March 27, 2024 [WILLFUL WEDNESDAY]

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6.23)

“Then the chief priests and the elders of the people assembled in the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas, and they schemed to arrest Jesus secretly and kill him. ‘But not during the festival,’ they said, ‘or there may be a riot among the people.‘ 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 deliver him over to you?’ So they counted out for him thirty pieces of silver. From then on Judas watched for an opportunity to hand him over.” (Matthew 26.3-5; 14-16)

REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

[Author’s Note: By the sheer weight of gospel evidence the traditional Church calendar for the events of Holy Week follow the Synoptic Gospel order: Sabbath dinner on “Saturday”; Declaration Entry on Sunday; Cleansing the Temple on Monday; the Teaching Discourse on Tuesday; Judas plotting with the Temple officials on Wednesday; Preparation for the Passover/Seder Meal on Thursday; The Betrayal, Arrest and Crucifixion on Friday; Shroud Saturday and the Sabbath of Grief; culminating with Resurrection Sunday. Having deviated for that one moment when John does not place the “cleansing of the Temple” during Holy Week, we find ourselves at a crossroads again in John’s gospel. This time, we are left to consider the episodic dilemma of Judas from Kerioth. Within the Synoptic story, Judas conspires with the Temple leadership to lead them to Jesus. He has been approached previously and thus the invitation was given for his consideration. We can only read into the story the true intent of Judas for such a heinous act of treachery. Then there is the gospel of John who resolves such consideration. Regardless of the intention of Judas Iscariot and what was the proverbial “straw that broke the camel’s back,” John states simply that Satan had taken him over. We might think that the battle as reported in Matthew between Satan and Jesus in the wilderness following the baptism by John and the anointing by God leading to true beginning of Jesus’ ministry has now moved to a different venue and level. Judas is a pawn in the hands of Satan and serves blindly the purposes of God. This conundrum allows us to see everyone who would be used by their evil intent to effect the good will of God for His people.]

It is in light of this witness that I have assigned for this week’s reflection the term “Willful Wednesday” to today. It is on this day, within the Synoptics, that Judas enters into an agreement with the Temple leadership to bring Jesus face to face with them. Was he doing so because of his tiring of Jesus’ non-violent stance of bringing in the Kingdom of God and thus failing to achieve the perceived Messianic Promise which many held to be true? Was he doing so because he believed that Jesus as the Christ needed his help to present the final showdown with Rome and the ruling elite of Jerusalem for their simple defeat and His assumption of the throne of David? Was he embarrassed by the anointing of Jesus with an expensive flask of nard which could have been sold for a great amount of money to continue to fund the effort, such as it may have seemed to him, of ushering in the Kingdom of God? Heaven only knows and Heaven isn’t telling. Why not? Because the reasons do not matter. Those reasons and considerations pale in comparison to the real question at hand: Whose will be done? If I may make us all a bit uncomfortable for a moment, that is the same question we ought to be asking of ourselves. We should be asking it on a daily basis, if not hourly! Oh sure, we will quickly declare “But I am not Judas and would never betray Jesus.” But look at the heart of the matter and ask yourself “Whose will am I doing?” Oh, how I thank God for His mercy and grace and promise of forgiveness for those who are confessing their sins even as they attempt to walk by faith through this world. If we did not have such faith, then we would make a mockery of the gospel and those who dare to share it even today! When have we betrayed our faith in Jesus which said, “I will go with You all the way, every day, come what may?” Have we reworked the gospel story to allow our sinfulness in some areas to be “acceptable”? Have we stopped short of bearing witness for fear of being accused of bearing a false witness? Have we been like James and John not only vying to seats of prestige and authority in Heaven but the right to call down hellfire and brimstone on those we believe are evildoers? Did we speak ill of another because their lifestyle doesn’t meet the criteria we ourselves fail to meet from time to time? Whose will are we doing?

And do we think that God has not seen all of this before it happened? In His infinite wisdom, hasn’t God already watched each line of “dominoes” fall to one centering point of the cross? Regardless of what decisions for and against we have made, we all are brought to the centering point of the cross. It is a cross, as Jesus shared with all who were making the decision to follow Him, we all must take up and bear and follow Him. When we do so, we are making a public declaration of “Whose will we are doing!” Yes, upon our confession of sin and sinfulness and our profession of faith and faithfulness, we have reached this cross in the road of life and must determine “not my will but God’s be done.” Even Jesus was faced with this important question raised by His only profession of faith in the Garden. Only in His spiritual ears did He hear the dominoes falling from every direction to one single point in time. He had alerted the disciples and followers who were willing to hear “The time is coming when the Son of Man will be betrayed, turned over to the officials and crucified; yet on the third day He will be raised from the grave.” Everyone struggled with it. Some doubted it. Some questioned it. Some put on the cloak of false bravery and declared they would rather die for Jesus than have Jesus die for them. We know that after all of this even Peter would deny his relationship with Jesus of Nazareth whom he had professed was the Son of the Living God and Messiah. Whose will?

So it should be of no surprise that in the “middle of the week” we come to this crossroads in the revelation of all that was happening. Many laughingly call it “hump day” as it is all downhill from here for the rest of the week. But, is it really? Do we relax our will and expectations for achieving much for the sake of a day we pay little attention to? Yes, I am speaking of Saturday. If Wednesday is the pinnacle, then Saturday is the valley. That makes Sunday a valley day as well. But is it? I suppose it depends on “whose will you are doing.” We know of David’s Shepherd Psalm and its call to “walk through the valley of the shadow of death.” I wrote a book with the premise that the 23rd Psalm was actually a battle hymn and a battle plan for confronting all kinds of evil and win! Isn’t Holy Week following that plan? I invite you to read that Psalm and find its connections within the Holy Week experience of Jesus and His disciples. You and I are there, too. We are there because we must answer for ourselves “Whose will are we doing?” Remember on the night when Jesus would be betrayed, He announced the betrayal to His disciples in that Upper Room. Each one of them had reason to think Jesus was speaking directly to him or her. We know this because their response was “Is it I, Lord?” Is it our agenda for our own lives which takes the lead? Or is it God’s will not ours be done? Today is “willful Wednesday” and our decision determines what the rest of the week and our lives looks like from here. Shalom.

TODAY’S PRAYER IN RESPONSE TO GOD’S WORD:

Father, before we were conceived in the womb, You had already formed us in Your love and by Your Spirit spoke us into being. Each one of us is blessed with the opportunity of doing right, being good and producing the fruit of the Spirit so that others may be fed the truth of that same love so that the two will become one. It is our soul’s sincere desire to embrace the oneness You have in mind that we would know that we are Your people and that You are our God. Lead us in that discovery of the truth and the manifestation of that love for us all. In Jesus’ name, we pray. AMEN.