“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.
Tradition names this day, ‘spy Wednesday,’ for obvious reasons. John’s narrative from yesterday is taken up by Matthew’s Gospel that speaks of the betrayal of the Lord at the hands of Judas Iscariot in greater detail. Tradition has it that Matthew was a tax collector and so with a tax collector’s exactitude, thirty pieces of silver are recorded as the price that would be paid for Jesus.
Down through the centuries understandable opprobrium has been heaped on Judas the betrayer. Tragically, scripture remembers his ultimate despair of God’s mercy as he hangs himself in utter desolation and darkness.
We will never know if, at the last second of his life, Judas reached out for forgiveness and mercy. We will have to wait until heaven to know that.
Rather than pointing the finger of self-righteous blame at Judas, perhaps it would be better to point that finger at ourselves when, in our own life’s history, we have so easily forgotten our first love and betrayed the Lord of our life. It is a humbling reality that we should keep before us always, that there is a small piece of Judas in all of us. And, with that recognition, how appropriate it is that our lips should often utter in humility: Lord, be merciful to me a sinner.