The Passion Week: Wednesday

This Easter season, I’ve made a series of posts addressing skeptics’ criticism surrounding the Resurrection.  As we close in on Easter, I want to do a day-by-day detail discussing the events happening during the Passion Week. 

Please keep checking back!

Wednesday

Very little is recorded about the events that happened on Wednesday of the Passion Week.  However, given what we already know from Scripture, we can speculate about some events that were likely happening.

After His confrontation with religious leaders the day before, Jesus had likely ended His public ministry entirely.  Jesus would have, instead, probably spent a lot of this day in prayer or private instruction with His disciples.

The most notable event which almost certainly happened on this day, is Judas’ private negotiation with the Priests to betray Jesus. 

Matthew 26:14-16, Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went unto the chief priests, And said unto them, What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you? And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver. And from that time he sought opportunity to betray him.

The Bible never really explains Judas’ motives.  Was it just greed?  Had he become disillusioned with Jesus and wanted to expose Him as a false prophet?  Or maybe he believed Jesus really was the Messiah and wanted to force His hand in setting up the Kingdom.  We just don’t know.  Maybe the Bible is intentionally vague about his motives so that we might consider all the ways people might be led astray.

One thing I’ve always marvelled at is how wicked the human heart can be.  Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”  I’m sure there are Christian apologists who believe people can be reasoned with.  They feel that if they could just persuade someone with enough evidence, with sound logic, and with the truth, that a skeptic will become a believer.  That is nothing more than vanity and pride because we cannot save anyone.  People are only saved by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ.  It is the Word of God that convicts and the Holy Spirit that regenerates.  Our words, at best, can only plant the seed or nurture a thought; God must give the increase (1 Corinthians 3:6-8).

In the example of Judas, we have a case study in the rebellious nature of mankind.  Here is someone who heard the preaching of the best Preacher.  Here is someone who received lessons from the best Teacher.  Here is someone who saw the miracles of Jesus with his own eyes, heard His sermons with his own ears, and kissed His cheek with his own lips yet still went to Hell!  It’s n0t that he didn’t have enough evidence - it’s that he simply refused to believe.  Should I suppose I am any more persuasive than the Master?!

I have to check my own heart, sometimes.  Did Jesus hate Judas?  No! He washed the feet of the man He knew would betray Him.  In my own zeal to defend the faith, I must constantly remind myself that unbelievers are not the enemy - they are the prize!  I write not to win arguments but to win souls for the Kingdom.  

Let me leave you with this quote from Charles Spurgeon:

If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our dead bodies. And if they perish, let them perish with our arms wrapped about their knees, imploring them to stay. If Hell must be filled, let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go unwarned and unprayed for.