Tuesday of the Holy Week

On Tuesday of Holy Week, there was a plot that involved money, power, religious leaders, a famous festival, and the devil himself. The religious leaders were looking for some way to get rid of Jesus, for they were afraid of the people. But they needed an insider; someone who knew the game plan of the inner circle, someone who knew the inside jokes, and someone who knew their bank account number. His name was Judas.

Satan enters Judas and attempts to replicate the wilderness temptations, and so he offers Jesus an easy way out of his course to the cross. If only Jesus is arrested, then he will precipitate a war with the Romans and show himself to be the Messiah. If Jesus is arrested by the religious leaders, perhaps there will be an inevitable war where Jesus will be forced to forego his mission and God will intervene and defeat the Roman powers and establish a fleshly kingdom. And perhaps Judas will be a powerful leader in this newly established messianic reign.

But Judas’ dream of an earthly kingdom without the cross and the resurrection would not be. In a fascinating turn of events, when Jesus is handed over to the religious leaders– on Holy Wednesday or Maundy Thursday depending on harmonization– what did the disciples want to do? They wanted to take up the sword and begin a war. They even cut off the ear of one of the servants. Is Judas’s dream being fulfilled before his very eyes?

“My plan has worked. Jesus is going to cast himself from the temple, take the bread, break the fast and show his authority.”

Jesus, however, does not follow the script as Judas imagined. He immediately turns the table, heals the man’s right ear and he says “None of this. This is not the will of my Father.” Almost immediately, Judas’s vision for what he believed would happen after the arrest of Jesus is shattered. Jesus’ triumphal entry was not a declaration of physical warfare against the Romans, it was a declaration that his kingdom would be a different kind of kingdom. The kingdom of Jesus would never come through the sword, but salvation; not through war but worship. Come, let us worship and bow down to the One who overcomes the Devil and rejects all satanic bribes.

Prayer: On this holiest day, O Lord, keep us in truth. Do not allow the offers of this world to persuade us to forsake the crucified Lord. We are unworthy as your servants, yet, we pray, that you may count us worthy in your kingdom, for there is no earthly gift greater than the gift of being united you. Amen.

Note: I don’t assume full inerrancy when it comes to chronicling each day. There is much overlap, but I stick with traditional categories of history, such as the Last Supper and Friday crucifixion. It is also crucial to note that John is much more interested in theology than chronology so that we shouldn’t attempt to find a harmony of chronology in all four Gospels, since this was not John’s concern. Additional material here.