Mark 14.41-46,
Matthew 26.45-50,
Luke 22.45-48,
John 18.1-3.
In St. John Paul’s list of
So right after
Mark 14.41-46 KWL - 41 Jesus comes back a third time and tells his students,
- “Sleep and rest now; it’s fine. The hour comes.
- Look, the Son of Man is handed over to sinful hands.
- 42 Get up so we can go: Here comes the one who sold me out.”
- 43 Next, while Jesus is still speaking,
- Judas Iscariot approaches the Twelve.
- With him, a crowd with machetes and sticks,
- coming from the head priests, scribes, and elders.
- 44 The one who handed over Jesus had given the crowd a signal,
- saying, “Whomever I might show affection to, is him.
- Grab him and take him away carefully.”
- 45 Next, coming to Jesus, he tells him, “Rabbi!”
- and kisses him hello.
- 46 So the crowd lays their hands on Jesus
- and arrests him.
Matthew 26.45-50 KWL - 45 Then Jesus comes back to the students and told them,
- “Sleep and rest—look, the hour has come near.
- The Son of Man is handed over to sinful hands.
- 46 Get up so we can go: Here comes the one who sold me out.”
- 47 While Jesus is still speaking, look:
- Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, comes.
- With him is a great crowd with machetes and sticks,
- coming from the head priests, elders, and people.
- 48 The one who handed over Jesus gives them a sign,
- saying, “Whomever I might show affection to, is him. Grab him.”
- 49 Immediately coming to Jesus, he says, “Hello, rabbi!”
- and kisses him hello.
- 50 Jesus tells Judas, “Brother, why have you come?”
- Then the approaching mob throws their hands on Jesus
- and seizes him.
Luke 22.45-48 KWL - 45 Rising from the prayer, Jesus goes to the students
- and finds them sleeping from the grief.
- 46 Jesus tells them, “Why are you asleep?
- Get up and pray, or else you might enter temptation!”
- 47 While Jesus is still speaking, look:
- A crowd, and the one called Judas, one of the Twelve, leading them.
- He goes to Jesus to kiss him hello,
- 48 and Jesus tells him, “Judas, to kiss the Son of Man, you turn him in.”
John 18.1-3 KWL - 1 When he said this, Jesus with his students go over the Kidron ravine,
- where there’s a garden. He and his students enter it.
- 2 Judas Iscariot, who was selling him out, had known of the place,
- because Jesus often gathers with his students there.
- 3 So Judas, bringing 200 men,
- plus servants of the head priests and Pharisees,
- comes there with torches, lamps… and arms.
Judas’s motivation.
The scriptures don’t explicitly say why Judas led the authorities to Jesus. So we don’t know.
I know; many Christians are entirely sure they do know. Books and plays and movies have been written to explain Judas’s motivation. Some to depict him as absolutely depraved and evil:
- Jealous because Jesus put Simon Peter in charge of the Twelve instead of him.
- Jealous because
Mary the Magdalene was in love with Jesus instead of him. - Outraged because he expected
Jesus’s kingdom to involve violently overthrowing the Romans, yet Jesus actually said it was okay to pay Tiberius Caesar his taxes. - Frustrated because he was greedy, and expected Jesus’s kingdom to be way more profitable than it had been.
- Turns out he was a secret spy from
the Judean senate all along, and now his handlers found an opportune time to arrest the Galilean prophet.
And some actually try to defend Judas. In Albert Schweitzer’s
To most of these Judas-defenders, Jesus arranged with Judas—as a co-conspirator, not a pawn—to get himself seized. Judas isn’t the bad guy; he’s in on it. Jesus’s goal varies, depending on the author:
- He wanted to be brought before the senate so they’d immediately recognize
his Messianic claim and anoint him right there. (And man alive,did that backfire. ) - He actually wanted the Romans to try and kill him, but figured those 12 legions of angels he commands
Mt 26.53 would show up and free him and help him take over the world. (And again, big miscalculation.) Getting crucified was actually the plan all along… but right before he actually died he’d be rescued, then present this trick of “resurrection” as proof he’s Messiah, and try to take over the world from there… but oops,he actually did die.
