Betrayal - Matt 26:3-5,14-16; Mark 14:1-2,10-11; Luke 22:1-6

Jesus starts reminding his disciples “ye know that after two days is the feast of the Passover, and the Son of man is betrayed to be crucified.” He’s told them this many times over the last few months to get them ready, but now the time is coming up really quickly, so he’s making sure they know. But how is he going to be betrayed and crucified? The chief priests are not pleased with Jesus, especially since they have had such a public encounter with him in the last few days, and they “assembled together the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders of the people, unto the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas, and consulted that they might take Jesus by subtilty, and kill him. But they said, Not on the feast day, lest there be an uproar among the people” Many of the Jewish people consider Jesus to be at least a master teacher, and at most the Messiah, either way he is very popular with the people. The Jewish leadership sees that they are losing their power and influence to this man and because he is not the Messiah that they expect, they reject him, so now he’s just a threat to their station.

But the affection for Jesus among the people dictates that not only does Jesus have to die before the Passover day, but they also cannot arrest him while he’s teaching at the temple, or during any other time he’s surrounded by the people. They have to arrest him without making a scene. The IM says, “From the beginning of the Savior’s ministry, politicians in positions of power felt that their power was being threatened by Him, and they tried to have Him destroyed. Herod ordered the slaughter of infants in Bethlehem to try to destroy Christ. When Jesus cleansed the temple in Jerusalem, the chief priests plotted to put him to death. These secret combinations even involved the high priest’s office. When the Savior openly entered Jerusalem, He quickly became the object of conspiracies to destroy Him, including the agreement Judas Iscariot made with the chief priests to betray the Savior into the hands of those who wanted to destroy him.”
This is something that has always bothered me, why was Judas’ betrayal so helpful to the chief priests? They knew who Jesus was, it would not have taken much effort to find out where he was at any given time and to go arrest him. In fact, they probably knew that he was staying in Bethany at night and could have arrested him out there, then no one would have known. Even without the help of Judas, the chief priests would have been able to arrest Jesus without a scene, it just would have been more work for them. Judas brought them information that Jesus would be secluded in a garden on the outskirts of town at night and “I’ll take you right to Him.”
Judas goes to the chief priests and says, “What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you?” What was his motivation for doing this? He had been a follower of Christ for 3 years, how did he become so disillusioned that he would be willing to help Jesus’ enemies kill him? I wonder if this is a lesson to all of us that no matter how “close” we are to the Savior, we can still fall if we are not vigilant in our testimonies. It would be one thing for him to say, “you’re not who I thought you were, I’m out.” Whereas it’s completely different to say “you’re not who I thought you were, I’m going to make sure that you suffer a painful and horrific death.” The IM cites the Joseph Smith Translation as saying, “Nevertheless, Judas Iscariot, even one of the twelve, went unto the chief priests to betray Jesus unto them: for he turned away form him, and was offended because of his words.” Judas was not convinced that Jesus was the Messiah that they were looking for, therefore, he was dispensable and don’t just throw him away, let’s make a deal.
So why did he do it? There are several theories and interesting points made from an article on the website gotquestions.org which says, “First, although Judas was chosen to be one of the Twelve, all scriptural evidence points to the fact that he never believed Jesus to be God… Unlike the other disciples that called Jesus ‘Lord,’ Judas never used this title for Jesus and instead called him ‘Rabbi,’ which acknowledged Jesus as nothing more than a teacher.” Jesus was definitely a great teacher, but he was also the Messiah, the refusal to recognize that aspect of who He was led to a lack in belief in Him regardless of the lengthy amount of time that Judas spent with him.
The article continues, “Second, Judas not only lacked faith in Christ, but he also had little or no personal relationship with Jesus.” It goes on to say that when the members of the Twelve are listed, it is almost always in the same order and “the general order is believed to indicate the relative closeness of their personal relationship with Jesus.” Citing Peter, James, and John as almost always the first listed, the article suggests that it is believed that they were the closest to Jesus relationship wise. But it also notes that Judas Iscariot is almost always listed last, indicating a lack of personal relationship with Jesus. Like I mentioned the other day, if we don’t have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, we are not going to have enough reason to change who we are to serve others, to be kind, or to do goodness when we don’t want to.
It is also suggested in the article that the Judas “was consumed with greed to the point of betraying the trust of not only Jesus, but also his fellow disciples.” It would make sense that if Judas had a close personal relationship with any of the other disciples then he might have just walked away instead of instigating a betrayal. Finally, the last suggestion made by the article says, “Additionally, Judas, like most people at the time, believed the Messiah was going to overthrown Roman occupation and take a position of power ruling over the nation of Israel. Judas may have followed Jesus hoping to benefit from association with Him as the new reigning political power. No doubt he expected to be among the ruling elite after the revolution. By the time of Judas’ betrayal, Jesus had made it clear that He planned to die, not start a rebellion against Rome. So Judas may have assumed- Just as the Pharisees did- that since He would not overthrow the Romans, He must not be the Messiah they were expecting.”
Judas agreed to coordinate the time and place of a low-key arrest of Jesus for the chief priests in exchange for “thirty pieces of silver.” The IM says, “According to the law of Moses, thirty shekels of silver would compensate an owner for the death of a slave. Thus, in addition to fulfilling prophecy, the betrayal price reflects the low regard Judas and the chief priests had for the Savior.” I watched The Passion of the Christ when it first came out, (I know it’s rated R) but the part comes when Judas betrays Jesus and goes to get him money and the chief priest throws it on the floor and Judas scurries to pick it up like a rat. That moment was very powerful for me because I wondered how many times have I scurried like a rat to pick pennies off the floor after betraying God? With ill-gotten gains, definitely that is a betrayal of Christ, but what about the times when I think more about money and how I can get it then I do about Jesus and how I can serve him. It was a powerful moment for me and I’ve kept it in mind ever since.