Thirty Coins And A Terrible Trade

Hosanna one day, a murder plot the next, that swing is where Passion Week gets painfully real. We’re in Jerusalem with Jesus as the cheers fade, the city hardens, and He looks out over it all and weeps. Then He walks straight into the temple and drives out the money changers, confronting a faith that has turned into control and profit. Those moments don’t just stir the crowd, they force a decision: will we receive God’s love, or reject it when it disrupts our plans? 
     From there, we follow the quiet backroom story that sets the cross in motion. Scripture shows the leading priests and teachers of the law, the very people meant to guide others toward righteousness, choosing fear and power over truth. They don’t want a riot, they don’t want Jesus at the center, and they cannot stand the possibility that He is the Messiah. So they look for a “sly way” to arrest Him and make Him disappear. 
     They also need an insider, and that’s where Judas Iscariot enters with one of the most unsettling questions in the Bible: “What will you give me if I hand him over to you?” Thirty pieces of silver later, the betrayal is scheduled. We talk about what might be happening in Judas’ heart, how someone can be close to Jesus’ ministry yet miss Jesus’ heart, and how compromise can open a door to destructive influence. We close with a steady hope: God still turns what the enemy means for evil into good. 

If this helped you reflect on Holy Week, discipleship, and the story of Judas, subscribe, share the episode, and leave a review. What do you think was the first warning sign in Judas’ story?

Transcript

Passion Week Focus And Timeline

Palm Sunday Cheers Then Monday Tears

Religious Leaders Begin A Murder Plot

Judas Takes The Deal For Silver

A Warning About Empty Following

God Turns Evil Plans For Good

Closing And Weekday Invitation

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Good morning and welcome to Starting Right with Danny Mack. I'm going to be here every Monday to Friday to help you get a great five-minute start to your day. So grab your cup of coffee, sit back, relax, and let me help you start your day right. Good morning, everyone. This week we are looking at the events and the people of the Passion Week. That is, the week immediately prior to Jesus' death on Good Friday and his resurrection on Easter Sunday. Jesus made a tremendous impact in his first two days in Jerusalem. He arrived amid a great cheering crowd, worshiping him as the King of Kings and shouting Hosanna because they had heard and seen so much about who he was and what he could do. But then on Monday, Jesus arrived back in Jerusalem, this time without the celebrations. He came in, he looked out over the city of Jerusalem, and he wept for it, because they rejected him and his message of God's love for them. And then he immediately went in and cleared out the temple with all the money changers. Both of those events got people talking, those who were for Jesus and those who were against Jesus. And we know that the religious leaders were definitely against Jesus. Mark eleven, verse 18 tells us that when the leading priests and teachers of religious law heard what Jesus had done, they began planning how to kill him. Did you catch that? The ones who were plotting to kill Jesus were those who were supposed to be the religious leaders, the ones who were supposed to be teaching about God's law, and the ones who were leading the people to do it right and to be right and righteous before God. And yet they were the ones who were plotting to kill Jesus. Jerusalem was flooded with people, and Jesus was the talk of the town, and the Pharisees and the religious leaders were more and more upset with this. They didn't want Jesus to become the focus, and they hated the thought and the talk that Jesus might actually be the Messiah. So in Matthew 26, we are told that the chief priests and elders of the people assembled in the palace of the high priest whose name was Caiaphas, and they plotted to arrest Jesus in some sly way and kill him, but not during the feast, they said, or there may be a riot among the people. But what they really needed was someone on the inside to help them. We find just a little bit later on in Matthew chapter twenty six, down in verse fourteen, 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. What was it that was going on in Judas' mind? He'd been with Jesus since very early in his ministry. He knew Jesus as well as any of them. They he had seen the miracles, he had heard the teachings, yet now Judas was willing to sell Jesus out. Over in Luke twenty two and verse three, it tells us then Satan entered Judas, called Iscariot, one of the twelve. Somehow Judas had opened a door in his life that allowed Satan to come in. Judas may have followed Jesus' footsteps, but he certainly wasn't one who followed Jesus' heart. He had ambitions and ideas outside of the things that Jesus was teaching, and it caused Judas to become the scapegoat in the death of Jesus. There are many people who say they're followers of Christ, but they have no intention of living the way Christ wants them to live or to do the things that God wants them to do. And they leave themselves open to making gigantic mistakes and being used by the enemy to destroy instead of being used by God to build up and strengthen. Here's Judas now, a man who was called to be used by God, who is now going to be used to try to kill God. So he became an integral part of the plot by the Pharisees to capture Jesus, to identify him, to then ridicule him and persecute him. They gladly paid Judas thirty pieces of silver, knowing that now they had someone on the inside to give them the scoop on exactly where Jesus was and when they could get him at his most vulnerable and least public times. The plot against him was coming together. The religious leaders knew that they could get Jesus before the Passover. They could remove him and simply make him go away. With any luck, people wouldn't even know that it happened. Jesus would just disappear. But God had other plans, as he always does. And the Bible does tell us that what the enemy sought for evil, God can turn for good. And that's exactly what's going to happen in the next few days. Have a great day, my friends. We will talk to you again tomorrow. Thank you for listening today. And I invite you to join me Monday to Friday right here on Starting Right with Danny Mack.