Easter: Daily Meditations On Holy WeekÀpẹrẹ

Spy Wednesday: Silver

INTRODUCTION

Text: Today we pause to engage with Spy Wednesday, the day Judas sold Jesus out to the high priests for 30 pieces of silver. 

Reading: Read and consider this verse: Then one of the twelve, whose name was Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, “What will you give me if I deliver him over to you?” And they paid him thirty pieces of silver. And from that moment he sought an opportunity to betray him. (Matthew 26:14-16 ESV)

Text: Take a few moments to let your imagination explore the fear, anger, and darkness that must have been in Judas’ heart.

Prayer: Pray this prayer and consider its words: “All-knowing God, there is nothing in the shadows of this world or in the shadows of our hearts that you do not already fully know. All events, schemes, intentions, and plans will result in your glory despite their initial intent. What happens in secret will be brought to the light. What stands opposed to your plans will be used for your ends.”

BACKGROUND

Text: Satan found a foothold in Judas’ heart because of his love of money. The final push Judas needed was to see a year’s worth of wages, which he could have stolen, used to bless Jesus. 

Verse: Read Judas' reaction to Jesus being anointed by expensive perfume: “Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?” He said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief, and having charge of the moneybag he used to help himself to what was put into it. (John 12:5-6 ESV)

Text: Judas saw clearly that Jesus’ usefulness to him had reached an end. With all this talk of dying and his blatant misuse of resources, Judas was finished being a follower. 

RESPONSE 

Text: Take a moment to allow the Holy Spirit to convict you of the ways in which you find Christ more useful than worshipful. Search your heart. If his usefulness is found to be used up, would you betray him too? 

Verse: Read this verse aloud if you can. Speak this plea as a prayer: “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” (Psalm 139:23-24 ESV)

Text: Judas sold Jesus out for 30 pieces of silver. Exodus 21:32 states that this was the price of a slave. Jesus was sold for the price of a slave by one of those closest to him. 

Verse: Read this prophecy about Jesus: “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” (Isaiah 53:3 ESV)

Text: The son of God knew from eternity past that he would be betrayed, handed over and killed. Yet he came in order to be rejected. He left his glory so that he might not be esteemed. How great is the love and plan of God that he who is above all worth would allow himself to be sold for the price of a slave? 

Prayer: Take the next few minutes to pray a prayer of honor. Thank God and give Him praise for his supreme love and mercy to you. Lift him high for lowering himself to the point of a slave for you. 

CONFESSION 

Text: It is a sobering fact to realize that, like Judas, we too have sold Jesus through betrayal, mockery, and sin – often for much less than 30 pieces of silver. Woe to us for treating him who is above worth as worthless! Let us mourn and repent, we who have taken the master of everything and sold him as a slave. Take a moment to consider, lament, confess and repent of the ways you have betrayed Jesus both before coming to faith and after.

Prayer: Pray this prayer: “Merciful God, I bless you for loving me though I constantly betray you. I praise you for loving me when I was handing you over to death. Replace my fear of man with love for you. Drive out the ways I use you with more reasons to worship you. Keep me, Lord, from ever fully betraying you whom I most love. All my trust is in you.”   

GOSPEL

Text: The irony of Judas’s action is that he was sold under sin when he sold Jesus to the high priests. Not just Judas, but all humanity is sold under sin as a slave. And we do not have one piece of silver that could go to paying down the debt we owe to buy our freedom. 

Verse: See the difference between what we earn as slaves and what we are given as children: “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6:23

Text: Through our deeds, we have lined our pockets with blood money that can only buy death. But because of the death bought by Judas’ betrayal we have received eternal life as a free gift.

Prayer: Spend a few minutes in prayer thanking Jesus for turning our betrayal into our salvation. Glory in him for being sold into slavery for 30 pieces of silver so that our freedom might be bought with the infinitely precious blood of God’s son. 

Text: Though the events of Spy Wednesday happened in a hidden meeting away from Jesus, he was not taken by surprise. Everything occurred to God’s plan and foreknowledge. What happens in the dark will come to the light. What man contrives in secret will be brought to God’s clear and final ends. 

Verse: See in this verse how the foreknowledge of God is presented within the betrayal and death of Jesus: “this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.” (Acts 2:23 ESV)

Prayer: Spend the remaining moments in joyful prayer, thanking Jesus for being betrayed so that those of us who constantly betray him might be saved. Thank him that all the evil acts done in the dark will ultimately be worked out for God’s good in the light.