No matter the scenario, Jesus and Judas’s plan collapsed, so Judas panicked and killed himself in despair.
Most Christians recognize these “historical Jesus” theories are purely fictional farces. But every once in a while, one of us gets suckered by them, or uses ’em as an excuse to
But since none of it is part of the historical record—not even in the writings of ancient
Anybody who says Judas was secretly a good guy, or just a seriously disappointed follower who went rogue, is clearly following their own favorite ideas instead of the scriptures. ’Cause the scriptures say stuff like this:
Luke 22.3 KJV - Then entered Satan into Judas surnamed Iscariot, being of the number of the twelve.
John 13.27 KJV - And after the sop Satan entered into him. Then said Jesus unto him, That thou doest, do quickly.
Yep, dude got himself possessed.
Posession doesn’t just happen (and arguably can’t happen to Christians
Christians speculate—but really, we can only speculate—
Once Christians reach this conclusion, we typically follow up with sermons against greed, against
Well. Regardless of why Judas was demonized, that’s what happened. That’s why Jesus himself identified one of his Twelve as a devil.
’Cause contrary to popular belief, usually demon-possessed people look just like everyone else. Unless the Spirit
Misguided or evil, Judas’s effect on Jesus was the same: He handed Jesus over to the people who wanted him dead. It was a low, rotten thing to do. It got our Lord killed.
Only friendlies can betray.
We typically describe Judas’s actions as
A competitor or enemy can’t legitimately sell you out. If I’m your competition, and you discover something about me and sell it, I shouldn’t be surprised and have my feelings hurt. If you’re in combat, and an enemy finds you, it’s not betrayal when he tells his commanders on you. Of course opponents do such things. But when you find a friend has secretly been an opponent all this time: That’s betrayal.
So only someone on Jesus’s side could’ve betrayed him. Whether a student like Matthias, a sorta-student like Nicodemus, a friend like Lazarus, a groupie (or undercover student) like the women, or a brother like James. But in the gospels two members of the Twelve, Jesus’s best students, Jesus’s handpicked leaders, Jesus’s closest allies, turned on him. Judas brought the mob, and Simon Peter
So this hurt Jesus. Psychologically, but psychological wounds hurt just as much as physical wounds, if not more. Jesus should’ve been able to count on these people, yet they proved worse than useless.
Yeah, he knew it was coming. He predicted both acts of opposition—plus that his other students would flee. That only cushions the blow a little. It’s still a blow.
Made a little worse by how it came. Judas kissed him hello, as people did back then. (Rarer now in our culture; men tend not to greet one another by kissing on the lips—unless they’re family.) But this close personal greeting had been twisted, by Judas, into the sign of which person to grab: Wanted posters hadn’t been invented yet, and the mob didn’t know Jesus by sight, especially since it was night (full Passover moon notwithstanding). This expression of affection singled Jesus out for their wrath. From Judas, it meant the very opposite of affection. Because of it, every similar betrayal disguised as friendship is now called a Judas kiss. Even Jesus pointed out how wholly inappropriate it was.
I’m not sure whether Judas or Jesus knew this was the last time they’d see one another alive. I’d like to think Judas’s agony over what he’d done, became repentance, and was enough to get him to heaven. Other Christians much prefer Judas in hell. Revenge fantasies give us a bit of bias in that direction: These vengeful Christians love to point out when Judas “repented himself” in
But Jesus picked Judas for his Twelve for a reason. I seriously doubt it was just as an object lesson for the whole world: Look how even our closest friends can shaft us, ’cause it happened to Jesus. I’d like to think it’s ’cause Jesus truly wanted Judas saved, and in his kingdom. ’Cause God wants everyone saved.
