Then one of the twelve, named Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, “What are you willing to give me to betray Him to you?” And they weighed out thirty pieces of silver to him. From then on he began looking for a good opportunity to betray Jesus. (Matthew 26:14-16, NASB)
Tomorrow is Spy Wednesday. It’s one of the days of Holy Week. I had never heard of it until a Bible study several years ago. Spy Wednesday is the day that Judas, son of Simon Iscariot, met with the chief priests, and conspired to betray Jesus Christ to them. The price they were willing to pay Judas? Thirty pieces of silver. The same valuation assigned for slaves in the book of Exodus. The text says that “from then on [Judas] began looking for a good opportunity to betray Jesus.”
He found that opportunity the next (Thursday) night. After Jesus celebrated the Passover Seder meal (the Last Supper, in which He also instituted the Lord’s Supper) with His disciples, He led them out of Jerusalem to the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives, as was His custom in the evening, to pray. Judas, aware of his Master’s habits, led a mob from the chief priests to the Garden, where Jesus was arrested. Judas told the crowd to arrest the Man that he kissed. So Jesus was betrayed with a kiss.
Imagine how Jesus was crushed. He was fully God, and knew He would be betrayed. He also knew who the perpetrator would be. But Jesus was also fully human, with emotions like yours and mine. He had to have been grief-stricken to have been betrayed by a friend. But the betrayal by Judas was only one of His trials that night.
Jesus knew what agony lay ahead of Him. Before He was betrayed that night, Jesus asked His disciples to stand watch in the Garden while He prayed. His men fell asleep while He prayed–not once, but three times. While Jesus prayed, His anxiety over what was going to happen to Him was so great, He sweated drops of blood. As the mob descended on Him with their swords and clubs, and Judas kissed Him, the other eleven disciples fled, abandoning Jesus to His fate (He told them they would do that, and they all pledged they would die with Him). But if Thursday night was bad, it was nothing compared with what awaited Jesus on Friday.
Jesus knew what would happen to Him over the course of these few days. He told the disciples the exact events that would occur. But they didn’t understand. Simon Peter even did his best to hinder Jesus from going to the cross. But this was all part of God’s plan of redemption to bring us back into fellowship with God. When Adam & Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, it ruined the harmony man enjoyed with God. God made a plan then to make things right, which culminated with sending His Son to earth to die as a sacrifice. By identifying ourselves with Jesus’ sacrifice, we make ourselves whole again with God. When we die, we’ll enjoy fellowship for eternity with Him. Have you placed your hope and trust in Jesus?
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. (John 3:16)