Thoughts for the Day

After saying this Jesus was troubled in spirit, and declared, ‘Very truly, I tell you, one of you will betray me.’ The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he was speaking. One of his disciples—the one whom Jesus loved—was reclining next to him; Simon Peter therefore motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking. So while reclining next to Jesus, he asked him, ‘Lord, who is it?’ Jesus answered, ‘It is the one to whom I give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.’ So when he had dipped the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas son of Simon Iscariot. After he received the piece of bread, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, ‘Do quickly what you are going to do.’ Now no one at the table knew why he said this to him. Some thought that, because Judas had the common purse, Jesus was telling him, ‘Buy what we need for the festival’; or, that he should give something to the poor. So, after receiving the piece of bread, he immediately went out. And it was night.

(Lectionary, New Revised Standard Thoughts)

Thoughts

Here we have the story of the great betrayal. So let us look at Judas. First, we should notice he may not be from Galilee like most of the other disciples. He seems to come from Queriot which is south of Jerusalem, a long way from Galilee. Did this made him a bit of an outsider, even though he is one of the inner circle looking after their joint purse?

In John's account above, we see no reason given as to why Judas is acting in this way, though the disciples make guesses as to why he is leaving. However, earlier in Chapter 12 when Judas argues that the expensive oil Lazarus' sister Mary had used to anoint Jesus' feet should have been given to the poor, the Gospel mentions that Judas had stolen from the common purse (John 12.1-6). Considering this gospel was probably written much later than the others this might be how he sought to explain the betrayal.

There is no real answer as to why Judas carried out his actions, but we might wonder if he felt that this might force Jesus to act in some spectacular way to defeat his enemies. He had seen all of the miracles and knew that the Messiah could achieve God's ends in such a way. We cannot assume he carried out this betrayal out of malice, for certainly he immediately regretted his action.

We too need to be careful that we don't do things, believing we know better than God, and should get into the habit of saying, as Jesus did, "yet, not my will but yours be done".

Lord God,
when we think we are doing Your will,
help us always to refer our plans to You,
remembering that it is Your will
that we should be doing,
and not our own.
Having prayed to You,
and listened to You
give us the courage
to go ahead with our plans.
Amen.