Spy Wednesday
The Student Cross Leicester Leg 2022 (from Leicester to Walsingham)
Today we find ourselves in Holy Week and today is the day we know as Spy Wednesday
It is the day we focus on the betrayal of Jesus by his friend Judas Iscariot
It is the day just before Maundy Thursday when we remember the Last Supper.
The actual day on which the Last Supper was held is disputed. The Synoptic Gospels give Thursday and John apparently gives that day as Friday.
How can we synchronise that?
I see this as the writers of the Synoptic Gospels and John using different calendars.
As one commentator put it:
The Jews celebrated the Passover on two consecutive days.
Hoehner writes, “The Pharisees celebrated the Passover immediately (Nisan 13/14) while the Sadducees waited until the usual time (i.e., Nisan 14/15).”
Jesus celebrated the Passover on Thursday night according to the Pharisaic calendar, which is in line with the Synoptics.
But John was going off the Sadducean calendar, when he wrote his Gospel, because he was focusing on Jesus’ enemies.
https://www.evidenceunseen.com/bible-difficulties-2/nt-difficulties/john-acts/jn-131-does-john-contradict-the-synoptics-regarding-the-passover-meal/
But I am not concentrating on the calendar of Holy Week this afternoon.
Rather I would like to give you this thought.
“Was Holy Week a series of unfortunate chance events or not.”
I don’t believe they were a series of unfortunate events.
Rather I would like to suggest to you that the events from Palm Sunday to Maundy Thursday were well planned by Jesus. Rather is it more like a Sherlock Holmes mystery.
I don’t believe that the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem simply HAPPENED.
I think it was well planned. And with a secret code. "The Lord needs it"
So why do I think this?
Well, it is a small detail about the donkey.
In Luke 19 we read that Jesus told his disciples to go into the next village, Bethphage and find a small donkey that was tied up – and that they brought it back to Jesus.
We read in Lk 19:33
33 As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?”
Note: The donkey had owners (plural), and so the owners had to be too poor to afford a donkey alone.
And given that they were poor, the donkey would have had to be a sizeable investment for each owner.
So have you ever wondered WHY the owners would have parted with the donkey to complete strangers - the disciples?
Unless Jesus had prearranged it
And why did Jesus not simply say to his disciples. I have arranged a donkey with “Judah ben Jacob” and his partner. Please go and get it
There has to be a clue with the donkey. It has to have been pre-arranged when the disciples are told to tell the owners of the donkey:
“The Lord needs it."
Not “Jesus the teacher from Nazareth needs it” but “the Lord needs it.”
If "The Lord needs it" was not a prearranged code, then why did the owners not answer – Who is “the Lord” but there is no record of them doing so.
Rather the disciples are allowed to take the donkey.
Following the maxim attributed to Sherlock Holmes
"eliminate the obvious and whatever remains, however improbable, must be the answer."
(The Supreme Court and Constitutional Theory by Ronald Kahn. 1994.)
It seems to me that the most likely explanation has to be that “ The Lord needs it” was a pre-arranged code word for Palm Sunday.
Why – because Judas was still with them.
Had Judas known
i) Jesus’ intention to go into Jerusalem riding a donkey, and
ii) if he had also known who owned the donkey
then Judas could have told the High Priest and his party what Jesus was up to
And they would have immediately realised what that Jesus was planning – that is to say that Jesus was planning to fulfil the Messianic prophecy of Zechariah 9:9 given 900 years earlier.
"Rejoice, O people of Zion! Shout in triumph, O people of Jerusalem! Look, your king is coming to you. He is righteous and victorious, yet he is humble, riding on a donkey— riding on a donkey’s colt." (Zech. 9:9)
Once the High Priest had found out who owned the donkey and where it would be, then the High Priestly party would have stopped Jesus ever getting to the donkey
i) either by confiscating it or
ii) simply killing it.
Now we see the same meticulous planning on Spy Wednesday in preparation for the Last Supper
Again remember Judas Iscariot, who was to betray Jesus, was still with them .
Luke records Jesus sending Peter and John to make preparations for the Passover and he says this :
8.. “Go and make preparations for us to eat the Passover.”
9 “Where do you want us to prepare for it?” they asked.
10 He replied, “As you enter the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you.
Follow him to the house that he enters, 11 and say to the owner of the house,
‘The Teacher asks: Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’
12 He will show you a large room upstairs, all furnished. Make preparations there.”
13 They left and found things just as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the Passover. (Luke 22:8-13)
Jesus was very clever and meticulous in his planning
Jesus does not tell Peter and John: “Go to Mary the mother of St Mark’s house and prepare the Passover there”, because Judas was still among them.
