Spy Wednesday – Holy Week

 

One of the Twelve, the one called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, “What are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you?”

They paid him thirty pieces of silver, and from that moment, he began to look for an opportunity to betray him.
Matthew 26: 14-16
I for one will not be too quick to condemn Judas Iscariot for turning against his Lord for thirty pieces of silver. I have betrayed him myself more times, than I can remember for a lot less.

Jesus is my Lord and my All. Living for him is the only life worth living. Yet a day rarely goes by that I do not choose to live for something less. I run after the most meaningless things as though they were worth something. Without even giving it a thought, I sell out the Lord of my life day after day for next to nothing.

Judas Iscariot’s real problem was not that he betrayed the Lord. The impetuous Simon Peter was guilty of a similar offence when he denied Jesus three times. And the others of the Twelve, who were nowhere to be found on Good Friday, proved themselves to be not much better. Judas’ problem was that unlike the others he could not bring himself to ask for and accept forgiveness.

That is one of the most important lessons of the events of Holy Week. Betrayal is not the last word; forgiveness is. Jesus was willing to forgive everyone – those who judged and condemned him, those who carried out his execution, the bystanders who looked on in complicity, the disciples who fled, boastful, pathetic Peter, even Judas Iscariot. And even you and me. God loves us that much.

It is time to stop looking for opportunities to betray him.

 

We need the grace of humility in order to accept that we need ‘another’ to find fulfilment and happiness. That ‘another’ is Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, son of the Eternal God. Only he can meet the deepest of our needs: the need for forgiveness and mercy; the need to be set free from sin, the need for grace and for salvation; the need for eternal life and the hope of heaven. We need Christ Jesus who being in very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped. He humbled himself and became obedient even unto death on a cross. In that lies our justification.