July 18, 2013 – 1 Maccabees 9 – 9:33

Is there a movie for Judas.  He sounds like the perfect character for a movie.  All these battles, being outnumbered, rallying troops, and the climatic final battle, going in almost assured defeat and fighting to the end, has Braveheart type movie written all over it.

Judas is a name we hear and almost always think of Christ betrayer.  But the Jews must have heard that name and thought of this hero.  Judas the betrayer may have been named after this great hero.  I have heard many say that Judas betrayed Christ because he was disappointed that He didn’t take more of a military approach to kicking out the Romans.  Maybe Judas the betrayer was named after Judas the hero and felt he had to live up to that, to be a part of another rise, to bring Israel back to greatness.  If he had grown up being groomed or told of the great man he was named after, then saw Christ and the miracles and thought he was going to be a part of the new movement and live up to his name’s sake, and then realized that it was a completely different type of movement, you can understand the disappointment.  You cannot excuse the act, but you can sympathies with the act and maybe see where Judas was coming from.