Are You Judas or Mary?

By Danny Saavedra

“Then one of the Twelve—the one called Judas Iscariot—went to the chief priests and asked, ‘What are you willing to give me if I deliver him over to you?’ So they counted out for him thirty pieces of silver. From then on Judas watched for an opportunity to hand him over.’”—Matthew 26:14–16 (NIV)

According to Masterclass.com, “When writing a work of fiction, an author can take the reader out of the present story and jump into an earlier time in a character’s life. This narrative tool is called a flashback. Also used in films and television shows, flashbacks give a story more depth by revealing details that help readers understand character motives.”

Books, movies, and shows use flashbacks to help us understand the characters better or explain why certain things are happening in the plot at the present moment. Similarly, the order of the narrative in the Gospels isn’t always sequential. We must understand this.

In this case, in Matthew 26:1–5, the chief priests plot and scheme for a way to arrest Jesus without inciting a riot. To do this, they’d need to know where to find Him when He wasn’t in the public eye. But how? In verse 14, we see they had a spy on the inside—Judas, one of Jesus’ 12 closest confidants, a man who knew where Jesus would be and who could bring them to Jesus at night away from the crowd. But, if we jump backward (flashback) to verse 6, we read, “While Jesus was in Bethany in the home of Simon the Leper,” which took place “six days before the Passover” (John 12:1 NIV), we can better understand the chief priest's plan to take down Jesus.

So, why did Matthew and Mark frame it this way? By using a flashback to Mary anointing Jesus’ feet with the spikenard at Bethany, we can see how the chief priests were able to execute their scheme to arrest Jesus. They used Judas. But without the story of the anointing in Bethany, Judas’ betrayal would seem to come out of nowhere. So, this flashback shows us the moment when Judas decided he’d betray Jesus.

Judas kept the common fund which supplied Jesus and the disciples’ needs and gifts to the poor. But he was also secretly a thief and would “help himself” by taking money. He was embezzling from the ministry of the gospel. So, having lost his chance to get ahold of a big stream of cash to steal, he finds another way to get a little extra for himself.

This situation reminds me of some key words from Jesus in Mark 8:36 (NIV): “What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” As I’ve seen again and again, there’s a cost to following Jesus: our lives. We give Him our lives—we sacrifice, we give up everything to follow Him (our desires, ambitions, plans, and will), but as Jim Elliot once said, “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

Judas was fixated on the things of the world and on his own life, desires, and ambitions that he was willing to sacrifice Jesus. Jesus so loved us that He was willing to sacrifice Himself.

What about you, friends? Are you Judas or Mary? Are you willing to give it all up for Him, to lose yourself for His sake? If you are, you’ll gain everything! You’ll gain Jesus as Lord, and with that, you’ll gain true life now, eternal life in heaven, freedom, purpose, truth, comfort, wisdom, peace, joy, value, strength, security, hope, and real love!

Pause: What do you think was at the core of Judas’ betrayal of Jesus? Greed may not be the only thing.

Practice: Take a personal account of any greed, covetousness, or self-gratifying feelings you may hold. Prayerfully commit to removing them from your heart where Jesus should have His rightful place.

Pray: Lord, I commit everything to You. Help me to remove any greed or idolatry in my heart so You can take Your rightful place. Amen.