UnHoly Trinity, release date hopefully soon: CHAPTER 16 Judas spent an agonized night under the olive trees. No sleep came to give him release, and he wouldn’t have welcomed it anyway. How had this happened? One moment he was in the company of a man who, in his estimation, was the best hope for all of Judea. The next, he had betrayed that same man, sent him away surrounded by soldiers. Now what? There were certainly those in this city who would want Jesus silenced, like John the Baptist before him. Yet what charge could they possibly bring against him? Judas got up from where he had lain all night, and, brushing himself off, strode back into the city— straight towards where he knew the dignitaries of Jerusalem spent all their waking hours. They had to listen to him. This was all wrong! Making his way down a quiet side street on his way to the Temple, Judas was startled to hear the clamor of a rather large crowd. It grew louder as it came nearer, and he was startled to see a dozen or more Roman soldiers turning off the far street and marching straight towards him. He ducked through an open gate leading to a house along the way, and waited behind the wall. Why were so many people out at this time of day? The sun was barely up. As the soldiers drew nearer, Judas could see a solitary man, dragging a cross, between the soldiers and the noisy throng. Guards behind him prevented the crowd from getting near the prisoner. Judas sighed, disappointed. Was that all? These crucifixions happened all the time. What was the excitement? He peered closer and gasped, outraged. Whoever it was they were about to execute, they certainly had tormented the poor man. Judas had never seen anyone so beaten up. His facial features were impossible to identify. And what was that on his head? Thorn branches! Woven into some sort of—crown? What did they mean by this? Judas’ hands clenched in anger. Oh, to have an army at his own back. They would not only free this poor man, they would show the Romans that the Jews they tormented still had a backbone. And they would only take so much. As the soldiers and their prisoner came closer, followed by scores of people—some wailing, some obviously drunk and making sport of the ordeal—Judas made out a small figure closely following the man carrying the cross. Judas froze as he recognized her. It was—no!—Jesus’ mother! So the beaten-up prisoner was…? Oh, no… Judas fell back against the garden wall as the realization sank in. Tears ran down his face. No! This was not how it was supposed to be. What had he done? It was all his fault. He had led them to him. Wait… Jesus could have run, Judas reasoned to himself. Could have done…something. Judas had seen all of those miracles he had performed. Many times, in situations like the one last night, they had all simply walked through the crowds and disappeared. Not his fault! Judas bit his tongue to keep from crying out. To keep any passersby from noticing him, from dragging him out to add him to the number of victims being disposed of today. It seemed forever, but finally the last of the crowd went past Judas’ hiding place. He watched as they turned the far corner. Sighing, both in relief and regret, he was finally able to look around at his sanctuary. A weed-choked terrace, a lone door, no windows, and an alabaster water jar… Terrible memories flitted half-seen through his mind. His heart galloped; he didn’t understand the sudden terror, but he knew he had to get out of there. Running back into the street, he rubbed his arms, as if trying to remove some sort of invisible filth. He looked back the way he had come, then toward the Temple area. He resumed his errand in haste, and was soon at the Temple gate. There were few people within the enclosure, but Judas recognized the one now very familiar face that he was seeking. The old man who had addressed him from a window the previous morning. “You!” he roared, rushing at the elderly man, who had been deep in conversation with a companion. The two temple priests looked at this maniac in alarm, and tried to run away. Judas seized his quarry, spun him around. He yelled into the man’s face, “What is the meaning of this? What have you done? Jesus is innocent of—why is he being crucified?” The priest stared in terror into Judas’ half-mad eyes. He tore himself away. “What did you think our intent was?” he snarled angrily. “This Jesus of yours is a threat, not just to the Jewish leaders, but everything we know and cherish. The Romans would have seen him as a threat eventually…” “ ‘Eventually’?” Judas was aghast. “Then it was not the Romans’ idea…” “No. We had to persuade Roman authority to see it our way. We made up a few things, paid off a few people…,” here the old man smiled slyly, “including you, I’d remind you.” Judas froze at the reminder. All courage left him, and once again he realized the horrific part he had played in Jesus’ death sentence. The priest and his companion noticed. They smiled conspiratorially at each other. “I might even go so far as to say that, without your cooperation, this may not have come to such a beneficial conclusion.” Judas fingered the silver in the pouch as his waist. Rage such as he had never known rose up within him, engulfing his senses. With a mighty roar, he leapt on the two priests, fists flying. He hardly knew what he was doing. All went black in his mind. He felt nothing but blind fury. The next thing he knew, he was standing within the Temple itself. And not just in the public area. Somehow he had found his way into the Holy of Holies, forbidden to the general public, and was before the altar of sacrifice. Judas knew he shouldn’t be here. He knew some sort of reverential awe should have taken over his very being. From his childhood, he knew what the Holy of Holies was. The very Presence of God to His