“Now the Feast of Unleavened Bread, called the Passover, was approaching, and the chief priests and the teachers of the law were looking for some way to get rid of Jesus, for they were afraid of the people. Then Satan entered Judas, called Iscariot, one of the Twelve. And Judas went to the chief priests and the officers of the temple guard and discussed with them how he might betray Jesus. They were delighted and agreed to give him money. He consented, and watched for an opportunity to hand Jesus over to them when no crowd was present.”
My Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines the word “betray” as such: *to deliver to an enemy by treachery*to fail or desert esp. in time of need *to disclose in violation of confidence. There are more definitions to the word ‘betray’, however, I want to concentrate on the ones I gave above.
If you noticed, ‘the chief priests and the teachers of the law’ were religious people! They followed the Law closely and did everthing that God required through it. To be more exact though, these religious people really just went through the motions of the requirements of the Law. They did all the exterior rituals but totally neglected the real significance of the Law, that is real trusting faith in God and love of neighbour!
Now there are a lot of religious people in our churches; they are the weeds within the Body of Christ (Parable of the Weeds in Matthew 13: 24-30). Since they are false brothers and sisters in Christ, they persecute the real children of God. There really are false Christians in this world, that is ‘Christians’ by name or people who love religion without wanting to find out who is the Lord behind it!
Also, since the flesh is weak and sin is so present in our lives, there are times when we ourselves may have a religious attitude concentrating more on the motions of our denomination than on what Christ truly asks of His disciples, that is to love God with all our being as well as our neighbour as ourselves. When we happen to carelessly fall into this type of religious behaviour, we may find ourselves judging others wrongly and even rejecting, betraying or hurting in some type of fashion some of our brothers and sisters in Christ! Unfortunately sometimes we give Satan a little bit too much space in our hearts and he takes over where the Lord should be Master and King!
Now in short, during our Christian walk, we will be betrayed by religious people and we will be betrayed by some of our friends…
Look at Judas. He was one of the Twelve Apostles! He had been one of Jesus’ closest friends! What Judas did against Jesus, betraying Him the way he did, was just horrible. I can’t imagine Jesus’ pain over such rejection by one of His best friends! That’s where the torture of Calvary began…
It just hurts so much when some of our closest friends just decide to turn their back on us; it’s even worst when they go as far as to betray us and speak wrongly of us. However, being a Christian means we will be rejected, even by our closest friends and even if these friends are other Christians. Jesus went through it and since the servant is not above the Master, we will go through it once in a while too. Jesus still loved Judas greatly and we are to love those who have thus rejected us as well…
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