Just Before the Crucifixion

186:1.1It was about half past eight o’clock this Fri­day morn­ing when the hear­ing of Je­sus be­fore Pi­late was ended and the Mas­ter was placed in the cus­tody of the Ro­man sol­diers who were to cru­cify him. As soon as the Ro­mans took pos­ses­sion of Je­sus, the cap­tain of the Jew­ish guards marched with his men back to their tem­ple head­quar­ters. The chief priest and his San­hedrist as­so­ciates fol­lowed close be­hind the guards, go­ing di­rectly to their usual meet­ing place in the hall of hewn stone in the tem­ple. Here they found many other mem­bers of the San­hedrin wait­ing to learn what had been done with Je­sus. As Cai­a­phas was en­gaged in mak­ing his re­port to the San­hedrin re­gard­ing the trial and con­dem­na­tion of Je­sus, Ju­das ap­peared be­fore them to claim his re­ward for the part he had played in his Mas­ter’s ar­rest and sen­tence of death.

186:1.2All of these Jews loathed Ju­das; they looked upon the be­trayer with only feel­ings of ut­ter con­tempt. Through­out the trial of Je­sus be­fore Cai­a­phas and dur­ing his ap­pear­ance be­fore Pi­late, Ju­das was pricked in his con­science about his traitorous con­duct. And he was also be­gin­ning to be­come some­what dis­il­lu­sioned re­gard­ing the re­ward he was to re­ceive as pay­ment for his ser­vices as Je­sus’ be­trayer. He did not like the cool­ness and aloof­ness of the Jew­ish au­thor­i­ties; nev­er­the­less, he ex­pected to be lib­er­ally re­warded for his cow­ardly con­duct. He an­tic­i­pated be­ing called be­fore the full meet­ing of the San­hedrin and there hear­ing him­self eu­lo­gized while they con­ferred upon him suit­able hon­ors in to­ken of the great ser­vice which he flat­tered him­self he had ren­dered his na­tion. Imag­ine, there­fore, the great sur­prise of this ego­tis­tic traitor when a ser­vant of the high priest, tap­ping him on the shoul­der, called him just out­side the hall and said: “Ju­das, I have been ap­pointed to pay you for the be­trayal of Je­sus. Here is your re­ward.” And thus speak­ing, the ser­vant of Cai­a­phas handed Ju­das a bag con­tain­ing thirty pieces of sil­ver—the cur­rent price of a good, healthy slave.

186:1.3Ju­das was stunned, dum­founded. He rushed back to en­ter the hall but was de­barred by the door­keeper. He wanted to ap­peal to the San­hedrin, but they would not ad­mit him. Ju­das could not be­lieve that these rulers of the Jews would al­low him to be­tray his friends and his Mas­ter and then of­fer him as a re­ward thirty pieces of sil­ver. He was hu­mil­i­ated, dis­il­lu­sioned, and ut­terly crushed. He walked away from the tem­ple, as it were, in a trance. He au­to­mat­i­cally dropped the money bag in his deep pocket, that same pocket wherein he had so long car­ried the bag con­tain­ing the apos­tolic funds. And he wan­dered out through the city af­ter the crowds who were on their way to wit­ness the cru­ci­fix­ions.

186:1.4From a dis­tance Ju­das saw them raise the cross piece with Je­sus nailed thereon, and upon sight of this he rushed back to the tem­ple and, forc­ing his way past the door­keeper, found him­self stand­ing in the pres­ence of the San­hedrin, which was still in ses­sion. The be­trayer was well-nigh breath­less and highly dis­traught, but he man­aged to stam­mer out these words: “I have sinned in that I have be­trayed in­no­cent blood. You have in­sulted me. You have of­fered me as a re­ward for my ser­vice, money—the price of a slave. I re­pent that I have done this; here is your money. I want to es­cape the guilt of this deed.”

186:1.5When the rulers of the Jews heard Ju­das, they scoffed at him. One of them sit­ting near where Ju­das stood, mo­tioned that he should leave the hall and said: “Your Mas­ter has al­ready been put to death by the Ro­mans, and as for your guilt, what is that to us? See you to that—and be­gone!”

186:1.6As Ju­das left the San­hedrin cham­ber, he re­moved the thirty pieces of sil­ver from the bag and threw them broad­cast over the tem­ple floor. When the be­trayer left the tem­ple, he was al­most be­side him­self. Ju­das was now pass­ing through the ex­pe­ri­ence of the re­al­iza­tion of the true na­ture of sin. All the glamor, fas­ci­na­tion, and in­tox­i­ca­tion of wrong­do­ing had van­ished. Now the evil­doer stood alone and face to face with the judg­ment ver­dict of his dis­il­lu­sioned and dis­ap­pointed soul. Sin was be­witch­ing and ad­ven­tur­ous in the com­mit­ting, but now must the har­vest of the naked and un­ro­man­tic facts be faced.

186:1.7This one­time am­bas­sador of the king­dom of heaven on earth now walked through the streets of Je­ru­sa­lem, for­saken and alone. His de­spair was des­per­ate and well-nigh ab­so­lute. On he jour­neyed through the city and out­side the walls, on down into the ter­ri­ble soli­tude of the val­ley of Hin­nom, where he climbed up the steep rocks and, tak­ing the gir­dle of his cloak, fas­tened one end to a small tree, tied the other about his neck, and cast him­self over the precipice. Ere he was dead, the knot which his ner­vous hands had tied gave way, and the be­trayer’s body was dashed to pieces as it fell on the jagged rocks be­low.