The Kiss
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March 21, 2018“When [Judas] came, he went up to him at once and said, ‘Rabbi!’ and kissed him.” (Mk 14:45)
Simmering discontent gave birth to a plan to destroy his teacher. He was with the twelve until the very last minute – we are not told that he left during or after the supper. But in the garden he came to meet Jesus from the other side, as his nemesis. I see something in him as he walks up to Jesus and kisses him, something like a leer. He hurts him, deliberately and with forethought, not only by the act of handing him over to death, but by doing so in the cruelest way imaginable. Every step he took was a charade, a game. There was no ignoring the falseness of it: swords and clubs with a kiss.
Judas must have thought for a long time about how to go about this handing over. It is his signature act. Beforehand he is mentioned occasionally in the narrative, always as “the one who handed him over, the traitor.” Afterwards he is mentioned not at all. He falls out of history. Whatever legacy he leaves behind is tied to this one moment, this one act.
“For the Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that one by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that one not to have been born.” (Mk 14:21)
Not, “Poor Judas, he did not know what he was doing” – he did. He performed marvelously, terribly: Woe! But he did not know all that he was doing. He was not the master of evil, but allowed himself to be overmastered by it. His was a human act of calculated cruelty without a drop of blood spilt. Isn’t it all too easy to hide a malicious act from all but the one to whom it is directed? Have I also kissed with calculated cruelty? Jesus has no word in answer to him. He receives the kiss as a knife to the heart without a whimper.
“For it is not an enemy that reviled me—
that I could bear—
Not a foe who viewed me with contempt,
from that I could hide.
But it was you, my other self,
my comrade and friend,
You, whose company I enjoyed,
at whose side I walked
in the house of God.” (Ps 55:13-15)
Someone is weeping for you, Judas – the One whom you handed over.
