It's the Wednesday of Holy Week, colloquially known as Spy Wednesday because on this day just over 2,000 years ago, Judas Iscariot left in secret to betray Jesus.
Matthew and Mark, tell the story similarly. Judas approaches the Sanhedrin and brokers a deal, “What will you give me if I deliver him over to you?” The Gospel of Luke gives us an important new detail. Before approaching the Sanhedrin “…Satan entered into Judas who was called Iscariot.”
In this transaction, the Sanhedrin name their price: 30 pieces of silver. Under the law of Moses, the price of a slave was 30 pieces of silver (Exodus 21:32). In this interplay between the Sanhedrin and Judas, the learned rabbis acknowledge they are buying a man worth the value of a slave and see Judas as his master in the transaction. In accepting the money, Judas agrees to the terms. He sees himself as the master of Jesus. How did Judas fall so far?
It’s interesting what can happen when we flirt with sin. The Bible tells us Judas took care of the accounts of the Apostles and was known to scrape some off the top. How long had he been doing this? How small did it start? Just a shekel here for an extra bite to eat. Maybe a couple more shekels for a bit of wine? Before you know it he’s getting mad at poor Mary of Bethany for pouring nard on Jesus' feet and wiping it with her hair. “Don’t waste that! We can give it to the poor!” But, did he really care about the poor? Or did he want to take it and sell it for a few more shekels to feed his growing list of sins.
Poor Judas. All those graces stored up from three years living in the presence of the Almighty God are gone. By the time Satan ruled Judas, Judas started thinking like Satan. He thought he was the Master of Jesus. He thought he was better than him, smarter than him. Poor confused Judas. We see this confusion in his approach on Holy Thursday. Judas betrays Jesus with a kiss. He’s so disconnected he thinks this is ok. The wound many mystics say hurt Jesus the most was the one on his cheek. More than whips or nails, rocks ground into the skin or the bones bruised in his back, Jesus felt the total lack of love present in the kiss of Judas to his core.
There are so many lessons for us in this. It’s a textbook case of how we fall and how Satan works. One sin leads to another. When we lose grace, Satan can confuse the mind. He gets us to think up is down and down is up. That we are our masters, not God. It's so important to stay vigilant. We have to learn to recognize the inclinations we all have to embrace the Judas within, to take just a little bit or brush off our small sins as trivial. We all have to go to confession for the little things too. If you don't, the little things grow until we begin to believe the crazy idea that we are the masters.
In the end, Judas felt deep remorse but Jesus was gone. He couldn’t confess. What a blessing we can, and what a blessing Our Lord Jesus stands ready to embrace us and give us the grace we need to sin no more.
