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 of the betrayal of Jesus by his friend Judas Iscariot
It is the day just before Maundy Thursday when we remember the Last Supper.
And I wonder what you think
“Was Holy Week a series of unfortunate chance events ”
No, I would like to suggest to you that the events from Palm Sunday to Maundy Thursday were well planned by Jesus.
1. The Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem (Palm Sunday)
I don’t believe that the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem simply HAPPENED.
I think it was well planned. Why?
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 say “Simeon and his partner Ruben. Please go and get it”
And there has to be a clue to the donkey being pre-arranged in what the disciples are told to the owners of the donkey:
They are told to say “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 signal the owners could easily have answered – 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 betrayed
i) Jesus’ intention to go into Jerusalem riding a donkey, and
ii) if had also known that he was prepared to get a
then Judas could have told the High Priest and his party what 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.
And once they 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.
2. The Last Supper
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)
Again 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 the disciples.
I think Jesus knew that Judas Iscariot would betray him at the Last Supper too, if he had known where it was being held
Once Judas knew ahead of time where the Last Supper was being held, he could have gone to the High Priest 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?
It all turns on who the Messiah is
Folk lore at the time saw the Messiah as the all-conquering hero like Judas Maccabeus.
With the Last Supper Jesus is telling us that he is the Suffering servant of Isaiah 53.
At the last Supper Jesus washed the disciples’ feet, the job assigned to the lowliest slave in a household.
Quite rightly Graham Kendrick called Jesus “the Servant King”
3. The Motive of Judas
So why did Judas want to and eventually did betray his friend Jesus
Judas, remember had been one of Jesus’ closest inner circle who had lived with him most of his earthly ministry of 1200 days or just over 3 years
I believe Judas betrayed Christ in order to force Jesus’s hand to be Judas’ idea of the Messiah - an all-conquering hero.
I think Judas would have reasoned that if Jesus felt his life was at stake, then Jesus would have had to lead a revolt and 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!
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.
I believe that what Jesus is doing in the Eucharist is telling us that He is coming as the servant king of Isaiah 53
But also, He is telling us we are all equal when we come to the Eucharist.
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:
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
Like Jesus this involves being humble in the way we live and gentle in how we treat people.
Illustration: When I was at college at the University of London, I was on the College Chess team.
I thought I should play No 1 Board all the time and apparently, I let everyone in the team know it.
Steve a friend of mine in the Chess Team said:
Martin, I am not a Christian but I have Christian friends. And the way you are behaving, is letting the side down.
That hit home hard and true
We are called to be humble and I think that is the reason that the present Pope has taken the name Pope Francis
And apparently drove his security team mad by travelling by public transport!
