Context No. 1067 of 4322 · Matthew
Context · Reflection
Matthew 26:14-18: in context
14Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests 15and said, “What are you willing to give me if I deliver him to you?” So they weighed out for him thirty pieces of silver. 16From that time he sought opportunity to betray him. 17Now on the first day of unleavened bread, the disciples came to Jesus, saying to him, “Where do you want us to prepare for you to eat the Passover?” 18He said, “Go into the city to a certain person, and tell him, ‘The Teacher says, “My time is at hand. I will keep the Passover at your house with my disciples.”’”
Two very different scenes sit side by side. In the first, Judas, one of the twelve, goes to the chief priests and asks, what will you give me if I hand him over to you? They weigh out thirty pieces of silver, and from that moment he watches for a chance to betray Jesus. In the second, the disciples ask where they should prepare the Passover, and Jesus sends them to a certain house with a message: the Teacher says, my time is at hand; I will keep the Passover at your house with my disciples.
The contrast is stark and deliberate. Judas asks what will you give me, reducing his Lord to a transaction, a price to be haggled, and the sum, thirty pieces of silver, was the price of a slave. He turns three years of following Jesus into a fee. And in the very next breath, Jesus is calmly arranging the Passover, saying my time is at hand, fully aware of what is coming and moving toward it without flinching. One man is selling him for a slave's price; the other, the one being sold, is preparing to give himself freely in a meal that will explain his death. Judas thinks he is engineering the betrayal; Jesus knows his hour has come and is walking into it on purpose. The betrayer schemes for silver while the betrayed sets the table. It is worth sitting with the question of what price we would put on Jesus, in what small ways we sell him for a little advantage, and with the wonder that his response to being sold was to prepare a meal and give himself.
In what small ways do I ask what will you give me and sell out my Lord for a little advantage, and can I grasp that his answer to betrayal was to give himself?
Sources
- Matthew 26:15: what are you willing to give me if I deliver him to you? And they paid him thirty pieces of silver
- Zechariah 11:12-13: they weighed out as my wages thirty pieces of silver
- Matthew 26:18: the Teacher says, my time is at hand; I will keep the Passover at your house