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For 2,000 years my name has been slandered by people who
really don't understand me, especially by some preachers. But
your kind pastor said that you were an understanding
congregation. I've come here today to tell you about myself and
about the reasons I did what I did. You will give me a fair
hearing, won't you? My name is Judas Iscariot.
Let me begin by telling you a little about my background. As
you know I am a Jew. You have probably read some things about my
ancestors: Moses, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Isaiah, Jeremiah, to
name a few. There are many others which you probably know very
little about. These are men such as Habakkuk and Joel, Micah and
Daniel. All of these men had a great love and respect for God.
Back during my ancestor's time God's name was Yahweh. People
loved Yahweh, but sometimes my ancestors loved Israel more than
they loved the Lord. We were all taught the same things as
children: Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord; and you
shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all
your soul, and with all your might.
My ancestors tried, but sometimes their nationalism got the
best of them. They were like some of you are, more excited about
July the 4th than about Easter. They would do anything to keep
their race pure and to keep other religious and cultural beliefs
from creeping in. One of my ancestors, Nehemiah, wrote in his
book what happened when he found out that some of his countrymen
married foreign women. In those days also I saw the Jews who had
married women of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab; and half of their
children spoke the language of Ashdod, and they could not speak
the language of

Judah, but the language of each people. And I contended with them
and cursed them and beat some of them and pulled out their hair;
and I made them take oath in the name of God, saying, "You shall
not give your daughters to their sons, or take their daughters
for your sons or for yourselves."
The point of all of this is that my ancestors loved Israel,
and felt that God had a special hand in carving it from among the
lands of all the peoples of the earth. Yes, they were just like
you. They would sin, then repent, and then sin again. But they
kept trying to be God's people.
The claw of Rome had taken control of my country's government
about 150 years before I was born. Its grasp had seemed to cancel
the hopes of many of our people -- many, but not all. A group of
Jews remembered the promises which God had made: the promise to
bless all people through Abraham; the promise to lead a group of
slaves into their own land with Moses; the promise to be their
God if they would be his people. Yes, this certain group of Jews
never forgot those promises, even when the hated foreigners came
in and took over. One family, the Maccabees, was the best-known
of the leaders of the Jewish resistance movement. They succeeded
in leading a revolt against the most hated of our enemies,
Antiochus Ephiphanes IV. The Maccabees managed to oust him and to
cleanse our sacred temple. That day is still celebrated today ...
it's called Hanukkah.
But the revolt did not last, and the hated tyrants regained
control. By the time I was born, the Romans had a firm grasp of
everything relating to my beloved country. They bled us with
taxes, and regulated every single part of our lives. How we hated
them! And how we hated those Jews who were friendly to them,
especially the prostitutes and tax-collectors.
I was puzzled by all of this. "How could God let this happen?"
I wondered. "How can the promises of God come true?" We Jews had
read in what you call the Old Testament that someday God would
send a Messiah to set his people free. I wondered when and how it
would happen. We Jews were so weak, and the Romans so strong.
Every night I would pray

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that God would send his Messiah, and that the Romans would be
damned!
While I was still a little boy a man named Judas of Galilee
organized a group of men who were concerned with getting rid of
the Romans. These men were called Zealots. The revolt failed and
2,000 of them were captured. The Romans crucified all of them
along the roads of Judea. Two thousand men hung on crosses as an
example to anyone else who might try to defeat Rome. I remembered
those men, and when I was a young man I became a Zealot. I'm not
proud of everything we did. My name, Iscariot, means dagger, so
you can imagine some of the things we did. But the Zealots were
true believers. They believed in Yahweh, and in Israel. They
believed that these things were worth dying for. And many of our
band did die.
But I and my fellow Zealots took up the challenge and did
everything in our power to disrupt the Romans and to punish them.
The problem was that we had no leader. We thought for a while
that John the Baptist might join us, but he did not. Then we
heard about a man named Jesus. He was from Nazareth, and the
people told of his mighty works and of his love.
I sought out this Jesus and listened carefully to what he had
to say. How the hope inside of me burned brightly when he spoke.
His words were like arrows which pierced through to the heart of
any situation. I just knew that he could be our leader in
overthrowing Rome. Then an incredible thing happened. Jesus asked
me to become a disciple, to join his inner circle of friends. I
could hardly believe it at first. I had gone looking for him but
he acted as if he had sought me out. He had a way of doing that
with everyone, of making them feel that he was searching for them
and wouldn't rest until he found them. I was made the treasurer
of the group.
What a man Jesus was! I can still remember how he taught the
crowds and scolded us disciples for not understanding everything
he said. I came to realize that this man could be God's Messiah -
- if he would. He could lead us in a successful

