Hey everybody,
Well it has certainly been a full 4 days as I have prepared, recorded, edited and sent out these podcasts. And I imagine that I am feeling just a small fraction of what Jesus and His disciples felt as they trudged back and forth to Jerusalem for this final Passover week. Again, if you’ve not listened to the previous podcasts, I would encourage you to do so before this one.
I’ve mentioned before that Wednesday is a quieter day as far as the record of the gospels is concerned. But some very important thought provoking things happen. Let’s take a look.
Wednesday midday 13th of Nisan 30 AD
This day is all about making arrangements for Jesus betrayal. Up to this point it seems that the efforts of the Jewish leaders to entrap Jesus in His words have failed miserably. Every answer He gives just demonstrates His profound Spiritual wisdom. And if you’ve read the gospels before, you know that they don’t stand a chance at trying to grab and kill Him secretly. Even if they could catch Him away from the crowds, He always, miraculously, slipped through their grasp. I was always amazed at this ability. On occasion, the gospel writer would say that a group of people were so angry with Jesus that they wanted to kill Him. On one occasion it says that they were going to throw Him off a cliff, but the gospel record simply states that while they are rushing Him to the brow of the hill at the edge of town, Luke 4
30 But he passing through the midst of them went his way,
So, they are frustrated in their efforts to arrest Him. So Wednesday is the day that the pieces begin to come together for arresting and trying Jesus. The Sanhedrin develop their plot and Judas offers his services as betrayer. But before it all, we are reminded that this is not happening as an accident of history. This was the plan of God that had been determined from eternity past, and prophesied from the earliest days of the creation.
And we’re reminded of that by Jesus Himself. Let’s pick up with the story in Luke.
38 And all the people came early in the morning to him in the temple, for to hear him.
On Wednesday, He did as He had done on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. He came to town and began teaching in the temple. It’s kind of amazing to me that the religious elites, the chief priests, scribes, and Pharisees, who are in charge of the temple, allow Him to continue teaching in the temple, even while they conspire to arrest and kill Him. That is a testimony to the fact that what they were doing was underhanded and illegal.
It's also amazing that Jesus continues to draw a crowd to teach. Considering that in two days, this crowd will call for His death. That is a testimony to the fact Jesus is in complete control of the events of this week. He was in the temple, every day, teaching.
So why did the crowd turn on Him? Because of what He was teaching them. Let’s put it this way, if Jesus had wanted to prevent His arrest and crucifixion, He could have. He could have told the crowd what they wanted to hear. He could have chosen to just disappear. He didn’t have to go to the temple every day and expose Himself to danger.
He could have given “positive” sermons. Feel good messages. And He probably could have filled the 16,800 seat coliseum of Lakewood Church in Houston.
But He kept teaching in the temple. And He taught stuff that the Jewish people didn’t want to hear. He taught them that they are not right with God because of their nationality. That they need to repent, even as the Gentiles needed to repent. And worst of all, He wasn’t making any move to be the military Savior they wanted. So they began to doubt, and then to feel disgust toward Him. They had hailed Him as the promised Messiah on Sunday, but now they were having buyers remorse.
Matthew continues the story…
Matthew 26:1-5
And it came to pass, when Jesus had finished all these sayings, he said unto his disciples,
2 Ye know that after two days is the feast of the passover, and the Son of man is betrayed to be crucified.
This is one of at least 3 times that Jesus told His disciples that He would be crucified.
Mark 8:31–8:33
31Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.
Mark 9:30-32
“The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise.”
Matthew 20:17-19
Jesus Predicts His Death a Third Time
Now Jesus was going up to Jerusalem. On the way, he took the Twelve aside and said to them, “We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. On the third day he will be raised to life!”
So when we call this day a day of arranging for the betrayal, we’re not just referring to Judas and the Sanhedrin working together to bring about Jesus’ arrest, We’re including Jesus as well. He knows it’s coming, and He is in agreement with the Father in orchestrating these events.
3Then 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,
4 And consulted that they might take Jesus by subtilty, and kill him.
5 But they said, Not on the feast day, lest there be an uproar among the people.
Again, as the gospel writers noted that Jesus was in complete control, they also note that the conspirators have no control. They want to arrest Jesus, but they don’t want to do it on the feast day because they afraid of a riot among the people. They remember the crowds hailing Jesus as Messiah. They know He healed the sick, and fed the people. He is very popular, and they don’t want a riot, because Rome doesn’t look kindly on the rulers they put in positions of power, if they can’t maintain order among the people.
So they didn’t want to arrest Him on the feast day. But what day was He arrested, on the feast day. It was after Jesus and His disciples had eaten their Passover meal that Jesus went to the Garden of Gethsemene, and was there arrested.
And trying to avoid an uproar of the crowds didn’t work out for them either. The Passover throngs of people were still there when He was crucified. Great numbers of them were at the spectacle of a trial before Pilate and as He carried His cross through Jerusalem.
The next character in our drama is Judas. The Sanhedrin still didn’t have a complete plan of how to get to Jesus. So then comes Judas Iscariot. He was one of the 12 central group followers of Jesus. He had been with this band for 3 years. They ate together. They sat at Jesus feet as He taught. They were crowd control. They camped out together when no home was open for them to bunk in. Judas was a trusted member of the group. He was the treasurer. They had such confidence in him that they gave the offering money to him. He oversaw the dispersal of funds for food or charity. But he was a false disciple. He was never genuine, he was just a good actor, probably even fooling himself
Luke 22:3-6 tells us
3 Then entered Satan into Judas surnamed Iscariot, being of the number of the twelve.
4 And he went his way, and communed with the chief priests and captains, how he might betray him unto them.
5 And they were glad, and covenanted to give him money.
15 And said unto them, What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you? And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver.
30 pieces of silver was the price of a male slave in Exodus 21:32. Some have calculated its present day value to be about 200 dollars. Zechariah 11:13 sarcastically calls this a “handsome price.”
It’s a ridiculous price is what it is, in a number of ways. It’s ridiculous that the chief priests and Pharisees put such a low value on Jesus. It’s ridiculous that Judas was willing to sell his conscience, his soul, and his teacher for so little.
But he did. And now the die was set. The events leading to the cross now march on with the certitude of the sun setting in the evening.
6 And he promised, and sought opportunity to betray him unto them in the absence of the multitude.
Judas was an inside man who could skulk about in the dark and direct the arresting mob to secret meeting places when nobody is around.
Now, if this were a movie, we would be concerned for the hero of the story; Jesus. We would think that He was in dire straits. We would worry that the villains of the story were going to succeed. But we would know that good always wins, so the hero is going to discover the plot, and turn it on the villains heads.
But the thing about this story is, the hero already knows what is happening. In fact, He is in charge of the whole thing. We’ll see that narrative unfold on Thursday of Passion week,
Let us pray,
Heavenly Father, we marvel at your sovereignty. You have the events of this world running like a finely crafted watch. And our Lord Jesus Christ was in control during all of His final days. Lord, since you can control all of that, help me to trust you with my life. Help me to rest in the knowledge that you are working all things together for good for those who love you. And though sometimes it may not seem good, you’ve got it worked out, and all I need to concern myself with, is to Trust and Obey. Thank you Lord, and I pray this in Jesus name, amen.