Judas Iscariot
We all know that it was Judas Iscariot who betrayed Jesus. In the synoptic Gospels Mt 26:14-16 and 26:20-25, Mark 14:10-11, Luke 22:3-6, 21-22, 47-48, Judas does not appear to turn against Christ until they arrive in Jerusalem, but John's Gospel always shows Judas in a bad light starting from John 6:70-71, when Jesus says ‘One of you is a devil’. At the anointing of Jesus’ feet in Bethany (see Matthew 26:6-13 and Mark 14:3-5) it was only John who identified the one who objected to a waste of money as being Judas, whom he also called ‘a thief who stole from the disciples' common fund’. If he was that shifty I wonder why he was given control of the money.
The fact that Jesus knew that Judas would betray him did not mean that he was a puppet of God's will any more than we can say of a person who freely chooses to commit murder that he could not help himself because God knew in advance that he would. There appears to be mixed human feelings towards Judas. Some hate him, some pity him for not knowing what he was doing as might be assumed from his remorse over ‘betraying innocent blood’ (see Matthew 27:3-5). Others feel he was a much misunderstood man who misunderstood Christ's mission and was trying to force him (Christ) to reveal his hand and lead a revolt against Rome. Some question God's fairness in allowing one man to bear so bear so much guilt. Why he did what he did has always been the subject of enormous debate.
However, he must have been committed enough to follow Jesus in the first place. It is not for us to judge, so just be happy that the God of justice, love and forgiveness will do the right thing by him.
Judas-Jude Thaddeus
This is the other Judas whose name is juxtapositioned with Judas the traitor in the list of disciples (see Luke 6:16). Here he is called ‘son of James’ but more correctly he was the brother of that James (the lesser) and so the son of Alphaeus (or Clopas) and ‘the other Mary’ I mentioned previously.
John 14:22 says ‘Judas-this was not Judas Iscariot, said to Jesus ‘Lord what is all this about?. Are you going to show yourself to us and not to the world'’’ to which Jesus replied that he manifests himself to those who fearlessly keep his commandments. The disciples were still expecting him to establish an earthly kingdom and overthrow Rome so they could not understand why he did not tell the whole world that he was the Messiah. Matthew 10:3 and Mark 3:18 refer to this disciple as Thaddaeus. We more commonly refer to him as St. Jude Thaddaeus the patron Saint of hospitals and of desperately hopeless cases.
David de Souza