Rescuing Judas

Photo by Jez Timms on Unsplash

The agony was gone! What relief!

The sharp pain in his wrists had been almost too much to bear, even for him.

A scream echoed in the darkness. As the echoes faded a hollow laugh began, quietly at first before reaching a crescendo and suddenly dying. He tried to see where the noises were coming from, but everything was cloaked in darkness. The objects themselves gave off luminous darkness here.

He looked down at his hands and rubbed them together to feel them. They felt whole, but he couldn’t see them. Here, even people glowed with the terror of the night. Even this person.

Judas!

That was why he had come. For his friend, and thousands like him. He must start looking. How can you look in the dark? How can the blind see? Only one man can do that. Only he could do that. Except that was before. Before God had forsaken him and sent him here to this place of thieves, murderers, liars, cheats, swindlers, adulterers: humanity. God had left him, yet somehow God could never leave him. God was imprinted on his soul. Enough thinking in this place. That would only lead to bad theology. Time for action. That might lead to something good. He took a step in the dark.

DO NOT LET HIM MOVE

A voice from the dark. He heard distant scurrying and took another step.

HE CAN NOT BE ALLOWED TO THE MOUNTAIN

No, the voice wasn’t from the dark.

STOP HIM!

The voice was the dark.

He started running, terrified and blind. He stumbled, into people unwilling or unable to move, almost solidified.

“Move!” he shouted. A crack of light fizzed from his mouth. The statuesque people looked up, and in the tiniest moment of light, he saw the fear etched into their faces. There was only one way he could respond to that, “Do not be afraid!” A shaft of light stunned the darkness.

DO NOT LET HIM SPEAK

Voices in the dark only have so much power. “Judas! Where are you?” This time the light was a beam and beyond the huddled and fearful masses, he saw it. The mountain stood brooding and menacing in the dark. The scurrying became louder. Whatever it was, it was getting closer. He redoubled his…