Judas?

I wonder if Judas was so attached to Jesus that he betrayed him.

I wonder if he took the thirty pieces of silver and added them to the treasury with a thrill of victory over the Pharisees.

He had seen Jesus slip through the crowd and elude their grasp more than once, hadn't he?  Jesus had answered their questions meant to trap with a trap of his own too many times to count.

Jesus was the promised Messiah, the King of Israel.  He had cast out demons, legions of them, with a word.  And hadn't he said the Pharisees were the children of the devil?

He had raised Lazarus from the dead and healed rich and poor, men and women and children, Israelites and foreigners.  He had walked on water, risen above their hate and above pain, failure, weakness and imperfection. 

He had come to save Israel, to save Judas.

I wonder if, when Jesus brought up his death, Judas had slipped out to do something he had 'just remembered' or 'had to take care of before dark'.  I wonder if he sat at the back and balanced the books during those grievous conversations with his disciples.

I wonder if Judas' love for Jesus was one that desperately needed Jesus to win, to be victorious, maybe vengeful.  I wonder if he needed Jesus to be strong so badly that he couldn't, didn't hear Jesus preparing his disciples for what he was going to do next.

Did Judas even realize that he was betraying Jesus to his death?  Or was he convinced that Jesus would triumph over this threat and set in motion the redemption of Israel, perhaps starting his offense with this brazen confrontation led by Judas?

What was the betrayal anyway?  It's not like Jesus was undercover and Judas ripped of his fake beard to reveal his true anglo-saxon identity, or even that Jesus was holed up in the hills somewhere like David, and Judas gave the Pharisees a map to his precise location.  Was he so sure of Jesus' plan, that like the Pharisees, he denied the sovereignty of God and in that way crossed over to their side?

Sometimes we need something to happen a certain way for ourselves so badly that we can't see or hear another way it could go.  How do you process that someone so amazing, divine and so dear might let them kill him?  What if you think you might have been devoted to a loser?

I think about Judas in that field, slinging the rope over a branch. 

I wonder if he knew when he got up from the table that night that his name would go down in history as the worst traitor of all time. 

Maybe he couldn't trust or believe in a love that walked straight into pain and weakness to accomplish its purpose.  I wonder if his need for his Saviour to be the hero controlled him so much that he couldn't let Jesus do it his way.