• Ponmala

Of all the sufferings Jesus went through from the Garden of Gethsemane to Calvary, the most excruciating might have been Judas’ kiss of betrayal. “Jesus was still speaking when a crowd arrived, led by Judas, one of the twelve disciples. He came up to Jesus to kiss him” (Lk 22:47). Among the crowd that accompanied Judas were “the chief priests and the officers of the temple guard and the elders.” If Jesus hadn’t had prior knowledge of Judas’ intention, he would have thought that his disciple had brought with him a group of elites who wanted to bestow some sort of an honour on him. Little would he have suspected that the kiss Judas planted on his cheek was a kiss of betrayal. A slap or a punch or a stab by Judas would have been far less painful to Jesus than that kiss of betrayal. And therefore he asks: “Judas, is it with a kiss that you betray the Son of Man?”
The kiss is the most sublime expression of love. Judas planted that kiss on God’s cheek to betray God. Are we not witnessing the same betrayal of God with a kiss by men who claim to be ardent servants of God? Jesus is being betrayed by those who profess the deepest faith in him. All those who deprive men of their God-given freedom for the love of God, all those who torture and kill men for the love of God, and all those who wage wars for the love of God are like Judas planting the kiss of betrayal on God’s cheek. Jesus came to establish the Kingdom of God on earth. He taught us the Kingdom values that would make this world a paradise where all men would enjoy the peace of brotherly love, where the poor, the weak, the destitute and the marginalised would enjoy equality with the privileged. That is an ideal towards which Jesus wanted to lead humanity. Socialist democracy is the nearest man has achieved to that ideal of the Kingdom. Democratic values are the nearest approximation to the Kingdom values Jesus taught. But all leading democracies of the world are now scourged and threatened with extinction by those who have taken it up as their God-given mission.
Every lover of democracy is looking at the upcoming presidential election in America with apprehension. That country is a self-proclaimed champion of democracy. And it is verily the most powerful and influential democracy in the world of today. But democracy and its values are now in peril there. The return of Trump will see the end of democracy as the United States has known it from her formation. And the people who are bent on bringing Trump back to power are those who profess the deepest love for Jesus and his Kingdom. These diehard Christians of America are condoning Trumps debauchery and tax evasion, embracing his lies and vituperations against immigrants, political rivals and judges, and bathing him with donations, for the love of Jesus. Trump is for them Jesus’ gift to them. Little do they realise that their love of Trump is for Jesus a kiss of betrayal.
Look at Russia, a country that is head over heels in love with Jesus. They idol worship Putin who has practically stripped them of practically all democratic freedoms. They don’t mind Putin eliminating his political rivals for the simple reason that they profess democratic values; they don’t mind Putin hiding truths from them; they don’t mind Putin forcing a destructive war on them; and they don’t mind Putin locking them up in the cage of dictatorship where they are well provided and where they feel protected; all because they believe Putin is their best bet for remaining good Christians. And their Patriarch Kirill grabs every opportunity he can to remind them of it. Little do they realise that every soldier who falls dead in the meaningless war they are fighting with Ukraine is a kiss of betrayal they are planting on Jesus’ cheek.
And now let us turn to our own country. Modi and Shah are slowly and steadily dismantling democracy, which we have been enjoying for over seven decades. They are weaponising the investigating agencies of the government to throttle the opposition and to extort money from tax evaders and corporates; they are making moves to take away citizenship from Muslims who have lived here for generations and lock them up in concentration camps; they give a free hand to Hindutva fanatics to persecute minorities; and they stifle freedom of expression; all in the name of re-establishing Ramarajya, the Hindu version of the Kingdom of God. Sri Rama is hailed as Maryada Purushottam – the righteous man. And to bring back his glorious reign, Modi and Shah are breaking any and every norm of righteous behaviour. Little do those who assist them in their endeavour realise that they are planting a kiss of betrayal on Rama’s cheek.
God in every form he is known – Jesus, Yahweh, Allah, Ram – are now being betrayed with a kiss of betrayal couched as a kiss of love by those who use them to take people for a ride to capture power or to cling on to power. That shall continue unless and until people are able to distinguish between a kiss of love and a kiss of betrayal.