It would be felicitous were a Shi‘ite
to make the first great film or video on the lamentation
of Judas Iscariot during the interval between his delivering
Jesus to the chief priests and his hanging himself. Judas
had prearranged the following signal for the large crowd
armed with swords and clubs that was sent with him by
the chief priests and the elders of the people to apprehend
Jesus: “The one I kiss is the man; arrest him.”
Given that Jesus had told his disciples, among whom figured
Judas, “If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn
to him the other also” (Luke 6:29), why didn’t
the one who was kissed by Judas turn the other cheek for
another (perfidious) kiss?,1
responding instead with: “Judas, are you betraying
the Son of Man with a kiss?” (Luke 22:48)? Given
that Judas did not sin against the Holy Spirit but only
against the Son of Man (“Anyone who speaks a word
against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who
speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either
in this age or in the age to come” [Matthew 12:32]),
and given that the Son of Man had walked on water, healed
the blind, and resurrected the dead, why didn’t
the one who was kissed by Judas miraculously move time
backward till before the birth of his betrayer (“woe
to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better
for him if he had not been born” [Matthew 26:24])
in forgiveness? If the one who was perfidiously kissed
by Judas did neither, was this because he was not actually
Jesus Christ (the Docetic, as well as the Muslim reading
of the crucifixion: “They slew him [the Messiah,
Jesus son of Mary, Allah’s messenger] not nor crucified
him, but it appeared so unto them… Allah took him
up unto Himself” [Qur’ân 4:157-158])?
Did Judas deliver the wrong innocent man to the Pharisees
to be crucified, one concerning whom it had not been decreed
(Luke 22:22), as it had been in the case of the Son of
Man according to Jesus himself, that “he must go
to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the
elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that
he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life”
(Matthew 16:21)—therefore one who did not have to
die thus? On witnessing Peter disown the apprehended man
three times, did Judas feel confirmed that the one he
had delivered to the priests was not Jesus? Whether it
was an unforgiving Jesus Christ (!) or another innocent
man who was crucified, Judas felt such unbearable remorse
and guilt that he hanged himself. |