I think Jesus knew that Judas Iscariot would betray him while he was still at the Last Supper too, if Judas had known where the Last Supper was being held
If Judas had known ahead of time where the Last Supper was being held, he could have gone to the High Priest and his party and told them where Jesus was.
Then the High Priest could have had Jesus arrested in secret at the Last Supper.
Yet this potential disruption was not in Jesus’ plans and so he sets up this clandestine operation.
So why was the Last Supper so important to Jesus that he kept its venue hidden from Judas?
Judas was looking – as were most Jews of his day for an all-conquering Messiah in the mould of Judas Maccabeus.
But Jesus came to dispel that folk lore.
Jesus was coming as a Servant King, who was going to save mankind by giving his life to bring us back to God.
With the Last Supper Jesus is telling us that he is the Suffering servant of Isaiah 53 and not the all-conquering hero like Judas Maccabeus.
So why did Judas want to betray his friend Jesus
I think the background is very important
What do we know about Judas
He is known as Judas Iscariot
Some scholars think that the name Iscariot comes from a corruption of the Latin word sicarius meaning “dagger man” .
If that is right, then Judas was a member of a terrorist group called the Sicarii.
The Sicarii was a group of rebels who were known for committing acts of terror by assassinating people in crowds with long knives hidden under their cloak.
They would happily walk up to a Roman soldier and stab him in the back.
If Judas was a member of the Sicarii, that would explain for me why he betrayed Jesus.
Judas wanted Jesus - through his popularity -to lead a rebellion to throw the Romans out.
And there was a precedence for this
In 167 BC, Judas Maccabeus had led an uprising against the Seleucid King Antiochus IV king of Syria who was ruling Judea at the time.
The Jewish uprising was so successful that Judas Maccabeus overthrew Antiochus and established the Hasmonean Kingdom that lasted about 100 years in Judea.
The popular idea in Judea (at the time of Jesus) was that the Messiah would be a "Judas Maccabeus" style figure – freeing Israel from the oppressors - the Romans.
But whatever the truth about Judas’s name, it is clear that Judas wanted his own way, which seems to have been to get Jesus to lead a revolt and throw the hated Romans out.
Comment: I have often wondered why Judas’s remorse was different to Peter’s regret
After all, you could say both betrayed Jesus?
And why Judas was offered no chance of repentance, whereas after the Resurrection , Peter was given a second chance
And the key to me seems to be in the attitude of Judas and Peter.
1. Judas actively set out to betray his friend.
I think his motive was to get Jesus to do what he wanted. He would have expected Jesus once he was arrested to rally his followers once his own life was being threatened.
I think he betrayed Jesus to force Jesus’ to do what Judas wanted
2. On the other hand Peter doesn’t set out to betray Jesus, to get his own way but rather simply through fear denied Christ.
The attitudes of Judas and Peter are different
Judas, remember had been one of Jesus’ closest inner circle who had lived with him most of his earthly ministry
I think Judas would have reasoned that if Jesus felt his life was at stake, then Jesus would have had to lead a revolt to save his life and thereby free Judea from foreign occupation.
But I wonder if Judas would have betrayed Jesus if Judas had realised that far from forcing Jesus’ hand to be an all-conquering hero - it would cause his friend’s death.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing!
But Judas misread Jesus completely, which is why he was filled with remorse at what he had done and committed suicide.
May I leave you with just one thought today.
At the Eucharist, we cast off the garments of worldly importance and we all come to the Eucharist as sinners redeemed by the blood of Christ.
Because in the Eucharist we remember Christ – his body and his blood
When we come to the Eucharist – we find Christ is a great leveller.
The Welsh Methodist preacher Hugh Price Hughes tells this story:
“I remember a beautiful incident in the life of the Duke of Wellington when he was Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports.
The Iron Duke (as the Duke of Wellington was popularly known) was in church, and was going to receive the Lord's Supper, (the Eucharist) when a peasant, who had not noticed the Duke, knelt down by the Duke.
Discovering who he was, and being much terrified in the presence of a man he considered his superior, he started to get up, when the Duke put his hand on his shoulder, and said,
"Don't move, we are all equal here."
(http://biblehub.com/sermons/auth/hughes/universal_equality.htm)
May I leave you with my one thought put another way:
The Eucharist reminds us that in the presence of Jesus we are all equal.
Because we are all equally sinners in need of a Saviour.
As you go forth today to love and serve the Lord, remember that we are all equal before God.
It doesn’t mean that we can treat people in any old way, but as Christians we are called to demonstrate the way of Christ and like Jesus this involves being humble in the way we live and gentle in how we treat people.
I think that is the reason that the Pope took the name Pope Francis and why he drove his security team mad by travelling by public transport!
