It was Tuesday of Holy Week. Just like any other day, but plans were being put into place to capture Jesus and kill Him. In order for the plan to succeed, the Sanhedrin would collaborate with one of Jesus’ own disciples to make it happen. Even one who seemed pretty much in good standing with the man who was about to be arrested.

What was going on in his mind? A follower of Jesus for three years – keeper of the treasury – trusted disciple – led by the devil himself to betray the One and only Son of God. How could he? Why would he betray the man he had come to know as brother? Was the lure of thirty pieces of silver so strong that he couldn’t resist – even though He had God’s richest treasure within his midst? I can’t begin to imagine what Judas was thinking just before he entered the Garden of Gethsemane on that night.  How could anyone possibly explain what he was about to do?  In that moment he would walk up to his friend and betray him with a brotherly show of affection.  It was as if the devil crept into his soul and took up residence, but it was still part of the overall plan woven together by the King of Creation.  It had to be this way.

Judas Iscariot is mentioned a few times in God’s Word, but we don’t have a lot of background information. He was likely an educated man. He was put in charge of the money collected or donated as Jesus spread His message.

“But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (he who was about to betray him), said, ‘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 12:4-7 ESV

This same disciple would be lured in by the leaders of Sanhedrin to turn Jesus over to them for trial. The cost was thirty pieces of silver – the average cost for a slave in Egypt during the time of the Exodus. They paid their blood money to Judas prior to obtaining Jesus’ arrest. Judas sold out his Savior not only because of his greed, but because Satan had already taken up residence in his heart.

The Bible states that Judas was a thief when he helped himself to the money designated for the poor, he wasn’t considered trustworthy. In a dark corner somewhere, I can imagine Judas lurking about in the shadows, waiting to be bribed into betraying a man he was supposed to follow and revere. The second those pieces of silver fell into his hands, he was lost. He would go on to hang himself in a gruesome death because of his shame – his conscience – his inability to deliver himself from temptation – or because it was a greater plan.

God knew what would occur. It was all predestined before Judas was even born. We could sit in judgement of this man and his weakness, but we are all guilty of betraying our Lord at one time or another in our own lives. How could we?