Wednesday during Holy Week, April 16, 2024

Matthew 26, 14-25

One of the Twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, “What are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you?” They paid him thirty pieces of silver, and from that time on he looked for an opportunity to hand him over. On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the disciples approached Jesus and said, “Where do you want us to prepare for you to eat the Passover?” He said, “Go into the city to a certain man and tell him, ‘The teacher says, My appointed time draws near; in your house I shall celebrate the Passover with my disciples.”  The disciples then did as Jesus had ordered, and prepared the Passover.  When it was evening, he reclined at table with the Twelve. And while they were eating, he said, “Amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me.” Deeply distressed at this, they began to say to him one after another, “Surely it is not I, Lord?” He said in reply, “He who has dipped his hand into the dish with me is the one who will betray me. The Son of Man indeed goes, as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It would be better for that man if he had never been born.” Then Judas, his betrayer, said in reply, “Surely it is not I, Rabbi?” He answered, “You have said so.”

“One of the Twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests.”  Much speculation has circled about what motivated Judas to betray Jesus.  In the Gospels, he is portrayed as greedy and even as a thief, as though the lure of money from the chief priests drove him to do as he did.  But Judas says to the chief priests, “What are you willing to give me?”  That is, he will take what he is given — he is not demanding a price that will make him rich.  St. John also writes that “Satan entered him” (John 13, 27).   The devil by this time knew Jesus was a threat to his empire.  He still would not have understood the mystery of the Incarnation by which God became man, but he knew that Jesus had great powers, especially that of casting out demons.  Satan could have persuaded Judas that Jesus was a false messiah who would only bring ruin to Israel.  Or he might have felt left out of the Lord’s plans and become viciously jealous of the other Apostles.  There are those who misread the Gospels and think that God forced Judas to betray Jesus.  But Jesus gave Judas multiple opportunities to walk away from what he meant to do, but he did not avail himself of them.  Jealousy and hatred were enough to move a man to betray another.

“My appointed time draws near.”  That is, for the offering of his life on the Cross for our redemption.  The Evangelists make it very clear throughout the Gospels that his Death was clearly foreseen and freely willed.  St. John quotes Jesus a number of times as speaking of his “hour”.  We can see the Lord’s life as a race to this hour, relentlessly driving himself in preaching the Gospel and healing those in need of healing as signs of the Father’s approval of his mission.  Although most people live in dread of death, Jesus could hardly constrain himself for it, as though the time dragged until it be accomplished: “I am come to cast fire on the earth. And what will I, but that it be kindled?  And I have a baptism wherewith I am to be baptized. And how am I straitened until it be accomplished?” (Luke 12, 49-50).

“In your house I shall celebrate the Passover.”  The Lord Jesus very much acts as king in Jerusalem during his final days there.  He appropriates a donkey on which to ride in; he casts the money-changers out of the Temple as though it were his Temple; and he announces to a disciple living in Jerusalem that he will eat the Passover meal in his house.  It is in this house that the Lord offered the first Mass.