Wednesday of Holy Week is, for many Christians, known as Spy Wednesday. It commemorates the betrayal of Jesus by his disciple Judas.
Matthew 26 records:
“14 Then one of the twelve, whose name was Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests 15 and said, “What will you give me if I deliver him over to you?” And they paid him thirty pieces of silver. 16 And from that moment he sought an opportunity to betray him.”
Most people, whether they’re Christian or not, consider Judas to be one of the great villains of history. A traitor like Benedict Arnold, but even worse. But, if you think about it, that only makes sense if we believe Jesus—otherwise, Judas was just handing over a blasphemer and a criminal to the authorities. And what’s wrong with that?
There is always a risk in familiar stories that we will miss the difficulty they pose for our thinking and for our believing. But as our friend C.S. Lewis makes clear:
“You must make your choice. Either this man [Jesus] was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
Judas made his choice. If we’re to judge his actions, then so must we.
Have a wonderful day.
