My name is Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot.  I was a godly man of letters.  I was never a genius, but nor was I a fool.  Jesus came into my life when I was looking; looking for something better than the endless striving for fame and fortune that seemed so pointless and destined to fail.  If you are born into money, success is assured; for the rest of us, nothing is ever certain except hard work.

Jesus called me because – well, he never told me exactly why he called me, but I always thought it was because I could add a little more intellectual capacity to the group, and a little more knowledge too.  I was not quite like the others, with their earthy, unsophisticated faith.  Not for me the back-breaking physical work of gnarled hands and dangerous exertion.  Refinement and an appreciation of cerebral pursuits were my bent – and possibly my weakness.  Comfort was important, I admit it, but I always tried to control that desire within me.  Certainly it was not comfort that Jesus called me to, yet I was happy to follow him wherever he led.

Truth to tell, I was rather pleased that he had chosen me above many others to be one of his special twelve.  Only twelve out of all the men in Israel – and I was one.  Twelve disciples; twelve tribes: twelve rulers to sit on twelve thrones.

Peter and Andrew, James and John – they were the foundation of the corps, and they were fishermen; not very polished in their presentation or accent, but rough diamonds in their own way.  Peter was impetuous – he made me cringe on many occasions with his words, uttered so quickly without careful thought.  Andrew was a giver: he was only ever a leader if he could only help others by leading.  A wonderful servant of all – it wasn’t hard to appreciate that characteristic.  James and John were sons of thunder indeed, as Jesus’ pet name for them suggested.  Right is right and wrong is wrong, but Jesus was more for live and let live, and I agreed.  James and John always seemed to want the destructive miracles from the scriptures of old, rather than the more constructive miracles Jesus practiced.  At times, it was difficult to keep them on the same path as Jesus, but I was able to help calm them down on several occasions before they led us all into trouble.  Jesus seemed to appreciate that help – maybe that was what he chose me for.

A zealot – even a reformed zealot – is a difficult player to have on a team.  I wondered why Jesus chose him, too.  There was no doubting his enthusiasm or his genuine love for the law of God, but a zealot is a zealot, after all.  Knives in cloaks were their style and Jesus was never like that.  So why?  I was grudgingly forced to admit that he seemed to fit in well with the group, and he certainly helped when there were questions as to whether God’s message was really as serious as Jesus suggested.  Simon had no doubts and argued his point very strongly – he championed the cause of law and argued that following God was the only important thing in life.  I think he went a little too far at times, but he was a great help in showing just how serious godliness is in life.

The others were all an amazing mix too.  Common, unrefined, uneducated and unsophisticated; but marvellously genuine, determined and faithful men.  There were some with a bit more education and influence, though, like Matthew; and around him is built the story that led me to my doom.

Matthew had been a tax collector.  He was used to handling money.  Large amounts of money.  I knew him before he became a follower of Jesus and used to envy him his easy lifestyle and his favour with the Romans which could smooth many of the waves on life’s uneven sea.  Back then, Matthew lived in a nice house with a nice wife and had lots of friends.  True, they were mostly people like himself, but the uppishness of the religious Jews and their lofty disdain for his dealings with the Romans didn’t affect his comfortable lifestyle much.  But Matthew always seemed a little ill at ease with his life at that time; uncomfortable with the company he kept and unsure about how God would view him.  Then he heard of Jesus and started to pick up his teachings, and appeared to become even more uncomfortable with his life.  When Jesus went to him and called him, he made up his mind at once and grabbed the opportunity as if it were a bigger bag of gold than he had ever seen before.  It was an incredibly courageous choice that he made that day, and he never looked back.  I almost felt jealous of him when I saw his certainty.

But I, I had never dabbled with the Romans, never wandered from my clear understanding of the wonder of God’s holy law and the obvious benefits that following it conveyed, both spiritual and intellectual.  Matthew was repentant, but surely it was better never to have had such a blemish on one’s record?  I had kept myself from such sin.

