In the many depictions of Judas’s kiss in the Garden of Gethsemane – including Giotto’s 1304 fresco in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, above – both Judas and the other disciples’ faces are individualized, as are the faces of the centurions.
In a 1913 lecture Rudolf Steiner touched upon the mystery behind this strange action by Judas:
Slowly and gradually the Christ-being united with the three bodies of Jesus. It took three years. . . Then the Christ-being bound himself more and more to the body of Jesus of Nazareth. Later, when Christ was with the circle of his closest disciples, they were so intimately united with him that he was never separated from them. The more he lived into his body, the more he lived in the inner being of his disciples. . . He would speak through one of them, then through another disciple of the inner group, so that as they went about the land it was no longer only Christ Jesus who spoke, but one of the disciples; but Christ spoke through them. He lived in the disciples with such power that the facial expressions of a disciple through whom Christ spoke changed so much that the people who heard him had the feeling that he was the master.
From the Akashic Record Rudolf Steiner could clearly see that the disciples’s faces became identical with Christ Jesus’s! Judith von Halle also has written of this as the real reason behind Judas’s kiss – as a sign to the centurions to distinguish Jesus from His disciples, whose faces had come to resemble their Master’s.
Anne Catherine Emmerich never remarks on this, conveying in her account a fairly conventional portrait of Judas’s deed:
Around midnight Judas arrived at the Garden of Gethsemane, accompanied by twenty soldiers and six officials. Judas went up to Jesus and kissed him, saying: “Hail, Master!” Jesus replied: “Judas, would you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?” (Luke 22:47–48). Now, at the beginning of his act of treason Judas had really never considered what its result would be. He wanted to obtain the traitor’s reward and please the Pharisees by pretending to deliver Jesus into their hands, but he had never counted on things going so far, he never dreamed of Jesus being brought to judgment and crucified. He was thinking only of the money, and had for a long time been in communication with some sneaking, spying Pharisees and Sadducees who by flattery had incited him to treason.
Judas had grown tired of the fatiguing, wandering, persecuted life led by the apostles. Several months past he had begun his downward course by stealing from the alms committed to his care; and his avarice, excited by Magdalene’s lavish anointing of Jesus, urged him on to extremes. He had always counted upon Jesus establishing a temporal kingdom, in which he hoped for some brilliant and lucrative post. But as this was not forthcoming, he turned his thoughts to amassing a fortune. He saw that hardships and persecution were on the increase; and so, he reasoned, before things came to the worst, he would ingratiate himself with some of the powerful and distinguished among Jesus’s enemies. He saw that Jesus would not become a king, whereas the high priests and prominent men of the temple were people very attractive in his eyes. And so he allowed himself to be drawn into closer communication with their agents, who flattered him in every way and told him in the greatest confidence that under any circumstances an end would soon be put to Jesus’s career. During the last few days they followed him to Bethany, and thus did he sink deeper and deeper into depravity.
Full of Magdalene–worthy compassion through every step of the Passion, Estelle Isaacson has immense empathy for Judas:
Judas gave the promised sign. He moved slowly forward and kissed Jesus gently on the cheek, indicating thereby that this was indeed the one they sought.
At that moment I understood that this kiss was the most significant kiss of all time. It was more than a kiss of betrayal, for it was a kiss also of genuine esteem, even of reverence, arising in the midst of the greatest evil. Judas did not at this time grasp that the high priest and his cohorts had deceived him. He thought he was saving Jesus from a worse fate and opening to him a possibility for his work to continue in a different way, in what he thought a better way.
In Estelle’s estimation, every single one of Judas’s deeds of betrayal are a profound sacrifice. Her kindhearted view of Judas allows her to perceive subtle changes in him as the fated events unfold:
When Judas kissed Jesus, he became aware spiritually of the true crown upon the Lord’s head—but it was a most fleeting impression. He thought, Ah! He is indeed a King! . . .
When Judas made contact with Christ through his kiss, he came to know inwardly that he was the True King. Yes, through that kiss direct witness of Christ’s divine kingship entered into the soul of Judas. I saw that at a future time Judas would come to truly recognize Christ’s divinity.
As so often happens in Estelle’s visionary labors, her heart seems to unite with the heart of those whom she is observing:
At this point in the vision I so empathized with the predicament of Judas that I grieved as if my heart would break. I felt it splitting open. I was consumed with distress over Judas. I said over and over, Poor Judas! Poor Judas! He had to fall so hard! So much harder than the rest of us! Poor Judas!
Estelle Isaacson senses even that Judas’s deed of sacrifice is – like Magdalene’s many deeds in service to her beloved Jesus – enabled only by the strength that he has gathered from previous lifetimes:
Had Judas not gathered truly colossal forces during earlier incarnations, never would he have been able to consummate this betrayal.
Fully recognizing the kiss as a “kiss of destiny,” Estelle is given the grace to witness in vision and comprehend in her capacious heart the penultimate event on this eve of the Passion:
Judas turned his back upon the Lord. And as he did so, a spiritual chasm opened between them. I saw Christ Jesus on one side in purest light, while on the other Judas teetered at the brink. It appeared that he was worlds away from Christ Jesus. A valley of darkness separated them— the great fissure between good and evil.
The countenance of Judas darkened as evil forces overtook him. How can I describe the state of his heart in that moment? I doubt any other has ever felt what Judas then felt.
Each of us, in our own consent to betray the Lord, can in some way feel what Judas felt. But would any us have had sufficient fortitude to withstand what took place in the soul of Judas?
We have read these posts loud , nice way to celebrate Easter. Enjoying these images too!
Thanks a lot Kevin, Natalia and Markku
Thank you so much Kevin… your insights are supporting me in the experience of Christ’s passion.