Many traitors today are worse than Judas by far

I am sitting at my work table folding Origami hearts and paper chains for my Christmas tree next year. While doing so I am thinking about how traitors today are much worse than Judas, who betrayed Christ, so I thought I would share my list of how they differ as part of your spiritual direction. Judas, as we all know, reluctantly accepted money in return for pointing out Jesus so that he could be arrested. He made a theological decision to betray Jesus, and the money was only secondary. While Judas was argumentative with Jesus prior to the betrayal, his attitude stemmed from his growing lack of belief and was not indicative of any other sinful acts prior to the actual betrayal.

Here is what Judas did NOT do, but people do in their minds, hearts, and with their actual hands today, which is why today they are the worse betrayers than the actual Judas:

Judas did not claim to be the Messiah himself.

Judas did not put a pretty blue robe on his mother or sister or aunt and claim that she is the real Virgin Mary.

Judas did not betray the Virgin Mary. (He could have, if you think about it. He could have said, “Hey, you better kill her too. What if she has another miraculous child to take the place of Jesus once he is gone?” Yes, that is an unthinkable blasphemy and no one would ever have thought that then. But people think like that now.)

(Let me point out by the way that the Jews and Romans confined their quarrel to Jesus as they tried and killed him. They did not molest or harass the women, including Mary, who attended the crucifixion or even John, one of the Apostles, who was also there. So to their credit, Judas and the persecutors of Jesus did not “go after” his entire family and followers until it became obvious that the faith had taken root after Jesus died and resurrected. )

Judas did not draw graffiti of the Virgin Mary in public bathrooms.

Judas did not say that Jesus was born from Mary’s arse rather than her womb. (Readers who are scandalized at even this thought, please excuse me for being so indelicate, but join the club because this is how I have felt for years as I’ve learned of this terrible attitude by some people today.)

Judas did not consort with fortune tellers and astrologers to decide the most advantageous time for him to betray Jesus.

Judas did not challenge the faith of the Apostles. Notice to his credit that he did not take aside each Apostle and try to share his doubts and contaminate theirs.

Judas did not provide a list of the Apostles, disciples and their families to the authorities for future reference. (Not even Saul before his conversion did that, actually. Saul acted upon lists given to him but he was not a rat squeal from the inside of the organization of Christians.)

Judas did not provide a list of miracles and those who believed as a result so the authorities could go after those who witnessed to Christ and kill them.

Judas did not take the money he was given and give it to another “Messiah claimant” or establish his own “church.” (He tried to buy a plot of land for himself and have some peace, but of course that was impossible for him because despair had taken total command of him throughout the betrayal and his own end of life through suicide.)

He did not write books and promote himself in the Biblical time equivalent of “talk shows,” which would be to go to the Temple and relate his wonderfulness at spotting the “false Messiah.”

(The so called found Gospel of Judas was an attempt by Judas’ family to spin the facts of what he did so that they could have a more comfortable existence as Christianity grew and their name through Judas became more notorious. I mean, duh, how is it that supposedly educated people today can not figure that out. Judas’ family was left in quite a hot seat. Of course they tried to spin something in writing to try to make it look like Jesus thought the whole betrayal thing was OK, in growing panic as word of Judas’ betrayal spread, especially in the written Gospels. So they passed those fairy stories around orally in their turn to try to justify what Judas did, and eventually some sucker wrote them down in the so called “lost” gospel of Judas. But you know that none of that was true because if it was, Judas would have not commit suicide and would instead have done what I point out above, teach in the Temple via their contemporary “talk show circuit” and defended his actions plus taught people what to “look out for with false Messiah claimants.” )

Judas did not blame the booze, the drugs, or being bipolar.