Matthew 26

¹ When Jesus had finished all these sayings, he said to his disciples, ² “You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified.” ³ Then the chief priests and the elders of the people gathered in the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas, ⁴ and plotted together in order to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him. ⁵ But they said, “Not during the feast, lest there be an uproar among the people.” ⁶ Now when Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, ⁷ a woman came up to him with an alabaster flask of very expensive ointment, and she poured it on his head as he reclined at table. ⁸ And when the disciples saw it, they were indignant, saying, “Why this waste? ⁹ For this could have been sold for a large sum and given to the poor.” ¹⁰ But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a beautiful thing to me. ¹¹ For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me. ¹² In pouring this ointment on my body, she has done it to prepare me for burial. ¹³ Truly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her.” ¹⁴ Then one of the twelve, whose name was Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests ¹⁵ and said, “What will you give me if I deliver him over to you?” And they paid him thirty pieces of silver. ¹⁶ And from that moment he sought an opportunity to betray him.

Some years ago, the following joke made the rounds on email and websites. The three men it mentions were all very intelligent and renowned theologians in their day.

Karl Barth, Paul Tillich, and Reinhold Niebuhr find themselves all at the same time at Caesarea Philippi. Who should come along but Jesus, and he asks the four famous theologians the same Christological question, “Who do you say that I am?”

Karl Barth stands up and says: “You are the totaliter aliter, the vestigious trinitatum who speaks to us in the modality of Christo-monism.”

Not prepared for Barth’s brevity, Paul Tillich stumbles out: “You are he who heals our ambiguities and overcomes the split of angst and existential estrangement; you are he who speaks of the theonomous viewpoint of the analogia entis, the analogy of our being and the ground of all possibilities.”

Reinhold Niebuhr gives a cough for effect and says, in one breath: “You are the impossible possibility who brings to us, your children of light and children of darkness, the overwhelming oughtness in the midst of our fraught condition of estrangement and brokenness in the contiguity and existential anxieties of our ontological relationships.”

And Jesus writes in the sand, “Huh?”

It is a humorous little joke, to be sure. The humor comes in the disconnect between the humility and self-sacrifice of Christ on the one hand and the self-promoting and ostentatious language of the theologians on the other. Even before we reach Jesus’ “Huh?” we know that the pretensions of the theologians are going to fall flat. For if the average person knows anything at all about Jesus, it is that he came lowly, not haughtily. Even so, we all seem to paint Jesus in such a way that He ends up looking just like us, as William Blake recognized.

The vision of Christ that thou dost see

Is my vision’s greatest enemy:

Thine has a great hook nose like thine,

Mine has a snub nose like to mine. . . .

Both read the Bible day and night,

But thou read’st black where I read white.[1]

There is an indictment there, and it is an indictment of the human spirit. The one thing we must not do is distort the image of Christ we find in the New Testament, for it is the New Testament image of Christ that we most need. Why? Because the New Testament image of Christ is an image of Christ coming to embrace the agonies of the cross. However we might like to recast Jesus in our own images, we must resist the urge, for the haughtiness of man will inevitably eventually discard the cross. But Jesus came for the cross. He came specifically for it. As His ministry progressed, Jesus continued to move closer and closer to the cross.

We are now going to begin a chronological walk toward the cross by considering the events recorded in Matthew 26 and following. Specifically, in this chapter, we begin to see various individuals and entities moving into their respective places in the divine drama of the passion of Jesus, and as each piece moves on the board, each tells a story about the nature of man and the goodness of God. Above all, the sovereign will of God is not dormant, and as the Son moves toward the cross, He moves in harmony with the saving intent of the Father.

The religious powers move against Jesus in order to capture and kill Him.

We first see the religious establishment beginning to circle around Jesus like carrion birds of prey.

¹ When Jesus had finished all these sayings, he said to his disciples, ² “You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified.” ³ Then the chief priests and the elders of the people gathered in the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas, ⁴ and plotted together in order to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him. ⁵ But they said, “Not during the feast, lest there be an uproar among the people.”

