Judas kisses Jesus on the cheek to betray him. Jesus replies, “Friend, do what you have come for.”
Judas is betraying Christ and Christ calls him “friend.”

Turn around Judas. There is still time. Jesus loves you. You don’t have to make a terrible mistake.
After Jesus’ condemnation, Judas is seized with remorse and returns the 30 silver coins, “I have sinned in betraying innocent blood.” “What is that to us? Look to it yourself.”

We simply can’t know what moved Judas to betray Christ. Judas made a bad choice and he paid for his bad choice.

Have you ever met someone named Judas? Have you ever called someone a “Judas”? Judas made a bad choice and he paid for that choice, just as you and I pay for our bad choices. Sometimes a bad choice will cost you money or your reputation or your family or an innocent life. Be very careful about your choices.

Judas could have made amends for his bad choice; instead, he compounded his mistake by taking his own life. When Judas realized what he had done in betraying Jesus, he tried to undo it, but, by then it was too late. It didn’t have to end that way.

People make bad choices and then they compound those choices with other bad choices. They refuse to ask forgiveness from those they have hurt. They shut themselves off from those who love them. Sometimes they keep making that same bad choice for so long that it comes to define them and becomes hard to turn back. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Jesus came to reach out to people who have made bad choices, reaching out with his nail-pierced hands of forgiveness.

Look at the crucifix and ask his forgiveness for your bad choices, for your sins. That is why he is there — not for himself, but for you.

The following poem reveals the raw faith and deep love that what Jesus did on the cross is not easy, but always a mystery.

“But, Lord,” I complained,

“This cross is too heavy, too awkward,

It protrudes in the front, it drags in the back,

It slips off the side, it just does not fit,

Lord, it cannot be for me!”

“Ah, gently,” says He. “It is not the cross that needs altering,

It is your way of carrying it.”

And stooping down ever so graciously,

He, the Connoisseur of Crosses, and cross-bearing,

Adjusted mine, straightened my shoulders,

Beckoned me to look up and smile,

To carry it with dignity, if not with love,

For I was following in a great tradition.