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It’s an old argument, more borne of convention at this point. A song and dance that they sing like lesser hymns.
“If you truly are the son of God, you cannot tangle yourself in earthy things like this.” Judas frowns. He’d prefer to issue a sort of warning without actually saying anything at all.
“And what may count for an earthly thing?” Jesus says, mirth seeping into his words. He’s been in a good mood today, though he hardly is ever found in any sort of unshakable gloom.
“I am a mortal man. Should be reason enough for this to never stray into—“ he hesitates, unsure how to continue.
What is a man to a Messiah? What is a man to a prophet? Jesus knows not what his actions may do in Judea. What may follow the rebellion he is inciting. Danger follows him, like a lamb does a Shepherd.
A rational man would give this all up, leave this prophet of all prophets to proselytize himself sick, and have no part in any of it. A rational man would never converse with, nor think of this odd man again.
But he can’t help himself. He can’t resist the pushing and prodding to see if one day there will be even a moment when he cracks. That’s why he stays. One day. One day he’ll say something so heretic that Jesus will cut all ties for him. It’s awful obsession. It’s a rotten habit. It’s very hopefully not desire.
“May I ask a question?” He says, watching as Jesus lifts a cracked pitcher, pouring water into two clay mugs.
“Of course, you know you never need to ask.”
“I simply say it to be cautionary. I wouldn’t presume you’d want to answer. It’s that of a… personal nature.” He suppresses a smile, knowing that this is a genre of question the other man cannot resist in offering guidance.
“Please feel at ease to speak honestly.” He replies warmly, eyes flickering with poorly masked curiosity.
“What would you do if I– had a lapse in faith of sorts?”
He crosses the room with a shake of his head, passing one of the mugs over, “I would forgive you,” He replies simply, and the softness of his words makes Judas seethe, teeth buzzing with pressure, “The possibility of doubt is what gives faith substance.”
“Yes but— absolvement cannot be absolute,” The words slip out of his mouth like ice skimming across a sheet of glass, sinewy and wet.
“—Surely it must have some end,” he continues.
He replies instead to the unspoken question, “I love you Judas. There’s nothing you could do to change that.”
Seventy-five miles away a wall crumbles into brittle ash as the worn footfalls of Pontius Pilate’s army crush it into dust. Plumes of desert sand are kicked into the arid breeze. Jesus sees flickers of his father, a voice shrouded in shadows unseen— whispering that it’s nearly time.
“You don’t love me,” He feels like a child, with tear-filled eyes, borne of anger and spite. Spite at this man for nothing but his unrelenting affection poured into him like the sun spilling light into the sea. Boundlessly overflowing and yet never filled. When he thinks of Jesus in private, self-indulgent moments; he thinks of a knife driving into a wound and the wound coming away clean, devoid of even a speck of blood. Ruination. He needs to stay away from him, this crimson sin stirred into a recipe a few lifetimes too late for salvation.
“I cannot change in this Judas. My care for you endures. There are no conditions.”
He looks at Jesus. Maybe it’s the first time he ever will. Maybe he’s always been looking at him— or looking for him, in every crowded room and dusted street. His own lifted heel is now approaching the earth. In this room, the dull clay walls seem to contrast with the sheen of sweat on his skin. In this light, he’s nearly out of place, like a king in a marshland. In this light, he nearly glows.
“I don’t want your love.”
“But still, you have it.”
Judas frowns at him. Thinks of raking his nails bloody through the warm clay mug and smearing it harshly along the curves of his face. Something to tarnish him. Anything to bring him toward mortality. Something closer to here. To him.
But he is weak. He is made of whatever man is made of. Flesh, earthy sin, sometimes feeble hope. He kneels in front of Jesus, face cupped in his hands. It’s the surrender before the surrender. It’s an omission.
So, he confesses.
“I have done something you will not forgive me for. I fear that it all has spiraled out of my control.”
Frustratingly, Jesus does not say anything. Instead, he pulls Judas closer so that his head lies in his lap, hand resting atop Judas’s temple.
“I have betrayed you.”
Seventy miles southward, cavalrymen stamp hoofprints into the worn desert floor. A carpenter begins to cut slabs of wood that will soon be wet with sacrifice. In the tree outside, two birds sing a love song in tandem, unknowing that they will be slaughtered by a roaming fox this very night. Silver coins clink together in a pouch in the same cadence as bodies hitting the ground.
“I know Judas.”
He cannot. There is no reason to confess to those who already know the confession. If he knows of what’s to come he should not react like this. The stillness, the calm. Jesus cannot be compliant in this deed. There is no sense in it.
“I don’t understand.”
“You have already been forgiven.”
Maybe Jesus is thinking of some other mistake he could commit. Surely he cannot allow this. This is not friendship, It’s apostasy.
So, a final confession tumbles out of him.
“They will kill you. Everything is already in motion. They— it’s too late— I didn’t—” He feels hysterical, the words falling out of him as if they had been dagger-sliced out.
Jesus doesn’t look surprised, he only pulls Judas to his feet. They are at eye-line, looking at each other, but somehow Judas now knows that Jesus has been looking past him. Far into the future the way only prophets seem to do.
Jesus presses a kiss to his forehead, the back of his hand, his left cheek. Each touch burns like a cattle brand. Each touch he knows will be one of the last. He’s hollowed out, gone. Ripped from the present moment in future grief. This man has carved and uncarved him. The fibers that spun him, now unspun.
“I’ve known of God’s will, Judas. There was no other path but this.”
“You could leave now. There may still be time.” He feels the plea tug on him with unsubtle desperation. Maybe if it is said aloud it can come true. Speaking a wish into the furious night.
“I can not.”
“Then you are a fool,” he snaps, losing whatever feeble thread of composure he was clinging to.
Jesus meets his eyes, tilting his head in a way that makes him look much younger than his thirty-three years, “There are some things we are not meant to run from. I lay down my life of my own accord.”
The hour is late, far later than either of them intended to stay up– too late for these pithy confessions of apology and regret. With the wolf having been satisfied, the birdsong will be dampened in the early morn, ushering in the solemn spirit. People will soon spill into the streets as curious witnesses.
Judas turns to leave, lingering for one indulgent moment and then another. The air is stale and tired. There’s not much to say that isn’t laced with anticipatory bleak tragedy.
He looks to Jesus, tries to memorize every detail of his body, his clothes, his expression: a familiar soft smile, and knowing eyes. He’s confident he’ll confuse the details when he looks back on this time. He’ll want him to have been tense and upset. Fists clenched. Resentful. It’s easier to imagine a retaliatory pose. Like most unreliable memories, he’ll haunt him wearing a new expression every time.
He cannot bear the moment any longer. He steps out, closing the door, the hot air outside rushes to meet him, enveloping his body in blushing warmth. He has the strange sensation that it won’t be the last time he does this tonight. Or maybe he’s already done this once before?
The moment echoes in and out of time like a smooth rock skipping along an endless lake. A cruciform nail dips into the water and comes away clotted red. The shouting and clamor in the city sounds far away, now strangely bell-like and saccharine. Time extends past itself, folding and folding until it collapses. The man with pierced hands holds a basket and collects vaticinations, plucking them like apples from a tree of neverending apologies. In it, he sees the fragments of a loved one, and despite knowing everything… He smiles.