friend

What a hard lesson this chapter uncovers... Love does not conquer all, no matter what I've been told. (At least not in the way I'd like to imagine.) And the word friend has many meanings, many undisclosed meanings. "A friend is someone who likes you." was a slogan a few years ago. Not necessarily so. A friend is someone you can trust to tell you the truth as they perceive it and then walk away. To love you so deeply that the outcome of your hearing that truth doesn't matter. Their job was to speak it, not force it upon you.

The story of Judas has always been an enigma to me. What was his motivation? Was he trying to force Jesus' hand... to bring the Kingdom (the one he expected) into being? If so, he hadn't been listening close enough to what Jesus was really saying. On the other hand, what if the Gospel of Judas has some truth to it, and Jesus needed a betrayer? And Judas was the only one he could trust? What kind of friend is required for such a plot?

I will not know the answers to such questions until it doesn't matter anymore. What irony.