We were quite a large group and needed someone to look after the money bag to make sure that it was kept safe and the money was all spent as it should be.  For some reason, Matthew had announced that he didn’t want the job at all.  Out of all the rest, I was given the job – an important position of trust and responsibility.  Nobody argued that I was the wrong man for the job.

I didn’t know it then, but that was the beginning of the end for me.  At first, the work seemed a difficult but worthwhile task.  People would listen to Jesus’ preaching and answer his call to seek first the kingdom of God[1].  Jesus spoke about the choice between serving money and serving God[2], and said that no-one could be his disciple unless they were willing to sell or renounce all of their goods[3].  Of course, all of us twelve had already left everything we had to follow Jesus[4], so we knew we had that part under control, but lots of his other followers were rich and tended to feel a bit guilty when they looked at us.

Not many people realised this, but looking after the money for Jesus was a big job.  If Jesus had been a different sort of person, he could have easily been rich just from his preaching.  But Jesus wasn’t like that – and nor was I, at the start.  People gave so much money that it was amazing.  Obviously a lot of people had a lot more money that I had ever had!  And I had to arrange to dispose of it all.  Poor people everywhere got to know me as their benefactor.  Widows and their fatherless children welcomed me into their homes and looked to me for sustenance.  It was a wonderful feeling.  I knew that God’s law was being satisfied, and there was even the feeling that I was helping the givers a little, taking away a temptation that could lead them away from the kingdom of God.

What I didn’t learn soon enough was that any grand gesture we make, any big step we take towards godliness, any temptation we overcome – none of them end there.  Grand gestures can often be cancelled, steps towards godliness have to be taken every day, and temptation always returns.

I had left my home; given up the little money I had; left everything to follow Jesus.  But now I had the opportunity to get something back – easily and invisibly.  The money bag was mine, and once everyone was sure that I was doing the job reliably, nobody ever checked on me.  Nobody.

As a man who kept the law in all things, I fought this temptation when it first came to me, just as a passing thought, pushed away immediately.  But then there was the day when I visited the home of an old man, very poor and all alone in the world.  Giving some money to him was my last job of the day, and I was looking forward to going back to the others and having a rest.  No-one answered the door and it took some time to find anyone who knew the man, but finally I found out the bad news: he had died just two days before and been buried immediately.  Since the money would be no use to him anymore, I kept it.

Looking back, it is easy to see just how I failed the test that day.  My policy was that all of the money earmarked for the poor should be distributed on the day it was received – I always knew that we might be betrayed to the chief priests or the Romans at any time, and I didn’t want them to get any extra money if they did catch us.  If somebody had asked me about it then, I probably would have stepped back from the precipice, but they didn’t.

And that was the start of the end.

I built a wall in my mind – a wall that I never looked over and never asked questions about.  On one side of the wall, I was Jesus’ faithful disciple.  On the other side of the wall, I started to collect money for myself.  The other disciples didn’t ask and were really rather naive about it all.  Surely someone must have realised that a bottomless, uncounted bag of money could be a temptation?

Over time, I collected money and hid it carefully.  But money without anything to use it for is not very satisfying.  I had no need of money at all – as Jesus’ disciples, people always looked after us and we were never short of anything we needed.  Even when Jesus sent us out in pairs, Simon and I never had any shortage.  One way and another everything just worked – but I’m mixing up the order in this story, because that was before I started collecting a little on the side.  Anyway, the point is that money sitting in a jar doesn’t give much satisfaction, and I started to see things I could use the money for.  It had to be done carefully, because the only time I had a chance to use it was when I was meant to be going out and helping the poor.  And not only that, but I had to keep helping the poor anyway or the truth would be sure to come out.  But a small percentage could go missing and nobody would ever notice – not even Jesus, as far as I could tell.

That was one of the things that made me begin to question Jesus and his power.

[1] Matthew 6:33
[2] Matthew 6:24
[3] Luke 12:33-34; 14:33
[4] Matthew 19:27; Mark 10:28