Matthew 27:1-10

Matthew 27:1-10

The chief priests must have had supreme confidence in their ability to destroy people. They decide they would destroy Jesus and they simply had to figure out how. The overnight trial had produced from them the grounds on which they wanted to kill Jesus. However, getting the Romans to cooperate would be another matter. Pilate was no friend of the Jews. So before taking Jesus to the Roman governor they took council to devise their strategy. What happened before Pilate was not an impromptu, grassroots movement, but the working out of a careful plan.

Matthew deals with Judas’s demise here before getting on to the trial by Pilate. Judas delivered Jesus to the Jews and once that is done his role is over and, while not chronological, this is the place to finish his story. Judas felt remorse. The word is not the typical word for repent which carries the implication of forgiveness. Judas admits that he has betrayed innocent blood. What he knew did not control what his bitterness and emotions dictated. Judas regrets the consequences of his actions, but not the motivational sin that drove them. Judas wanted to shift the guilt for what he had done from himself to someone else, but there was apparently no desire for any repentance and returning to Jesus. While Peter was guilty of a lapse in a moment Judas willfully turned away from Jesus. He was still angry and hostile toward Jesus, but he did regret the depth of the Jewish punishment. Had Jesus been broken, defamed, shamed, and ruined by the Jews Judas would likely have been quite content. He wanted to shed the guilt without restoration to Jesus, which never happens. Guilty is linked not just to behavior, but also to the broken relationship behind the behavior. Without the restoration of the relationship guilt can never be removed.

In all of human history we may see the purest form of hypocrisy in this passage. The priests for pious and religious reasons will not accept blood money into the temple treasury, but apparently, have no qualms about paying out blood money, perhaps from that same treasury. Here are two sides of the same coin. One they put into practice and the other they, for religious reasons, condemn. According to Jewish tradition the greatest evil is to do evil in the name of God. Judas takes the unclean money and throws it into the holy place. This raised a number of difficult questions. Since it was unclean, would the money make the holy place in the temple unclean? This money laying about would compel the priest to go and pick up and touch the unclean money. Would he in so doing become unclean? With blood on his hands he had to contemplate the effect of blood money.

In the simple love and devotion to Jesus there is an uncomplicated peace. It is in our sin and manipulation that life becomes difficult, convoluted and contrary.

"God please grant me simple holy love for Your Son Jesus. AMEN"