people. Yet where had this God been when Judas had needed Him? Why hadn’t He saved Jesus from this fate? Jesus had said that it was supposed to happen this way, but how did he know? Maybe he had been mistaken, had not seen his own death coming for him in Gethsemane. Why was he, Judas, suddenly the pivotal reason Jesus was going to be destroyed? Why, God? WHY??? He fell to his knees, not in reverence, but because his anger had taken away all ability to stand or do anything else. It pulled in all of his energy, absorbed it into a black core within him. All of his being was now concentrated into an almost living entity of pure hatred. With an animal scream, Judas tore the pouch of silver from his belt and threw it with all of his might straight at the altar. The coins flew and scattered everywhere. At the noise, several priests ran in to see what was going on. They stopped, shocked, to see a man splayed on the marble floor of that most sacrosanct of places. Judas bellowed again. “NO!” The outcry echoed to the ceiling with desperation. Judas burst into tears, his fists clenching and unclenching. Then, before the astonished priests could get their bearings, he was on his feet and away. Judas didn’t stop running until he was well away from the Temple precincts. He walked, dazed, not knowing or caring where he was going. His tears blinded him, as did his fury. He found himself near the main gate leading out of the city. The crowd was out there at the foot of a small hill known as Golgotha; shouting, crying, all of them making themselves heard, either for or against the organized legal murder of this good man. Then the sounds of hammering, the muffled, unmistakable sound of nails through flesh. Women shrieking, men shouting. Judas could not shut it out. He ran, but the sound followed. It chased him through the deserted marketplace, echoed back at him from the high walls of the city, seemed to mock him in the streets. Laughter now. Evil, triumphant laughter, which drowned out the sounds of crucifixion. Judas looked around wildly. Where was that laughter coming from? There was no one around but a few hardy vendors, who sat idly selling to no one, waiting for the crowd to get bored and come back in to buy their wares. They calmly went about their day as if nothing was different. Didn’t they hear the laughter? Judas noticed that they had suddenly taken a great interest in him. One pointed at him, said something in a low voice to another, who nodded. They both peered more closely at him. Judas understood all too clearly. They knew him as one of Jesus’ hand-picked disciples. Was there a price on his head too? Were they willing to sell his whereabouts to the highest bidder? Judas backed out of the public square, ran out of the city through a small side door, and didn’t stop until he was outside the walls. He hid in a cave across a small plain, far away from any prying eyes. He stood, winded, behind a boulder that partially blocked the cave’s entrance. Alone with his hopelessness and despair, he slid down to the cave floor, put his head on his knees, and wept. He was unaware of the passage of time. The lack of sound from outside woke him from a fitful sleep. Looking out from behind the boulder, he was dismayed to see that he had an unobstructed view of the grisly proceedings outside the gates of Jerusalem. Much of the crowd had dispersed, leaving only a few citizens and a handful of soldiers. The sky had turned an ominous shade of greenish-black, bruised and violent. Clouds swarmed and roiled over each other, and lightning flew through and between them. How long had Jesus been on that cross? Was he still alive? Judas couldn’t see how; when he’d seen Jesus in the street with that heavy wood, it seemed he had barely enough strength to stand. His clothes had been soaked red, and his face had been covered with the blood seeping out of the wounds caused by those horrid thorns. Judas closed his eyes, trying to shut out both the scene before him and the memory of that blood-stained face. A cry reached his ears. His eyes flew open, unable to stay closed. His gaze moved against his will to the figure on the cross. Jesus’ voice could be heard across the distance to the cave. Across space and time, past and future, changing everything, proving everything: “It is finished…” A cry of pain, of love—of triumph. Judas felt the earth rock, saw boulders skitter and split across the field. He ran from the cave, fearing that the roof would fall in on him, barely able to keep his footing. Screams came from inside the city. In terror, Judas watched as numerous mists rose from the ground, forming into human shape, walking through the very walls of Jerusalem. What was this he was seeing? The earth continued to shake, and as Jesus bowed his head in death, a great shimmering sphere of energy seemed to tear out of his very being. It grew, reaching for the heavens, enveloping the earth. And Judas knew, without knowing how he knew: The God of the Universe, the Ancient of Days, the true Holy of Holies, the Creator of all, was no longer being held within Jesus’ body. He was free—and the world could not hold Him. God Himself, born into humanity, had returned to Who He Was. Judas was stunned, both at the scene before him, and what he could not deny. He sat, unmoving, and stared out toward the cross. Suddenly, a cold chill ran down his spine, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. There was a presence beside him. An unearthly being. Terrified, Judas turned his head slowly to see what was now inexplicably beside him. He gasped and scrabbled away, then stopped, amazed at what he saw. It was his father! The ghost of Simon Iscariot stood not five feet away from him, staring at him silently.
Posted on: Mon, 17 Nov 2014 02:08:37 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015