Searching for Judas

I've always admired the work of Leonardo Da Vinci, as an artist, an inventor and a philosopher. I've admired the painting, The Last Supper for years, but it wasn't until I heard a story about the creation of that painting that I appreciated it's true beauty.

When Da Vinci committed himself to paint The Last Supper, he decided to approach it in a unique way. He wanted to find thirteen men to pose, one for each of the disciples and one as Jesus. He wanted each of his models to look exactly as he envisioned Jesus and each of the disciples to have looked. And so his search for these men began.

One day while he was sitting in church, the voices of the choir were so moving that he turned around and looked up into the choir loft. As he did his saw a young man in the choir. that perfectly matched how da Vinci had visualized Jesus to look. After church Leonardo approached the young man, explained his project, and inquired as to whether he would be interested in posing for the painting. The young man agreed, and the following week he spent four days posing for da Vinci in his studio in Milan.

Da Vinci’s search continued and he quickly found someone to pose as Peter, Simon, and Matthew. Within eleven months he had found and painted all the persons in the scene except for Judas.

Da Vinci could not find his Judas. He looked everywhere. He would walk through the streets of Milan, some days for endless hours, searching the nameless faces in the crowds for a man who embodied how he envisioned Judas to have looked. He left the painting unfinished for eleven years. Then one day, he found him. This man had a harshness in his face, anger and pain in his eyes - a man who to him looked like Judas.

The following week the man was brought to the studio and da Vinci began the final stage of his work. As he painted, da Vinci noticed that the after only a few hours, the man would look at the painting and then at the ground, becoming more and more restless. Da Vinci stopped working and asked, "Is something wrong? Am I doing something to upset you?" The man brought his hands to his face and began to weep.

He finally looked up at Leonardo and said, "Master, do you not recognize me?" Da Vinci said, "I'm sorry, I don't. Have we met before?

The man said, "Yes. Eleven years ago. I posed for you in this same painting, as the person of Jesus."

In each of us lies a Jesus, as well as a Judas. The challenge we face everyday, is to rise to our greater self, to choose to reflect Christ in all that we do and everyone we encounter.