"How can this be? Is not our Jesus dead?"
"My brothers," said Peter, "for me it is as if He still lives."
"He in us, and we in Him," said John.
Only Bartholomew was restless. Hesitatingly he asked James if he had not also understood Him to say: "Father, do not forsake Me." But James was thinking of another word and of another of the brothers. He went away from the cross to seek out Judas. He would tell him that in dying the Master had forgiven His enemies, he would tell Judas of the Saviour's legacy: Mercy for sinners!
Since the early hours of the morning when the Master had been condemned to death in the Governor's house, Judas had wandered aimlessly about. He tried to surrender himself to the captain as a false witness and a spy, as one who sold men for gold. He was laughed at and left alone. Then he went to one of the High Priests to swear that his statements had not been so meant; that his Master was no evil-doer, but rather the Messenger of God, who would destroy His enemies. He had not intended to betray Him, and he would return the traitor's pay to the Pharisee. The latter shrugged his shoulders, saying that it was no concern of his; he had given no money and would receive none. Then Judas threw the silver pieces at his feet and hurried away. His long hair waved in the wind. He slunk along behind the town walls in order to get in advance of the procession and let himself be impaled at Golgotha instead of the Master. But he was too late; he heard the strokes of the hammer. He went down into the valley of Kedron. Not a soul was to be seen there, every one had gone to the place of execution. Judas was thrown aside, even by the gaping crowd, abandoned as a traitor. Frightful, inconceivable, was the thing he had done! Alas! why had He not revealed Himself? He stood patiently, gentle as a lamb before the judges, and bore the cross as no one had ever done before. Could that be it after all? Not to strive against one's enemies, to suffer one's fate as the will of God, to lay down one's life for the tidings of the Father—was that glory the mission of the Messiah? "And I? I expected something else of Him. And I made a mistake, greater than all the mistakes of all the fools put together. And now I am thrust out of the fellowship of righteous men, and thrust out of the fellowship of sinners. There is pardon for the murderer, but not for the traitor. He Himself said: Better that such a man had never been born. Others dare to atone for their sins in caves of the desert, dare to expiate their crimes with their blood—but I am cast out of all Love and all expiation for ever and ever." Such were the endless laments of Judas. He wandered to and fro behind walls and among bushes; he hid himself in caves all the day long. Then suddenly it flashed on him: "It is unjust. I believed in Him. I believed in Him so implicitly. Is such trust thrown away? Can the Divine Man cast aside such a trust? No, it is not so, it is not so!"
His fate was decided by this shattering of his last hope. When it was dark he slunk past a farm. Ropes hung over the walls; he pulled one off and hurried to the mountain. The sun was setting behind Jerusalem, over the heights, like a huge, red, lustreless pane of glass. Once more for the last time his eye sought the light, the departing light. And a cross stood out large and dark against the red circle; the tall cross at Golgotha right in the centre of the gloomy sun. Gigantic and dark it towered against the crimson background—horrible! The despairing heart of Judas could not endure it. With a savage curse he went up to a fig-tree. James was behind him. He had seen Judas climb the slope, had waved his cloak and cried to him: "It is I, James. Brother, I come from the Master. Listen, brother, mercy for sinners. Mercy for all who repent. Listen." Almost breathless he reached the fig-tree. Arms and legs hung down lifeless, the mouth drawn in, the tongue protruding from the lips. The body swung to and fro in the evening breeze. The wretched man had not waited for the Saviour's pardon.
Towards the end of that same day the old man of the East, who came from the desert where great thoughts dwell, the weary old man who called down twice the curse of everlasting unrest on the grandson of Uriah, went to a stonecutter in Jerusalem. He thought it time to order his tombstone. And on it were to be cut the letters "I.N.R.I."
"Did you also belong to the Nazarene?" asked the stonecutter.
"Why do you ask that?"
"Because it is the inscription on His cross."