Today is Wednesday of Holy Week, and it is often seen as a day of rest for Jesus. It is sometimes called Spy Wednesday because it the day associated with Judas preparing to betray Jesus. We see this play out in Matthew 16: 14-16:

14 Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests 15 and said, “What will you give me if I betray him to you?” They paid him thirty pieces of silver. 16 And from that moment he began to look for an opportunity to betray him.

I hope you’ll join us at http://www.stmlive.org today for my friend Rev. Trey Harper’s reflections on Judas. He’s going to do a two-part emphasis on his part today during my normal video reflection and then tonight in place our normal bible study. Judas is such a fascinating person in scripture. He was trusted enough by the disciples that he held the money. And we all know that you don’t just give anyone the money. At one point in his time with them, he was who was trusted. Yet something happened. Something changed within him to make him betray Jesus.

What was it? John points to the spiritual reality of what was happening in him at this point. I think that is the driving point; in the end, the devil was at work on him.
But there may have been something else as well, something the devil used against him. Some scholars think that Judas was looking to Jesus for an earthly kingdom. He thought Jesus was to be a figure like David and earthly king to drive out the Romans. When he saw that Jesus wasn’t going to do what he wanted, he tried to force His hand. Make Him start the war. But as Jesus tells us, His kingdom is not of this world.

So the question I think we can be left with today from Judas is this. What do we do when Jesus doesn’t do what we want? What do we do when Jesus isn’t who we want Him to be or do exactly what we would like Him to do? Do we still worship? Do we still follow? Or do we turn away?

Jesus wasn’t who Judas wanted Him to be. What do we do when that happens to us?

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