Judas: Saint or Villain?

It's funny that Jared should make the request that he did.  Just this last week I read this in "Christians at the Cross," which is a book of  Easter week sermons by NT Wright:

"... those of us who are used to hearing the story of Judas Iscariot may be a little hardened to it, and we need to remind ourselves what was actually happening.

Judas was one of Jesus' closest friends and trusted companions.  Trusted?  Yes: he kept the

 purse.  He was the treasurer... you give them a great temptation to misuse their trust, but

 Jesus presumably had trusted Judas, at least in the beginning.  We of course look back on the story and we know from early on that Judas was the traitor, but nobody else knew that at the time.  In the story we've just read, when Jesus says, 'One of you is going to betray me,' they don't all turn round and point the finder at Judas and say, 'Oh yes, we all know who that's going to be.'  They were all worried: it isn't going to be me, is it?  Only Jesus knows.  Judas is one of them.  He has been part of it all, has seen Jesus heal lepers, preach the gospel, raise the dead.  He's done it himself, casting out demons in Jesus' name, watching God's 

power do new things.  And now...

We don't know why Judas did it" (Wright 34).

What do you think?

Why did Judas do it?

Have turned Judas into a villain?

If so, does he deserve it?

Music

Unfortunately I've been kind of busy and uncreative lately and that has resulted in my lack blogging.

What I've got for you today is some of my musical inspirations.  Most days, as I work in my office, I have soundtrack music playing.  I love movie scores.  It works for me as I work because they are instrumental (I always get distracted by lyrical music... I end up singing along) and evocative.

So here are just a few of my favourite composers:

Joe Hisaishi performing one of his songs from the movie "Spirited Away."

Here's Hans Zimmer performing music from "Pirates of the Caribbean."  

It's not my favourite of his compositions, but it's sweet to see Hans rocking out on the guitar!

And, of course, since I'm a big LOTR fan here's a clip of Howard Shore's score:

I hope that you enjoyed these.

What do you listen to?

Why?

And because I'm temporarily out of compelling ideas:

What should I blog about next?
Any ideas?