Strategies and Motives

I saw this cartoon first thing this a.m., then in my morning read, the verse below was top of the chapter and struck me as one of the few times in history when the religious community was truly unified!

"When the morning was come, all the chief priests and elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death." Matthew 27:1

Think about it!

Then in verse three, a verse that has always affirmed my thoughts that Judas, like me at times, simply had a strategy that he felt would benefit the cause.

He was a connector type, as I am. He knew the right people to get Jesus in front of, but he had the wrong motive.

His thoughts perhaps that Jesus would finally show out when threatened by death, calling down thousands of angels, pulling off an insurrection that would set him up as King of Kings!

Right language, wrong methodology.

‭‭Matthew 27:3-5 KJV‬‬

Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? see thou to that. And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself."

When I reflect back on my 50 years as a devoted churchman, with a couple stints as an associate pastor, both in an average church and a near mega, I often would hear, even helped design strategies to attract people toward our own box.

This moment in the American Church may again be God saying to us, "How's that working for you?"

Back to Judas, who either "went out and hanged himself," or jumped off a cliff and "his bowels burst out"? When there are points of conflict in scripture, drill down as there may be messages missed!

Judas may have been blinded by his misguided motives; Peter was also, when he struck Malchus with his sword at the arrest.

It will be interesting to learn Judas's real fate. The one Jesus called, Friend.