A5- PART T

PART T: Trial
While Pilate was considering what next
to do to ease his way through Passover
and cause as little fuss as possible
the Jewish elders had a visitor.
The man who’d helped them seize the Nazarene,
now conscience-stricken, re-appeared to say
that Jesus was completely innocent
and furthermore that he had gravely sinned
in playing any part in his arrest.
The Chief Priests had but little time for him.
If Judas the Betrayer changed his tune –
well! – turncoats sometimes turn their coats again.
The fool thought he could save the man on trial
by handing back the money he’d been given.
‘If that is what you’ve done, you’re on your own.
Don’t come to us for sympathy’ they said.
The thirty silver pieces hit the ground –
the normal price for which you’d buy a slave.
The bribe which had suborned fidelity
lay gleaming on the Sanctuary floor
flung there by one who could no longer bear
the thought of his own stupid faithlessness.
A haunt where heathen kings once burnt alive
their fellow men and women, Judas knew.
Gehenna was close by. They called it ‘Hell’
There was a gorge, steep-sided: just the place
for accidents: or where a man might go
intent to harm himself. And there, it’s said
that Judas hanged himself: or may have tried
and slipped and left his guts caught on a rock…
as what was left of him slipped down… and down.
But all of this was of no consequence
to those to whom Iscariot went for help.
Their minds were occupied with niceties.
This money they now had! What could they do
with it? Blood money it was called. It was –
a bribe paid to a killer they had hired.
To put that in the Temple Treasury?
Impossible! The Law would be infringed!
It was a sum of some significance.
Whatever were they going to do with it?
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