“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.” (Matthew
26:14-15)
Of course, it all
began before Judas “high-tailed” it to the chief priests. For you see, Jesus
had entered Jerusalem on the previous Sunday, on the back of a donkey, and
crowds lined the roadway waving palm branches, and shouting,
“Blessed is He
who comes in the name of the Lord!” (Matthew
21:19)
However, within days
the same folks who had lined the roadway, and hailed Him as Messiah were
“singing an entirely different tune.”
“Which of the two do you want me to release
to you?” asked the governor.
‘Barabbas,’ they answered.
“What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is
called the Messiah?” Pilate asked.
“They all answered, ‘Crucify him!’” (Matthew 27:21-22)
What, after all,
was happening here? Why this apparent flip-flop in the thinking of Judas
Iscariot, a man who had witnessed the miracles, and listened to the words of
the God-man for three years? And why the duplicity of the crowd who had hailed
Christ as King one day, and just days later shouted for His execution?
Pt. 2
I think it’s all about
Mindsets. No, I’m convinced that it’s all about Mindsets.
There’s a curious
passage of scripture which contrasts the mindsets of mankind, and the mindsets
of the Almighty.
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my
ways,” saith the Lord.
“For as the heavens are higher than the
earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your
thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9)
It seems apparent to me that the crowd and Judas, the Zealot
expected Jesus to execute vengeance on the occupying Romans. Just a word or an
outstretched arm, and thousands of armed Italian troops would melt like the
Nazi archaeologist in “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”
Unfortunately for Judas, this was never God’s plan in the first
place. For in the first place, before He ever breathed the worlds into place,
our Heavenly Father, the Son of God, and the Holy Spirit came up with a very
different plan from the one Judas, and the crowd envisioned.
Whereas, the vast throng of people expected our Lord to rain down
fire and brimstone on the occupying Roman hoards, and whereas Judas expected
Jesus to execute vengeance on the religious leaders, and soldiers who met Him
in the garden, and whereas the former thought he would force the hand of the
latter, Jesus did the unthinkable.
Nothing at all
He had come to do a whole different thing, and He would not be
denied.
Afterward
Judas and a large segment of Jewish society had gotten it all
wrong. And in so doing, it was all about their mindset. In spite of Jesus’
words and actions, and His emphasis on the heart, and not the head, they were
convinced He came to bring physical, rather than spiritual freedom. The relief
and release He had in mind was much less about deliverance from a
natural enemy, and an earthly homeland, and much more about deliverance from our
natural enemy, and a heavenly one.
By William McDonald, PhD. Copyright pending
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