WHAT DO YOU DO  when you look back on decisions that deeply affected others, that are irreversible, and that were clearly wrong? No matter what the rationalization was at the time, you now deeply regret the actions taken. But you cannot go back and undo the damage. In some cases you can't even apologize to the people involved.

These were my thoughts as I rode to church one Sunday feeling guilt-ridden and sorrow-filled. Humbly, I turned to prayer for an answer.

I have always believed God is divine Spirit and the only creator. Therefore I must, in truth, be God's spiritual and perfect child. Each of us is. I could see that my troubles in years past were not from God. The resulting undesirable traits and actions were not, could not be, part of my spiritual identity. But somehow that knowledge wasn't enough.

As I listened for God's answer, the question "What ever happened to Judas?" came strongly to my thought. Huh? "Judas, the disciple who betrayed Jesus—what happened to him?"

Each of the four gospels in the Bible provides a complete account of the incident. As I reread them, I gained a vivid sense of Christ Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem, healing and preaching the gospel; the sorrow and hurt it must have caused him to be betrayed by one of his own disciples for thirty pieces of silver; his arrest by servants of the Jewish high priest and subsequent crucifixion by the Romans. Of course, his death was followed by his resurrection (celebrated by Christianity as Easter). And eventually, in his ascension, he completely proved the allness of God that he had taught.

But back to Judas, who so cruelly and unnecessarily betrayed his dear Teacher. What happened to him?

My immediate startled response was, "He hanged himself, and that's not really what I had in mind." As I considered the question further, I realized that my hopeless depression had melted away. I had more thinking to do, but my prayer had been answered. I knew a complete sense of peace would be restored if I pursued the answer to the question I had been given.

I love the Bible. As literature, drama, history, and especially as a moral and spiritual guide, it is unsurpassed, but sometimes you have to look a bit deeper to understand the inspired meaning. Mary Baker Eddy, the author of Science and Health, writes, "He [Jesus] plunged beneath the material surface of things, and found the spiritual cause" (p. 313). That's what I needed to do with Judas.

The Bible doesn't go into great detail about Judas and his career with Jesus. Unlike what's provided for some of the other disciples, there are few references that reveal his character prior to the betrayal. We do know that after the conviction of Jesus, he threw the silver back at the priests and hanged himself in remorse.

Judas must have shown some receptivity to Christ's message, I believed, or Jesus would not have chosen him. Yet Judas turned away from his spiritual nature to embrace worldly power. In her book, Mrs. Eddy describes the "gulf between Jesus and his betrayer" that this mental turning away from Truth created (p. 47). The larger the distance between Judas and his Master grew, the greater Judas's envy became, until he hated the pure and innocent Jesus, the earthly representation of Christ, Truth. He may have justified his acts with all sorts of reasons. But in the end, "he knew that the world generally loves a lie better than Truth; and so he plotted the betrayal of Jesus in order to raise himself in popular estimation. His dark plot fell to the ground, and the traitor fell with it" (p. 47).

While his act of betrayal far surpassed anything I had done, I could see that I, too, had been acting from a false perspective about God's child.

At this point I was finding it possible to separate Judas's terrible actions and warped personality from his true spiritual identity. His attempt to undo what he had done shows, perhaps, that Judas recognized his error, regretted it, and was suffering for it. I could relate to that. Unfortunately, he was still trying to solve things his own way (instead of trusting God), as evidenced by his suicide.

Judas betrayed Jesus. When you or I choose a personal, material sense of ourselves over a recognition of our spiritual nature, in one sense we betray our consciousness of Christ, the true idea of God. When we realize our mistake, we may suffer and try to make amends. Sometimes we may be tempted to believe, as Judas did, that it is simply too late. If we follow that kind of thinking, we have a clear map of where it leads. Judas punished himself. God didn't do it. Jesus didn't do it. If we cling to the belief that we have made mortal mistakes that cannot be corrected, we hang ourselves in a whole new set of false beliefs.

The way out is to turn completely from this personal, or carnal, sense of ourselves to Spirit. When we claim our spiritual purity thought by thought, action by action, the Christ, Truth, that Jesus taught will wash away all sense of a self separate from God, divine Soul. As we recognize ourselves and others as perfectly maintained by divine Love, we realize we could never adversely affect the true being of any of God's ideas. Jesus' divine mission was accomplished regardless of Judas's or the world's opposition. God's perfect plan for each of His children is in effect, no matter what opposition we may think we have expressed.

Judas ended his own life before Jesus' resurrection and final ascension. He buried his chance to see that his misdeeds never had the power to destroy Jesus or thwart his Christ-mission. Whatever sins we may have committed, there is always a way out—a way up—by following Jesus', not Judas's, example. Then, if there is a need for us to express remorse to an individual and ask for forgiveness or to take some other action, we will be strengthened and able to do so. And if we need to forgive ourselves, this will become evident.

As we follow Christ's direction, we can mentally place everyone in God's care, including ourselves, and begin the glorious journey out of materialistic thinking to a resurrection—the recognition of our true spiritual being.