Dave Canovas
In recent days, I’ve drifted—perhaps unconsciously—into the psyche of Judas. Perhaps unknowingly, in my search for something to reflect on this Lent, I was drawn into the mind of another—one not unlike our own: vulnerable, pragmatic, and conflicted.
On the night before the Passover feast, as darkness gathered, Jesus was arrested—and it was then, as Luke tells us, that Satan entered Judas.
I have often wondered why Judas did what he did—why he betrayed Jesus. His name endures through time; his name synonymous to treachery. Yet, according to Matthew’s account, when he realised the weight of what he had set in motion—that Jesus was to be crucified—he tried to return the silver he had received and then took his own life.
Was he torn by his anguish? This wondering led me to Paul Claudel’s work The Death of Judas, where the playwright dares to enter Judas’s mind. Claudel imagines the chaos within him—not merely the act of betrayal, but the inner fracture of a man shaped by reason and pragmatism, suddenly immersed in three years of radical teachings, divine mystery, and the immeasurable grace of Jesus. Judas, in Claudel’s telling, is not simply a villain but a soul at war with itself.
In contemplating Judas, I’ve begun to see fragments of him in ourselves—in our doubts, our compromises, our quiet betrayals. Though John names him as the keeper of the moneybag who sometimes took from it (John 12:4–6), I can’t help but think: he once believed for how else could he have abandoned all to walk in the dust of a rabbi, to share in miracles, to sit at the same table of grace?
Judas walked with Jesus. He ate at His table, shared in His laughter, prayed in His presence, and listened to His voice. He was close—physically, spiritually—yet despite this sacred proximity, Satan found a foothold in his mind and slowly corroded his soul.
The weight of betrayal—of sinning against the very One who called him friend, the Lover of his soul—must have been unbearable. The guilt, gnawing and relentless, eventually consumed him. In that anguish, Judas succumbed to the enemy’s whisperings. We, too, have faced that battle. The heaviness. The numbness. The slow erosion of hope. It is not easy.
Yet I believe that to gaze through Judas’s eyes—to truly behold his torment—is not to glorify despair, but to witness the cost of turning away from grace. There is redemption even in this gaze. We are not meant to remain chained to our guilt. Christ calls us not to dwell forever in our darkness, but to rise, again and again, into light—into forgiveness, into healing.
If Judas’s story tells us of the tragedy of despair, it also reminds us of the urgency of grace through prayer. We are not beyond redemption. Even in our deepest guilt, Christ calls us not to end our stories in darkness, but to step back into His redeeming light.
Guarding Your Heart and Mind 