Messages 2002

Why Judas betrayed Jesus.

November 16th, 2002

Received by H.

Cuenca, Ecuador.

I am very sorry that yesterday I had to interrupt our contact, but I felt that it would not give good results. Our rapport was not good.

Yes, I know that you saw the woman (Note 2) and that the vision appeared to be pretty clear, however, the conditions for message transmission did not satisfy me. I will try again. I want to communicate once again a little bit on the circumstances that prompted me to commit the treason that would lead to Jesus’ violent death.

The woman you saw was Miriam, the wife of Simon the Leper. I call him so, because this is the name under which he appears in the Bible. You know already that Simon actually was never a leper, he had never suffered from this disease, hence, Jesus never cured him from this disease. Simon was a wealthy man who lived in Bethany.

You also know that Bethany was “Jesus’ town” in Judea. During all his visits to Jerusalem, the Master stayed in this town, that is, in the home of his great friend Lazarus. On this occasion, however, Jesus would return from Jerusalem, where he was on one of his daily excursions, to Simon’s home, in order to attend a formal dinner to which his friend had invited him.

Simon was a very good man. Worried about the Master’s safety and the tensions between the ruling class of Jerusalem and Jesus, he had arranged a dinner where several members of the Sanhedrin would attend, giving them the opportunity to become acquainted with the Master, to exchange opinions, and thus to reduce the existing tensions. Simon reasoned that many of Jesus’ enemies did not actually know him, and that a dialogue between the parties could improve the situation.

Finally, a short time before night fall, Jesus returned with us from Jerusalem. We entered Simon’s home, where the owner of the house was already talking with his other guests. Simon welcomed us and asked us to move to the long table, where rich hors doeuvres were already awaiting us. He took Jesus by his arm and guided him to the place of honor, asking him to lie down there. When the members of the Sanhedrin saw this, they exchanged glances and frowned in disapproval. Of course, they thought that the place of honor should be theirs, being great masters of the Law and men of fame in Jerusalem. But they said nothing.

The women who accompanied Jesus did not approach the table. They used to eat with the men at the same table, and that was a freedom that Jesus permitted with much pleasure, but which was disapproved of by the great majority of the Jewish people. In order to not offend the other guests, Pharisee traditionalists, they had agreed not to take part in the dinner.

According to tradition, servants approached with towels and bowls of water to wash the hands and feet of the diners, but in Jesus’ case, it was not a servant but the mistress of the house, Miriam, who took care of this task, which in turn once again provoked the silent disapproval of the Pharisees.

Miriam, or Mary, Simon’s wife, however, had prepared another surprise. It was she whom you saw grinding things in the mortar — not spices, but fragrant resins and aromatic herbs, which she mixed with olive oil. We used to anoint our hair with olive oil, and she, in her great appreciation of the Master, had created a rich perfume from fresh ingredients, to honor Jesus in a special way. This was the drop which made the glass spill over.

“Is this the reason why you have invited us, to humiliate us in front of the Galilean?” the Pharisees complained to Simon. Simon blushed, unable to utter a word. The disciples also raised their voices, reproaching Miriam’s attitude. All the disciples, my dear friend, not only I. Only Jesus found words of comfort for Miriam, and he spoke in her defense. But it was too late. The atmosphere was already poisoned. We ate the dinner almost in silence that was hardly interrupted by a few exchanges of pungent words. When the meal was finished, the Pharisees got up, bowed their heads slightly to Simon and left without saying good-bye or thank you.

You can imagine how — after the exit of the guests from the Sanhedrin — all of us attacked the poor woman, burying her under a heap of reproaches. Jesus tried to defend her and to soothe Simon’s anger, but the poor woman ran off, with tears in her eyes.

Simon’s good intention — and of course, his wife’s gesture of love — ended in a catastrophe. Jesus’ opponents, whose hard-line stance should have been softened by this invitation, had interpreted it as an act of open provocation.

You know this story. The New Testament gives different accounts of the same. I want you to paste here Matthew’s version:

Back in Bethany, while Jesus was in the house of Simon the leper, a woman came to him with an alabaster flask of most expensive perfume, and poured it on his head as he was at table.

The disciples were indignant when they saw this, and said, “What is the point of such wicked waste? Couldn’t this perfume have been sold for a lot of money which could be given to the poor?”

Jesus knew what they were saying and spoke to them, “Why must you make this woman feel uncomfortable? She has done a beautiful thing for me. You have the poor with you always, but you will not always have me. When she poured this perfume on my body, she was preparing it for my burial. I assure you that wherever the gospel is preached throughout the whole world, what she has done will also be told, as her memorial to me.”

After this, one of the twelve, Judas Iscariot by name, approached the chief priests.

“What will you give me,” he said to them, “if I hand him over to you?” They settled with him for thirty silver coins, and from then on he looked for a convenient opportunity to betray Jesus.

Matthew 26:6-16

Mark paints the scene in very similar words. “A woman came,” they say. They do not mention who she was.

Now, write here John’s story:

Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, the village of Lazarus whom he had raised from the dead. They gave a supper for him there, and Martha waited on the party while Lazarus took his place at table with Jesus.

Then Mary took a whole pound of very expensive perfume, pure nard, and anointed Jesus’ feet and then wiped them with her hair. The entire house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot (the man who was going to betray Jesus), burst out, “Why on earth wasn’t this perfume sold? It’s worth thirty pounds, which could have been given to the poor!”

