Matthew 26:14-16

Then one of the Twelve-- the one called Judas Iscariot-- went to the chief priests  and asked, "What are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you?" So they counted out for him thirty silver coins.  From then on Judas watched for an opportunity to hand him over.

 

          (Shake a handful of coins into the microphone).  Isn’t it interesting how the sound of money gets your attention?  Why, here we are in a church service and all of a sudden you hear these clinking coins.  How easy is it to think, could he be giving them to me?  Think again if I started peeling off dollar bills?  Here is a twenty!  Try a fifty!  That sounds like a lot of money, doesn’t it?  It is a lot of money in one way.  But if that is all the money you have, that is not going to last very long today either.

 

            Judas went to the leaders of the temple to betray Jesus.  Notice that he just didn’t offer to betray Jesus and the leaders gave him a gift after the offer.  Judas asked, “What are you willing to give me?”  Judas was not going to do this out of the kindness of his heart.  He was going to sell out Jesus for a price, whatever that price ended up being. 

 

            We do not know the exact reasons Judas went.  God does not clutter our minds with different things as that.  He wants you to know the exact reason Judas did this.  First of all, it was God’s plan that Judas would betray Jesus so that Jesus would suffer and die as he did for our sins.  In the account of the Lord’s Supper we just read, Jesus knows that Judas is in the process of betraying him.  In Jesus’ prayer for his disciples [John 17:12] Jesus states that none were lost “except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled.”  Secondly, the moving force at the moment was Satan as Luke and Mark record in their Gospels, “Then Satan entered Judas…” 

 

            It is easy to look back from our vantage point today and point to Judas as the one who betrayed Jesus.  But as we go through the evening of Jesus’ betrayal, trials and suffering, we see others doing the same.  All of the disciples fled from the scene in the garden.  John and Peter actually enter the high priest’s courts, but nothing is recorded that they tried to change the course of the trial.  It is at that time that Peter vehemently denies even knowing Jesus.  Then the rooster crowed, and Peter wept bitterly because he realized exactly what he had done.  It may not have been coins jingling in his ears, but he had turned against Jesus too.

What makes you turn against Jesus?  What makes each one of us sin against God and against each other in the many and various ways each one does?  What are those activities you would rather do than follow God’s word?  What are those things you would rather have than giving faithfully so that God’s love is echoed throughout this congregation, this community, this world?  How does Satan enter your heart to turn your thoughts away from the joys of eternity to the thrills of the moment?  Are there coins jingling in your ears?  Of course there are.  That is how we are in our sinful lives.

 

            Later we see Judas realizing his guilt.  Those coins taunt him with what he has done.  He realized later that he had “betrayed innocent blood.”  He tried, on his own terms, to give his sin back.  It didn’t work.  Satan consumed him so much with guilt that he just gave up.  Peter wept bitterly too.  Peter came back to ask Jesus for forgiveness.  We do not see the words, but we see the actions.  He continued to trust that the prophecies and promises Jesus made were true, which they were.  When any one lays his sins bare and open before God, trusting in Jesus for the forgiveness God gives, those prophecies and promises come true to you also.

 

            Let’s look at what is happening in those clinking coins.  As Judas was selling out himself and Jesus, Jesus was selling himself out too.  Judas was doing it for his own gain and to satisfy the sinful desires of others.  Jesus did it to satisfy his father’s will and for the heavenly gain of those he loves, you and all believers. 

 

            Judas sought his gain at the expense of another.  Jesus’ gain is at the expense of only himself.  His selfishness is to have you as his brothers and sisters at his expense, not ours or anyone else’s.  In the account of the Lord’s Supper, Jesus shows how he comes to serve you as he washes the disciples’ feet.  He satisfies his father’s will completely by serving your need for salvation completely.

 

            The irony in this account is: 

• Judas wanted nothing but his own gain vs. Jesus gave himself up completely for your gain.
• Satan entered Judas to do Jesus in by causing his death vs. God used Satan through Judas and others to achieve his ultimate goal, that to buy his people back from Satan and death.
• Judas acted on selfish motives, as Satan acts on self-serving motives, at the expense of others, wanting them to have nothing but eternal death vs. God who is jealous , he wants only good for you, and God who is selfish, wanting you for himself to give you eternal life that he has.

 

Clinking coins – how easy it is to be side-tracked by the temptations in our lives.

 

Clinking coins – the drops of Jesus’ blood paying the price for your sins and buying you back into his arms eternally.  Amen.