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revolt against Rome. So I waited and waited, trying to be patient
until the time was right. A year passed, then two. Jesus sounded
less and less like a radical revolutionary. He told us to love
our enemies and to do good to them who spitefully used us. Those
were indeed hard sayings to take. We traveled much in those days.
Jesus kept teaching; we kept listening. But I always wondered,
"When will Jesus turn against Rome?"
The end climaxed quickly ... for him ... for us ... for me.
The time came when he made up his mind to go to Jerusalem. It was
during the time of Passover. "Perfect," I thought. "He is going
to declare himself to be the Messiah, and the people will join
him in driving out the tyrants." That's all I ever wanted.
The people greeted Jesus with jubilant excitement. They spread
palm branches and leaves out before him. Some called it his
triumphant entry into Jerusalem. I was so excited I could hardly
stand it! "Now," I thought, "now he is going to revolt." It
started out so well, too. Jesus went into the temple with a whip
and drove out all of the crooked tax gatherers and money
changers. I laughed until I cried with anticipation. The temple
had enough money to raise an army.
But then Jesus stopped. God help us, he stopped! He didn't
even try to raise an army. He kept talking and debating. He was
doing nothing to start a war with Rome. "He's going to miss his
only chance," I thought.
Then, like a heavy fog, the truth came in upon me. I knew what
I had to do if we were to overthrow the Roman rulers. Now this is
where you come in. You already have your minds made up about me.
You think you know why I did what I did. You think I was a greedy
little coward who would betray his own mother if the price were
right. No! My motives were as pure as any you have.
"What would make Jesus act?" I wondered to myself. I didn't
want to miss this chance. When I was a little boy growing up in
Judea my mother used to tell me stories at night. I remember one
... about a horse and a donkey walking down the road together.
The donkey was so loaded with cargo

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that he could hardly walk. He asked the horse to take some of the
load. The horse laughed and refused. A short while later the
donkey fell beneath his heavy load and died. The owner of the
animals took all of the cargo from the dead donkey and loaded it
on the horse. Then he took the carcass of the donkey and heaved
it onto the back of the horse. The horse wobbled down the road
thinking, "If only I had carried my fair share I wouldn't have to
carry all the cargo and dead weight besides."
I was determined to carry my share of the weight of
responsibility. I decided to make Jesus act, to make him lead a
revolt. So I went to the chief priests and devised a scheme of
leading them to Jesus. I thought that if I could cause a
confrontation Jesus would have to defend himself. The priests
even gave me money, so I took it to make the betrayal look real.
At the end of the Passover meal I met with the chief priests
and soldiers. Together we went to Gethsemane. I saw Jesus and
embraced him. The mob came; they arrested him. I laughed to
myself. "This is the beginning of the end. Now Jesus will have to
defend himself and the revolution will begin." But he didn't
resist. He didn't fight at all. Jesus simply went with them,
chained like a common criminal. My plan had backfired. It was
going to lead to Jesus' death instead of his victory.
History has dealt harshly with me for my actions. I'm accused
of betraying Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. What does it take for
you to betray him?

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