John 12:1-5

John confirms that the woman was Mary, Lazarus’ sister. Elsewhere in his gospel, he repeats this affirmation. (Note 3)

In Luke, a very similar story appears. Without defining exactly where this event took place, he writes: (Luke 7:36-39)

Then one of the Pharisees asked Jesus to a meal with him. When Jesus came into the house, he took his place at the table and a woman, known in the town as a bad character, found out that Jesus was there and brought an alabaster flask of perfume and stood behind him crying, letting her tears fall on his feet and then drying them with her hair. Then she kissed them and anointed them with the perfume.

When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were really a prophet, he would know who this woman is and what sort of a person is touching him. He would have realized that she is a bad woman.”

Luke does not reveal the name of the woman; hence, she has been identified with different people. The German seeress Emmerich gives the following account:

4.1.2.a. Magdalen repeats her anointing of Jesus

Full of trouble, Jesus went back with the Apostles to Bethania for the Sabbath. While He was teaching in the Temple, the Jews had been ordered to keep their houses closed, and it was forbidden to offer Him or His disciples any refreshment. On reaching Bethania, they went to the public house of Simon, the healed leper, where a meal awaited them. Magdalen, filled with compassion for Jesus fatiguing exertions, met the Lord at the door. She was habited in a penitential robe and girdle, her flowing hair concealed by a black veil. She cast herself at His feet and with her hair wiped from them the dust, just as one would clean the shoes of another. She did it openly before all, and many were scandalized at her conduct.

After Jesus and the disciples had prepared themselves for the Sabbath, that is, put on the garments prescribed and prayed under the lamp, they stretched themselves at table for the meal. Toward the end of it, Magdalen, urged by love, gratitude, contrition, and anxiety, again made her appearance. She went behind the Lords couch, broke a little flask of precious balm over His head and poured some of it upon His feet, which she again wiped with her hair. That done, she left the dining hall. Several of those present were scandalized, especially Judas, who excited Matthew, Thomas, and John Mark to displeasure. But Jesus excused her, on account of the love she bore Him. She often anointed Him in this way. Many of the facts mentioned only once in the Gospels happened frequently.

(Anne Catherline Emmerich: The Life of our Lord Jesus Christ, Book 4)

So, here it was Mary Magdalene who honored Jesus in this peculiar way, provoking a scandal. To do justice to the illiterate medium, I must tell you that it was the poet Clemens Brentano, who composed the books of the nun’s visions, taking the sick woman’s expressions as a rough guideline for his own version of the events.

In the Urantia Book, there is a version which follows more or less the gospel according to John:

172:1.4 The banquet went along in a very cheerful and normal manner except that all the apostles were unusually sober. Jesus was exceptionally cheerful and had been playing with the children up to the time of coming to the table.

172:1.5 Nothing out of the ordinary happened until near the close of the feasting when Mary the sister of Lazarus stepped forward from among the group of women onlookers and, going up to where Jesus reclined as the guest of honor, proceeded to open a large alabaster cruse of very rare and costly ointment; and after anointing the Master’s head, she began to pour it upon his feet as she took down her hair and wiped them with it. The whole house became filled with the odor of the ointment, and everybody present was amazed at what Mary had done. Lazarus said nothing, but when some of the people murmured, showing indignation that so costly an ointment should be thus used, Judas Iscariot stepped over to where Andrew reclined and said: “Why was this ointment not sold and the money bestowed to feed the poor? You should speak to the Master that he rebuke such waste.”

(The Urantia Book)

You could read hundreds of channelings on this event, and you would find the most different of versions. But almost all of them have something in common: The “squandering” of the perfume would provoke my wrath, prompting me to head for Jerusalem in order to finish the “deal” of my treason. This is wrong. I did not betray Jesus because somebody had wasted money (it was not even Jesus who did this). I did not betray him because he had reproached us. This was not the first time he did so. The reasons for my treason are clear, and I have explained them in the past. (Note 4)

In concluding this message I want to repeat once again that I did not commit this crime because God had commanded me to do so. This is nonsense. It was my personal decision. “May Your kingdom come, and Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” So we prayed, yes, “may Your will be done”, but what I did was “my will.”

I am content with the way you received this message. I wish you a happy day, and may God bless you always.

Judas

Note 1. The background to this message is that a medium, not directly associated with our circles, apparently received a message from Judas. This message was not recorded, but the essence of it was that Judas had been chosen by God to betray Jesus, that Judas knew this, and chose to do Father’s will. We found this inconceivable, that Father would ever put one of his beloved creations in the situation that Judas ended up in - leading to Jesus’s death, and being thoroughly despised by billions of Christians.

Note 2 I saw a woman of approximately 50 years of age. A sky-blue handkerchief covered her hair. The woman was grinding something in a stone mortar. I supposed that she was milling spices in order to prepare a meal.

Note 3 Now there was a man by the name of Lazarus who became seriously ill. He lived in Bethany, the village where Mary and her sister Martha lived. (Lazarus was the brother of the Mary who poured perfume upon the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.)

John 11:1-2

Note 4 Why Judas betrayed Jesus (Vol. II); Judas’ experience of the hells (September 6th, 2001; H.R.)