Then
Judas Iscariot, who was one of the twelve, went off to the chief priests in
order to betray Him to them. They were glad when they heard this, and promised
to give him money. And he began seeking how to betray Him at an opportune time.
The Sanhedrin had a problem mentioned in verses 1-2
above. They wanted to capture Jesus, but
not with his supporting crowd around him.
But they didn’t know where he would be without his crowd. Only one of his inner circle would know.
It seems that Judas came to the priests of
his own decision, they didn’t call to him.
Why did he do this? Perhaps
because Jesus’ statement about the temple and the leaders of Jerusalem
disturbed him too. Perhaps he thought
that Jesus was not worthy to be king of Jerusalem unless he followed the
Sanhedrin. It is possible that Judas was
from Judea, patriotic to the Sanhedrin, while all the other disciples were from
Galilee. But this is all possibility, we
don’t know Judas’ thinking. We do know
that he agreed to lead the crowd of the priests to Jesus when he was alone,
without the large group of Jesus’ supporters.
In doing this, Judas committed the worst crime of the ancient
world—betraying a master for money.
Whatever we don't know about Judas' motivation, what we do know is this: Judas decided to go to the orthodox religious and political leaders to stop his teacher and friend from finishing the task given by God.
It is curious to me how often orthodox doctrine or leadership is used to stop the will of God, to stop love from growing in the world. I am not saying being orthodox or mainstream is bad. But it is a danger, when we think that it is enough. When we think that radical acts of love or sacrifice or deep world change is unnecessary or even wrong because they disagree with our "correct thinking", then we'd better change our thinking. We don't want to end up on the wrong side of God by pursuing right thinking about God.
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