The religious leaders plot.

The religious leaders.

Do not let this fact be lost on you: the religious people plotted to kill Jesus.

Why? Because the vision of God that Jesus proclaimed and modeled and called people to was a vision of God that did not fit the carefully crafted template that the religious elites had constructed on the backs of their fearful subjects. The religious establishment that sought to remove Jesus from the scene was an establishment that burdened the people with heavy loads of guilt and shame. The God portrayed by them was a God whose true character had been largely obscured by their numerous man-made laws and rituals and customs. It was a shame-based religion. It was also very profitable. A section of the Temple had been distorted from its original purpose in order to house the lucrative sacrifice market.

And then, Jesus comes onto the scene. And Jesus shatters the paradigm. He proclaims an accurate depiction of the God of Israel. He pronounces that God has come to Israel and, indeed, the entire world, through Him. He pronounces that God has come in Christ to set free the captives, to open the doors of the prisons of guilt in which the people were trapped, and to set them free. His was a love-based vision of God, a forgiveness-based vision.

Jesus threatened the religious establishment. He threatened the financial racket they had created as well as the faulty theology on which it was founded. He called their bluff on their man-made and oppressive burdens of tradition and suffocating rules. He pronounced that, through Him, man could now come to God.

So Israel’s power structure began to plot. The priests and the religious professionals plotted. The wealthy and the upper echelon plotted. Those who were most threatened by the message of Jesus plotted.

So it was.

So it is.

It is always the power structures that most resent Jesus, be they religious power structures or political. Why? Because Jesus redefined power in a way that the powers could never tolerate. He demonstrated that true power is radical submission to the will of God, even to the point of the cross.

The worldly powers cannot abide the cross. It is a threat to them.

In 1961, Woody Guthrie published his song, “Jesus Christ.” The lyrics are powerful because they are so very accurate. They perfectly capture the threat that Jesus poses to power

Jesus Christ was a man who traveled through the land

A hard-working man and brave

He said to the rich, “Give your money to the poor,”

But they laid Jesus Christ in His grave

Jesus was a man, a carpenter by hand

His followers true and brave

One dirty little coward called Judas Iscariot

Has laid Jesus Christ in His Grave

He went to the preacher, He went to the sheriff

He told them all the same

“Sell all of your jewelry and give it to the poor,”

And they laid Jesus Christ in His grave.

Jesus was a man, a carpenter by hand

His followers true and brave

One dirty little coward called Judas Iscariot

Has laid Jesus Christ in His Grave

When Jesus come to town, all the working folks around

Believed what he did say

But the bankers and the preachers, they nailed Him on the cross,

And they laid Jesus Christ in his grave.

Jesus was a man, a carpenter by hand

His followers true and brave

One dirty little coward called Judas Iscariot

Has laid Jesus Christ in His Grave

And the people held their breath when they heard about his death

Everybody wondered why

It was the big landlord and the soldiers that they hired

To nail Jesus Christ in the sky

Jesus was a man, a carpenter by hand

His followers true and brave

One dirty little coward called Judas Iscariot

Has laid Jesus Christ in His Grave

This song was written in New York City

Of rich man, preacher, and slave

If Jesus was to preach what He preached in Galilee,

They would lay poor Jesus in His grave.[2]

So very true! If Jesus came today He would be just as much a threat to the worldly powers as He was two thousand years ago.

But of course, Jesus still reigns today and He is present in His Church, the body of Christ. It is therefore a great tragedy when the church colludes with power instead of undermining it with the subversive power of the cross of Christ. Christ is still a threat to power, and He should remain one as the Church, His body and bride, continues His life in the world today.

A woman moves toward Jesus in order to anoint Him for His burial.

While the religious elites plot and scheme, one unlikely follower of Jesus moves toward Him, demonstrating her understanding of what Jesus had actually come to do.

