HOLY WEEK SERIES: THE BETRAYING PLOT

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

When Jesus had finished saying all these things, He said to His disciples, “As you know, the Passover is two days away—and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.”

Then the chief priests and the elders of the people assembled in the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas, and they schemed to arrest Jesus secretly and kill Him. “But not during the festival,” they said, “or there may be a riot among the people.”

Then one of the Twelve—the one called Judas Iscariot—went to the chief priests and asked, “What are you willing to give me if I deliver Him over to you?” So they counted out for him thirty pieces of silver. From then on Judas watched for an opportunity to hand Him over.

Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

Matthew 26 1-5, 14-16 / 1 Timothy 6:9-10

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

It was Wednesday of Holy Week and members of the Sanhedrin, specifically “the chief priests and elders of the people” were growing ever more disenfranchised with the threat Jesus was bringing to their Jewish religion and the place of authority they held within it. Through His unprecedented wise teaching and miraculous works, Christ was gaining quite a following and so the Jewish religious leaders schemed with one another with the goal of eliminating Him, but not until after the Passover because they feared an uprising would happen if they did so before then.

It’s humorous to me that the Sanhedrin believed they could do anything without Jesus fully knowing about it. After all, they believed in the God who could do all things and that meant peering into the very souls of people, evaluating every thought and state of the heart. Fully knowing already the way the salvation story would go and how His death played a key role in that story, we find Jesus telling His disciples that He would indeed be handed over in just two days to be crucified, a punishment His human body would not survive.

As the Sanhedrin members plotted against Jesus, they were surely wondering what the first step would be, the step that involved taking Him into custody. I can’t imagine how surprised they were when one of Jesus’ twelve closest disciples came to them and offered to sell out His Master.

Note that Judas wasn’t willing to do it for nothing. That would have been very out of character for him because we know that inside, he valued money more than he valued anything else. The scriptures affirm this in the scripture passage that served as the foundation for the pre-Holy Week message titled “Anointed” (John 12:1-8). There, you’ll remember how Mary, the sister of the resurrected Lazarus, took expensive nard perfume and anointed Jesus’ feet with it, much to the ire of Judas who argued the act was wasteful, that the nard could have been sold and the proceeds given to the poor. Unfortunately, Judas’ projected attitude of compassion and charity was nothing more than a ruse because God’s word tells us he was the keeper of the money bag and often stole from it. He would have liked to do the same once the nard was sold but Mary used it to show honor and respect to the One who was sent by God to be the Messiah and Savior of the world.

Going back to our scriptures for today, we see where the chief priests offered Judas “thirty pieces of silver” if he would deliver Jesus to them and the betraying disciple gladly accepted the offer, departing to watch “for an opportunity to hand” Jesus over, an opportunity that would present itself in a little more than 24 hours after Jesus shared His last Passover with the Twelve.

I don’t know about you but the story of Judas and what he willingly did to Jesus has always left me saddened, especially since Jesus had made sure Judas was well cared for along with his eleven disciple peers. Jesus even trusted Judas to carry the money bag and in return for that trust, Judas decided to violate one of God’s ten commands, stealing from those who placed their faith in him. His actions always draw me to the words of the Paul as he wrote to his protégé and missionary partner Timothy. In the sixth chapter of the first letter, Paul said this:

Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. 1 Timothy 6:9-10

Today’s special Holy Week message brings the following question to us:

Do our actions show we love Jesus more than our money?

If not, any Christian could fall into the trap of temptation as Judas did as the root of evil anchors itself into the soil of their soul with the intent of converting “foolish and harmful desires” into “ruin and destruction”, a ruin and destruction sure to pierce them “with many griefs”.

When Judas came to his senses, convicted of his horrific, sinful disloyalty and betrayal, he took his own life, unwilling to go forward bearing the guilt of what he had done. Since that moment in first century A.D., many people have followed in Judas’ footsteps, plotting to betray those who trusted them. My prayer is that more and more people will hear about this Holy Week, the last week of Jesus’ human life, and the contributing factors that led to His death by crucifixion. For if we don’t learn from the betraying plot of Judas Iscariot, we are destined and doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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