Holy Week: Tuesday

Part 4 of the Holy Week series. 

Jesus is teaching and moving through and around the city almost constantly on Monday and Tuesday. Looked at using today’s slang, he was keeping his social media updated constantly, and news of his movements and teaching was doubtless going viral. He’s in and out of the temple, he evades an attempt on his life, he teaches at the Mount of Olives, it’s wall-to-wall.

By the end of Tuesday, word on the street had to be reaching a fever pitch. And on Tuesday night, as the leaders of the Sanhedrin meet, they get a very intriguing visitor.

He’s Judas Iscariot. He’s one of Jesus’ apostles. And he offers to set Jesus up for capture.

Why?

Well, we don’t really know, and I dislike the common interpretation that Judas was just a dirtbag (see stipulation three back on Lazarus Saturday’s post). Since it’s hard to learn from a pure villainy villain, let’s consider some other possibilities that actually teach things:

Maybe he was never that into all this, and thinks it’s going to go wrong, and is looking to secure himself against that possibility.

Maybe he thinks it *has* gone wrong, and Jesus has gone too far. Remember, Judas was the money-man for the apostles (the “holder of the bag," as John says). He may have viewed the cleansing of the temple as an act of hubris on Jesus’ part, not understanding the greater lesson. It wouldn’t be the first time that an apostle completely missed a lesson Jesus was teaching. Remember stipulation one back on Saturday? The four Gospels are filled with such moments.

If we want to go way out on a limb, maybe he actually thinks he’s helping. Martyrs are a big deal. Maybe he thinks Jesus’ fame has reached such a fever pitch that for him to die now would only cement the mythology and increase the power of the movement. So he’s acting independently to secure Jesus’ fame, not bring him down.

What do all those have in common, though? Judas thought he knew better what was going on, and what to do about it. He was not exercising faith in Christ—he was leaning to his own understanding. That gets us in trouble every time.