Ep. 108: Judas agrees to betray him
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MATTHEW 26:14-16, MARK 14:10-11, LUKE 22:1-6
Much as we wonder at their brief scattering on his arrest and condemnation, those humble disciples must have loved him much to sit around him in mournful silence as he spoke and to follow him to the end. But to one of them, in whose heart the darkness had long been gathering, this was the decisive moment. Jesus’ prediction, which Judas as well as the others must have felt to be true, extinguished the last glimmering of such light of Christ as his soul had been capable of receiving. In its place flared up the lurid flame of hell. By the open door out of which he had thrust the dying Jesus ‘Satan entered into Judas.’
Judas, the man of Kerioth, was, so far as we know, the only disciple of Jesus from the province of Judea. The fact that he was treasurer and administrator of the small group of disciples and that he was both a hypocrite and a thief are well known to us. It must be admitted mostly all our temptations come to us from our greatest weaknesses, and when Judas was alienated and unfaithful in heart, this very thing became also his greatest temptation and indeed, hurried him to his ruin. But only after he had first failed inwardly. And so, as ever in like circumstances, the very things which might have been most of blessing become most of curse.
If we were pressed to name a definite moment when the process of disintegration began, we would point to that Sabbath morning at Capernaum, when Jesus had preached about his flesh as the food of the world and so many of his followers ceased to follow after him; when the leaven so worked even in his disciples, that he turned to them with the searching question, whether they also would leave him?
And so, on that sunny afternoon, Judas left them out there, to seek them who were gathered, not in their ordinary meeting place, but in the High Priest’s Palace. Even this indicates that it was an informal meeting, consultative rather than judicial. For, it was one of the principles of Jewish Law that, in criminal cases, the sentence must be spoken only in the regular meeting place of the Sanhedrin. The same assumption is strengthened by the circumstance that the captain of the Temple guard and his immediate subordinates seem to have been taken into the council, no doubt to co-ordinate the plans for the actual arrest of Jesus.
They were deliberating how Jesus might be taken and killed. Probably they had not yet fixed on any definite plan. Probably in consequence of the popular acclamations at his entry into Jerusalem and of what had since happened, they decided that nothing must be done during the Feast, for fear of some popular uprising. They knew only too well the character of Pilate and how in any such tumult all parties might experience terrible vengeance. It must have been intense relief when, in their perplexity, the traitor now presented himself before them with his proposals.
They treated Judas not as an honoured associate, but as a common informer and a contemptible betrayer. This was not only natural but the wisest policy, to save their own dignity and to keep the most secure hold on the betrayer. And, after all, to minimise his services, Judas could really not do much for them, only show them how they might seize him to avoid the possible disruption of an open arrest.
We mark the deep symbolic significance of the ‘thirty pieces of silver’, in that the Lord was paid for out of the Temple money which was destined for the purchase of sacrifices and that he, who took on him the form of a servant, was sold and bought at the legal price of a slave.
This is an extract from the book, Jesus : Life and Times, available for £10 here (Finalist for Academic Book of the year at 2023 CRT awards)