Have you ever betrayed anyone? If so, you know, even if no one else does, how you felt afterward. You might have felt justified, though you probably weren’t, in actuality. You might have felt ashamed of yourself for inflicting the hurt you caused. Maybe you wanted to hurt one person, and without any thought of it, ended up having hurt a number of others by your deed.
Have you ever been betrayed? Did you have any indication that it was about to happen, or were you blindsided? How did you feel after it happened? Did you feel cut to the core? What did you do in response? Did the betrayer’s hurt touch more than just you?
Think of this, the worst of betrayals. One of Jesus followers, one of his hand-picked, beloved twelve apostles, schemed and conspired to betray Jesus. Judas. He was the treasurer of the money for the poor. (Would that tell us that he was to be trusted?) But, we see that he cannot be trusted…not with cash, as he was said to have ‘pilfered’ from the money box. He was a thief. He was not faithful to the Master. He was greedy, and sold out Jesus, the Innocent, for thirty pieces of silver.
What did that accomplish? Jesus was arrested, tried, found guilty of nothing, and yet He was convicted and crucified. What was His response to the betrayal…to the beating, to the inhumane treatment? As He hung on the Cross, waiting to die, His words rang out across the Hill of Golgotha. “Father, forgive them! They know not what they do!” Forgiveness.
Now, look at Judas. What was his response to the horrible act that he had committed and caused to occur? He was consumed with agony for what he had done….knowing that Jesus would be put to death as an innocent man. He went back to the chief priests and elders, and attempted to give back the money they had paid him. Perhaps he was hoping to free Jesus from the fate that awaited Him.
Perhaps he was hoping to relieve himself of the guilt that weighed so heavily upon himself. The priests and the elders paid no attention to his pleas. Instead they turned to him and said, in essence, ‘What do we care, Judas? That’s your problem.’ Finding that there was no solution for what he had done, and being overwhelmed with the knowledge that he was responsible, Judas threw the money on the floor at their feet, and went away and committed suicide.
How did this betrayal and the results of it affect other people? Pilate, the governor, wanted nothing to do with the death of Jesus, literally washing his hands, to indicate that he would not be a part of the death of an innocent man. A centurion guard near the Cross became a believer that Christ was, indeed, what He had claimed to be…’truly the Son of God.’ (Matt 27:54Matt 27:54
English: Contemporary English Version (1999) - CEV
54 The officer and the soldiers guarding Jesus felt the earthquake and saw everything else that happened. They were frightened and said, “This man really was God's Son!”
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Many were touched on that day by the Spirit of God, and over the ages, many more have come to know the Truth of who Jesus Christ, the innocent man who was crucified, really is…the Living God.
The betrayal by one follower of Christ set into motion a harsh reality on that day. It was a plan of God’s design, but difficult for even Jesus to understand as He prayed at the Garden of Gethsemane. Yet, being God, He knew all that would happen. He knew each detail that would occur, and though He might have stopped it at any point along the way, Jesus willingly gave Himself up to die for the benefit of all people everywhere. This one betrayal turned the world upside down for all eternity….and it’s still difficult for us to understand, nearly two thousand years later.
Lord, help us to keep our hearts a-tuned to You that, even though we may not understand the plan, we would be willing to do what You ask, that Your work on earth might be accomplished. Amen
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