Pretend you made a chart of all the people you’ve heard of in the Bible. On one side, you put the people who could be characterized as good (not perfect, but good). The other side would be the bad people—the corrupt, the antagonists. Almost certainly, there’s one name that would for sure appear on the naughty list: Judas Iscariot, the disciple who paved the way for Jesus to be arrested, bought by a bribe of 30 pieces of silver.
Right before the disciples had a meal to celebrate the Jewish Passover, Judas slipped out, went to the chief priests, and agreed to hand Jesus over to them. Matthew writes about what happened later that night in the garden of Gethsemane when Jesus was asking his friends to wake up:
While he was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, arrived. With him was a large crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests and the elders of the people. Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: “The one I kiss is the man; arrest him.” Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, “Greetings, Rabbi!” and kissed him.
Jesus replied, “Do what you came for, friend.” Then the men stepped forward, seized Jesus and arrested him. (Matthew 26:47–50)
And with that, Judas Iscariot sealed his fate to become the most famous traitor in history. The obvious question is why? Why did he do that? Was it simply for the money? Maybe. It’s possible those 30 pieces of silver were worth up to six months of work, depending on which type of silver coins they were. We know what the disciple John thought of Judas; in John chapter 12, he called Judas a corrupt treasurer of the group’s money—he called him a thief. So yes, it may have been just about the money. Then again, those coins could also have been worth as little as five days’ wages.
There’s something else we observe from John’s account of the story: Judas tried to return the money; he wanted out of the deal. So here’s another possibility: Judas could have been like many who bought into the idea that Jesus was about to become a national leader—a king of sorts. In many people’s minds, Jesus was about to take over. Judas could have been trying to speed things up by forcing a confrontation, one that would surely end with Jesus winning. But it didn’t go as Judas thought it would. Jesus surrendered without any fight at all. And once Jesus was in custody, the guilt Judas had was so great, he took his own life.
Make no mistake about it: Judas made a bad decision, and maybe a bad decision with bad motives—either for financial gain or to be part of a power grab. But dare we say, Judas could also have made a bad decision simply based on being incorrect. It’s possible he turned Jesus over to the authorities because, in his mind, he believed it would lead his friend, his leader, to become the leader. These are answers we don’t have.
It’s pretty easy to see Judas Iscariot as a villain. And when we think of those coins, we can view them as a symbol of betrayal. But if we look a little deeper into the story, we may find that we have more in common with Judas than we like to think. We all have sin. We’ve all messed up. We’ve rationalized our decisions to serve ourselves. We’ve found ourselves in situations where we’ve wondered, How in the world did I get here? We’ve all experienced the pain of regret—regret that a lot of us still carry around. The hard truth is we all have a little bit of Judas inside us.
But praise be to God, that’s not primarily how our heavenly Father views us. He sees us through the lens of his perfect son Jesus, our Savior, who gave his life on our behalf.
So the next time you see a coin, pick it up. Hold it for a second, then let it go. Let that serve as a reminder that though we’ve sinned, we can let go of the permanent judgment that goes with that sin. God sees us as much more than our bad decisions and sinful choices. We are the reason Jesus chose to offer his life—to make a way for all of us to know our heavenly Father.
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)
Heavenly Father,
Thank you for not counting our sins against us. Thank you for sending Jesus to do for us what we could never do for ourselves. Thank you for loving us in spite of our failures and offering life through the sacrifice Jesus made for us. Amen.
Pretend you made a chart of all the people you’ve heard of in the Bible. On one side, you put the people who could be characterized as good (not perfect, but good). The other side would be the bad people—the corrupt, the antagonists.