⁶ Now when Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, ⁷ a woman came up to him with an alabaster flask of very expensive ointment, and she poured it on his head as he reclined at table. ⁸ And when the disciples saw it, they were indignant, saying, “Why this waste? ⁹ For this could have been sold for a large sum and given to the poor.” ¹⁰ But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a beautiful thing to me. ¹¹ For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me. ¹² In pouring this ointment on my body, she has done it to prepare me for burial. ¹³ Truly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her.”

The power structures scheme, but this woman comes with a beautiful manifestation of love. In her devotion to Christ and her anticipation of His sacrifice, she approaches Him at dinner and pours a container full of perfume on His head. To say this is provocative would be an amazing understatement. First, she is a woman approaching a man. In that day and culture, that was an eyebrow-raising act to be sure. Second, her act of devotion was extreme and unorthodox. Craig Keener points out, “this perfume (undoubtedly imported from the East) was expensive, worth a year of a common laborer’s wages, and had probably been kept in her family as an heirloom.”[3]

This woman’s offering is as over-the-top in its display of love as the scheming of the priests is in its display of malice. The woman acts in accordance with God’s will, and, surprisingly, even Jesus’s closest disciples fail to see this at first. For a brief moment, it is just her and Jesus contra mundum.

It is interesting to observe the indicting numerics of this: all of the disciples are present but only one lady seems to understand that Jesus has come for the cross. Only one truly “gets it,” even in the midst of His disciples. If this be taken as normative, that means that those who truly understand the significance of the cross are always in the minority, even among God’s people.

Furthermore, it means that those who truly understand what Jesus is about will oftentimes receive the rebuke of those who assume that they do, for this woman is chastised. And notice the nature of the chastisement. It is couched in philanthropic language, the language of compassion for the poor. That is, it is couched in terminology that presumes and assumes the favor of God on the indictment. “Why this waste? For this could have been sold for a large sum and given to the poor.”

Waste? This is how minds and hearts that have yet to be opened to the reality of Christ must ever and always view true devotion: as a wasteful thing. So they rebuke her, sure that Christ will stand with them against her.

But they are wrong.

^10b “Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a beautiful thing to me. ¹¹ For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me. ¹² In pouring this ointment on my body, she has done it to prepare me for burial. ¹³ Truly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her.”

Ah! So it is the woman who sees clearly and the disciples who are blind. Who could have guessed such a thing?

Again, notice the pieces as they move. The religious leaders begin to circle and to plot. One woman, however, moves towards Jesus with a heart full of devotion and love. And yet, another of Jesus’ followers moves away.

A disciple moves away from Jesus in order to betray Him for profit.

Judas moves from Christ as the woman moves toward Christ.

¹⁴ Then one of the twelve, whose name was Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests ¹⁵ and said, “What will you give me if I deliver him over to you?” And they paid him thirty pieces of silver. ¹⁶ And from that moment he sought an opportunity to betray him.

Behold the shame of Judas!

One theory is that Judas was associated with the Sicarii, “the dagger men,” a group of violent Jewish revolutionaries who sought the expulsion of the Romans from Palestine by acts both political and physical. The suggestion seems to hinge on the similarity between “Sicarii” and “Iscariot.”

While this connection is perhaps impossible to prove, the theory suggests that Judas took up with Jesus after mistaking Jesus as a fellow revolutionary along the lines of the Sicarii. Then, perhaps frustrated with Jesus’ lack of action and this strange talk of the cross, Judas sought to betray Jesus in order to force Him out into the open, as it were. The idea is that Judas did not actually intend for Jesus to be killed. He simply intended for Jesus to be forced into a situation where He would have to act and move against the Roman presence in the area.

According to this theory, Judas’ suicide is explainable on the basis of his shock at realizing that Jesus never was a revolutionary as he had conceived of Him, that Jesus perhaps meant all that He had said, and that Judas had greatly misunderstood what Jesus had come to do.

Perhaps. Who knows?

One interesting thing to note against this theory is that Judas looks for personal financial profit in the deal. “What will you give me if I deliver him over to you?” We know that Judas had some fondness for money. In John 13:29 we are told that “Judas had the moneybag.” In John 12:6, we are also told that “[Judas] was a thief, and having charge of the moneybag he used to help himself to what was put into it.”

