The Kiss of Betrayal

"...Iesous said unto him, 'Iouda (Judas), betrayest thou the Son of Man with a kiss?"  Luke 22:48

The Iesous has continued the upper room experience on the Mount of Olives. There is an unbroken continuity between the events of the upper room and the agonizing prayer vigil.  Here in the garden, his impeccable and sinless person enters into the terror of the unspeakable.  Indeed, the text clearly expresses the intensity of his mindset.  He was in 'agony' a word that means combat.  He was in an intense spiritual battle that claimed his entire being.

The reality of the cross could be explained to no one.  His prefect neurons, his soul that did not know the intrinsic power of sin-missing the mark of righteousness had produced the physiological reaction of sweat and blood as powerful witness of the internal struggle that consumed his being.  After he concluded his great prayer vigil the passion door is swung open wide, and the feet of treachery step forth emboldened by the temple police and the purse of mammon at his side.

Judas drew near to the Iesous and kissed him.  Betrayal is always filled with contradiction.  Both the act of betrayal and the actions subsequent the discovery of betrayal are convoluted.  Betrayal is a lie with a thin cloak.  At some point in the past, someone said yes to a sinister design to solicit ruin for an unsuspecting individual or party.  As with Judas the one who decided to become a companion to barbarous intent  was seemingly close to you or intimate in some manner.

Judas walked with the Iesous for over two years, and he had heard his words, and had witnessed his deeds of power.  But the mind forged shackles of betrayal that forged upon the silent anvil of acrimony and selfishness. It is the kiss that seals the completeness of treachery.  The kiss of betrayal reveals the split in the heart of the betrayer.  The betrayer keeps up the outer form of the relationship while knowing that he or she has destroyed the soul thereof.

It is their own self-deception and self-dissolved ways that renders them unaware that their behavior before the actual discovery of the act of betrayal had already exposed their malevolence.  

Have you, perhaps, been victimized by betrayal?  Are you still trying to make sense of the kiss of the betrayal?  You wanted to believe that the betrayal was not so bad because after all there was the kiss.  But the kiss was merely formal. It was icy because it was devoid of real love.  Iesous knew that the kiss of Judas was empty, and that it was used to point him out to the temple authorities.

To this day you believe that the loved ones who betrayed you loved you.  They used you in some manner, but kissed you, for your sacrifice.  But you find that when they could no longer use you they abandoned you, and you could not move on in life.

Beloved do not let the kiss of betrayal cut off your life any longer. Bring all of your cares to God, for he does love you and will never abandon you.  The love of God can and will heal the wounds left by the kiss of betrayal.

Blessings to you.

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