The Traitor

The Traitor

Uncle Hans stopped his report on the arrest of Jesus, the treachery of Judas and Peter’s denial of Jesus. He looked into the faces of his Sunday school children. They all seemed to be very indignant. “Yes, it really is a bad thing to deny our dear Lord Jesus!”, their teacher said thoughtfully. “In that you are absolutely right. We often have to be ashamed that we are such cowards.”

“We?!”, Peter replied with a bewildered face. “What do you mean we?”, the other children asked. “We are not cowards!”, Jürgen said, looking offended.

Uncle Hans was silent for a moment. His voice was quieter than usual, and he spoke haltingly, as if he had to laboriously search for his words:

“Yes, boys and girls, I once looked as indignant as you. I was ten years old when I heard the story of how Peter denied his Lord. I also thought: “How could you do that?” – but soon forgot the story. Four years later I was reminded of this story again. 

It was shortly after the war ended. We often sat in school with empty stomachs. Our greatest joy was receiving a ladle of soup during our lunch break. The steaming soup was brought to the rear door of the school in a van.  And we, as the oldest class of boys, would assign one of the boys to carry the buckets of soup to each class.  This happened without adequate supervision due to the lack of teachers.  That was of course our luck and we took advantage of it.

There soon was a secret agreement among us. The boy who was responsible for distributing the soup to the other classes had the duty to “organize” some of the soup for our class, as we liked to call it. We said it was a fair arrangement. Actually, it was stealing! We were taking from the little bit of food the younger children had been eagerly waiting for all morning. We did not concern ourselves with that fact.

With determination, each one of us secretly took as much soup as possible from the other containers for our buddies. Freddy, who was rather timid, had not dared to take any soup from the various containers. He was not taken seriously after that. He received the nickname: “the coward”.

That was the situation until a Tuesday in April when the duty fell to our new student, Günter. He had only been in school a week and had not really been noticed by anyone.  He seemed like a nice guy. 

Well, something profound happened! Günter stood up that morning and said in a hoarse voice: “I just want you to know that I will not participate in taking soup for you. That is stealing and I just can not do it.” His face was very pale because he knew what was coming and it did!

The class exploded, “You wimp, you coward! We will teach you. You just do not dare to do it. Traitor! If you do not return with extra soup then you will see what will happen to you. There is a good place behind the school where we give traitors what they deserve!”

“I am not a traitor!”, replied the new student, breathing heavily. “I just cannot steal. That’s all.” “You just too scared to do it,” another shouted at him. The boy left without saying another word. He returned without a single drop of extra soup.

I do not know exactly how it happened, but filled with rage, at this “betrayal”, as we called it, we went after him like a pack of wolves. After school, in an open space behind a wall, we beat him until our anger subsided. Laughing and jeering we just left him there. “He got what he deserved.”

Without turning around, I was the last one to leave. But I can still hear the words that the beaten boy called after us.  “And I am not a traitor!”, he said with difficulty. “I just cannot steal. Is there not a single one among you who believes in Jesus and knows that He would not want us to steal either?”

I went home as if nothing had happened. But those words followed me, “Is there no one among you who believes in Jesus?” I ate lunch as usual. I visited my friends, laughed and talked. But wherever I went, those words followed: “Is there no one here who believes in Jesus?” Those words changed to: “There is no one here who believes in Jesus.” I, Hans, had betrayed and denied Him. That is when I identified with Peter. I went home and cried bitterly.

Then it was as if Jesus showed me: “This is not the first time you have denied me. You have done it a hundred times before. In a hundred different ways you have become both a traitor and a denier. That is why you failed this big test in particular.” “When was it that I denied and betrayed you?”, I asked desperately. “I have always believed in you!”

It seemed as if Jesus said to me: “Do you remember when you went around the corner so that the insolent Konny from your class would not see that you just came out of Sunday school? Do you remember when they asked you where you were on Sunday? What did you say? You said that you had gone on a trip because you didn’t dare say you had been travelling with your Sunday school class. You knew they would laugh at you. Remember the class work you cheated on. You stole apples with the others. Together with them you brought your old teacher Wuttke to despair. With others you read books you would have never wanted your mother to see. With others you pushed younger children aside that could not defend themselves. With the others you cheated, and were spiteful, even though you knew that would grieve me. You could never bring up the courage to say: “I will not participate. I believe in Jesus and He would not want me to do that. So, each time you played along, you denied and betrayed me, you coward, Hans!”

“That is how it was, children”, said the Sunday school teacher. He wanted to add, “Think carefully if you have ever been a traitor and denier.”- But it was no longer necessary. There was not a single child who was not horrified at the thought: “Is it possible that I might have betrayed you, dear Lord Jesus?”

With shining eyes, their Sunday school teacher said: “Let us ask our Lord and Savior to forgive us our cowardice and help us to begin a new life, just as He helped me. He will help. I have tried it!”

F. K.