In other words, it could just be that Judas saw the end approaching and wanted one final payday.

Again, who knows?

What we do know is this: Judas goes to the priests to plot the death of Jesus. In so doing, he seals his fate as an accursed figure in human history.

In Umberto Eco’s novel, The Island of the Day Before, a 17th century man named Ferrante encounters Judas Iscariot chained to a rock in the sea. After inquiring as to the nature of his punishment, Judas offers this explanation:

            Why, because God has willed that my punishment consist in living always on Good Friday, to celebrate always and every day the Passion of the man I betrayed. The first day of my suffering, when for other human beings sunset approached, and then night, and then the dawn of Saturday, for me only an atom of an atom of a minute of the ninth hour of that Friday had gone by. As the course of my sun began to move even more slowly, for the rest of you Christ was rising from the dead, but I was still barely a step from that hour. And now, when centuries and centuries have passed for you, I am still only a crumb of time from that instant…[4]

Calvin Miller passes on an Irish legend about Judas.

On the island Brendan [the first Celtic sailor] meets Judas Iscariot, the betrayer of Jesus! Judas explains that, by the mercy of Jesus, he is on the island for a brief respite from his never-ending suffering in hell:

I am Judas, most wretched, and the greatest traitor. I am here not on account of my own merits but because of the mysterious mercy of Jesus Christ. For me this is not a place of torment but rather a place of respite granted me by the Savior in honor of his Resurrection.” It was the Lord’s own day. “It seems to me when I sit here that I am in the Garden of Delights in comparison with the agonies which I know I shall suffer this evening. For I burn like molten lead in a crucible day and night at the heart of the mountain which you see, where Leviathan lives with his companions. I have a respite here every Sunday from first to second vespers, from Christmas until Epiphany, from Easter until Pentecost, and on the Feast of the Purification and the Assumption of the Mother of God. The rest of the year I am tortured in the depths of hell with Herod and Pilate, Annas and Caiaphas. Therefore I beseech you by the Savior of the world to be kind enough to intercede for me with the Lord Jesus Christ that I may be allowed to remain here until sunset tomorrow and that the devils may not torment me, seeing your arrival here, and drag me off to the hideous destiny which I purchased with so terrible a price.” St. Brendan replied: “The Lord’s will be done. You shall not be consumed by devils tonight until dawn.[5]

In Dante’s Inferno, Judas is eternally chewed upon by Satan in hell.

Yes, history has not been kind to Judas, and rightfully so. He has received his punishment both in reality and in the imaginations of men and women down through the ages.

In Matthew 26 we see and behold the great drama of the ages moving toward its apex. At the very top stands a cross and an empty tomb, the emblems of our salvation. And surrounding it are many who plot and scheme, one who betrays, and one who comes in obedience and adoration to Jesus.

It raises the question: who are you in this grand scene? Who am I? The threatened religious establishment, wishing deep down that Jesus could be removed from the scene? Or maybe you are hypocritical Judas, posing and posturing as a follower of Jesus but, all the while, asking yourself, “What is in this for me?”

Or are you the woman with the costly ointment? Do you desire to approach Jesus and give Him all that you have and all that you are? Do you desire to withstand the curiosity and possibly even the outrage of the watching crowd to come to Jesus with simple faith and humility and love because you simply can do no other?

Who are you?

Who am I?

Church, we are all somebody. Perhaps at times we have played all the parts. Likely that is so. But may I implore you to come to Jesus like this lady? Approach the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords and know that you will find there a Friend above all other friends.

 

[1] Quoted in Philip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew ((Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1995)), p.18.

[2] https://woodyguthrie.org/Lyrics/Jesus_Christ.htm

[3] Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament. (Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), p.119.

[4] Umberto Eco. The Island of the Day Before (New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1994), p. 466-467.

[5] Calvin Miller, The Path of Celtic Prayer: An Ancient Way to Everyday Joy (Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Books, 2007), p.76.