The plot comes together
Luke 22:1-6
22 Now the festival of Unleavened Bread, which is called the Passover, was near. 2 The chief priests and the scribes were looking for a way to put Jesus to death, for they were afraid of the people.
3 Then Satan entered into Judas called Iscariot, who was one of the twelve; 4 he went away and conferred with the chief priests and officers of the temple police about how he might betray him to them. 5 They were greatly pleased and agreed to give him money. 6 So he consented and began to look for an opportunity to betray him to them when no crowd was present.
The leadership of the chief priests and the scribes finally have a way to bring Jesus down. They have a traitor inside the Jesus group who will help them capture and arrest Jesus, so they can have him killed. Many times in Luke they had wanted to do this (for example, Luke 4:29; 11:53,54; 20:19; 20:20). Further Jesus had warned the disciples that this was going to happen (for example Luke 9:22; 18:31-32). The plot has now come together. Judas would do this when there was no crowd present, so that the capture could be quiet and Jesus could be simply disappeared.
Much discussion has taken place trying to determine why Judas did this. There are two general responses: either Judas was a pawn and God simply used Judas for God’s plan; or Judas was well-meaning trying to push Jesus to showing Jesus’ true power and the whole thing went horribly wrong. The first approach says Judas had no freewill. In fact, Judas made a choice, he had the spiritual resources (the Holy Spirit), as all of us do, to stand up to Satan (vs. 3). But he chose not to resist the power of Satan. The second approach seeks to limit Judas’ responsibility by saying he did not mean to do harm. By taking things into his own hands, Judas was not willing to follow God’s lead, he wanted to follow his own (Judas’) agenda. Judas made a choice to walk the dark path; he did so knowing it would have terrible consequences.
While we have not done what Judas did, we too have taken dark paths in life, at times. The promise is that in the cross there is forgiveness and the opportunity to turn to Jesus the light of the world.
PRAYER:
God of grace, we want to live for you and for your Son, Jesus Christ. Help us to call on the Holy Spirit to give us strength in those times when we are tempted to betray you, and to follow dark paths away from you. Remind us of your forgiveness in those times when we fail to follow you. In Jesus’ name. Amen.