Trinity Baptist Church

The Book of Mark

Judas’s Betrayal

Mark 14:43-52

 

Mark 14:43-52

 

One of the most fascinating character studies in all the Bible is that of Judas Iscariot.  His life is a great mystery to me. How could someone spend three years, 24 hours a day, seven days a week in the presence of Jesus Christ and then do what he did in the betrayal?  

 

It’s hard enough for me to understand how people can make a profession of faith and never return to church or profess to be a Christian and be content to come half the time or never give a tithe or offering or never serve the Lord.  I just don’t get it and I sure don’t get the betrayal. 

 

And yet, as we’ve seen, Judas joins forces with the Sanhedrin in a conspiracy that ultimately led to the death of Jesus Christ.

 

And as we saw last week, Jesus has just concluded this intense time of prayer, interrupted only by opportunities to teach and encourage the disciples to pray and watch, when He tells those with Him the time has come and His betrayer is at hand.

 

And right on cue, Judas shows up with this entourage of soldiers and police, perhaps numbering as many as 1,000. And just that quickly, everything is set in motion for the execution of Jesus. He will be dead by about three o’clock in the afternoon. That’s how fast this happens.

We have the betrayal, His arrest, two trials, one before Jews and one before Gentiles, each with three parts, a crucifixion and death, all by three o’clock. And for the next three days and nights, He will be in the grave, rising early on Sunday morning.  And we need to keep in mind, it’s His timetable, laid out in the mind of God and recorded in prophecy thousands of years before. 

 

The first thing we see in these verses is

 

 

Verse 43

 

Notice how Mark references Judas.  He inserts that He was “one of the Twelve”.  It’s written almost as if he can’t believe it.  I’m sure the words must have stuck in his throat when he penned this verse.  He just can’t get over it…one of the Twelve. How could this happen? 

 

It is the ultimate tragedy.  Judas, one of the Twelve, a man with the greatest opportunity and privilege becomes His betrayer. 

 

And energized by Satan, he assembles the crowd that now comes to arrest the Lord.  According to verse 43, they come armed with swords and clubs.  History indicates the swords would have belonged to the Romans. They were small, two-edged daggers, ideal for slitting throats or stabs to the torso

 

The clubs would have belonged to the temple police. They didn’t use deadly weapons. They controlled crowds with billy-clubs.

We learn from John 18:3 that they came with torches and lanterns. That was simply for the purpose of practicality.  The only way you could light the night was with torches and lanterns and it was critical that they be able to see where they were going, and locate the Lord at the appropriate moment.

 

So out of the blackness, out of the middle of that night comes this huge crowd, hundreds and hundreds of them together, armed as a posse would search for a dangerous criminal as they come to arrest the Lord. 

 

In verse 44, the camera zooms in on

 

 

verse 44

 

With a kiss, Judas betrays the Lord and gives the order for Jesus to be seized and taken away.  By the way, this is a good indication that Jesus didn’t wear a halo or Judas would have said, “It’s the guy with the halo,” or “It’s the guy with the supernatural glow on His face.”

 

Had He only known, He could have pointed them to the guy soaked in blood from His prayers.  But there was nothing external that could identify Jesus as divine.  So just to make sure they got the right guy and some imposter didn’t try to buy Jesus some time, Judas uses the common greeting of a kiss. 

 

Now depending on the circumstances and people involved, kisses could be delivered in a number of ways.

For instance, slaves kissed feet. Inferiors kissed hands. But equals, friends, comrades, brothers kissed cheeks. And in that regard, a kiss was a sign of affection, honor, love and respect. That makes it all the more ugly, doesn’t it?

 

I mean, we’ve all been betrayed. We all know that experience.  But it’s usually some coward sneaking around behind your back, not enough of a man or woman to say what they say to your face. 

 

But Jesus is betrayed with a kiss.  This is hypocrisy at its blackest. The man of sorrows had many sorrows and He can add this to the list.

 

And notice what verse 45 says about how it happened. 

 

Verse 42

 

By the way, there is an indication in the Greek that the kiss was a fervent kiss.  In other words, this wasn’t a little peck on the cheek.  There is an intensity to it, and not in a perverted way. 

 

It is reminiscent of the prodigal son coming home and the receiving the boy and kissing him all over the head. This is the emotion and passion of old friends embracing and demonstrating their affection for one another.  Judas is putting on a show, all designed to make unmistakably clear Who Jesus is so the soldiers would know.

 

Luke adds that Jesus said, ‘Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?”  Jesus could have destroyed him on the spot. He could have incinerated him with a word. But He didn’t.

He submits to the betrayal in order that Scripture would be fulfilled. After all, the Psalmist, a long time ago, said it would be a friend who would betray Him. 

 

And with that, Mark says no more about Judas. He kisses Him and he disappears off the pages of Mark’s history.

 

So what happened to Judas? Matthew tells us.

 

Matthew 27:3

 

Judas hung around after the betrayal and for the trials.  And when he saw that He had been condemned, he felt remorse and returned the 30 pieces of silver to the Chief Priest and the elders.

 

He went back to wherever the Sanhedrin was located and he gave them back the money and said,

 

verse 4

 

Isn’t that sad?  He hanged himself! Now we need to be careful that we understand what he felt was remorse and there is a great difference between being remorseful and being repentant. 

 

I’ll tell you what I believe.  If he had been repentant, he could have been forgiven, even of betraying the Lord.  Can you imagine what that worship service would have been like when a repentant Judas showed up for church to worship? 

 

And yet the grace of God is sufficient to forgive and restore even the traitor that betrayed the Lord.  Such is the grace of God. 

But Judas didn’t repent.  Instead he had remorse.  And unable to live with the guilt of what he had done, he went out and hanged himself. 

 

And he didn’t do that very well.  Well, I guess he did ok if his objective was to kill himself.  But eventually, according to Acts 1, his body fell, smashed on the rocks and his intestines came out.

 

The either the rope broke or the branch broke or someone cut down his dead, bloated body which has now hung out in the hot sun for several days, hit the ground and burst like a watermelon. 

 

What a sorry, wasted life!

 

Meanwhile, they arrest Jesus.

 

Verse 46

 

That takes us to verse 47. We’ve seen the crowd and the betrayer.  Next we come to

 

 

Verse 47

 

That must have been a rather startling incident, especially for the soldier!  And we don’t have to wonder about who it is that did this.  We could probably guess, even if Scripture didn’t tell us. But we don’t have to guess because according to John 18:10 it was Peter.

 

 

 

In that verse we are also told the name of the man whose ear was cut off.  It was Malchus.  He was a servant of Caiaphas the High Priest. He wasn’t even a police officer, nor was he a soldier.  I doubt that he was even armed!

 

So what is Peter up to?  It certainly doesn’t seem to smart for 12 to take on a thousand, and it sure doesn’t seem consistent with the teaching the Lord has been doing. 

 

But I can tell you why he’s doing this. He’s got something to prove. Back in verse 29, he went on record. 

 

Verse 29

 

Peter was a confident guy. He certainly believed in himself. And he has decided he’s not going to go down without a fight and he’s not going to allow anything to happen to Jesus. Such is his loyalty and boldness.   

 

But there is something else that had just happened that led Peter to be that courageous. Look over at John 18 for a moment and I’ll show you what I mean.   

 

John 18:3-6

 

See what happens? This posse, along with Judas, arrives to arrest Jesus. Jesus walks right up to this massive crowd with their torches and weapons and lanterns, and when they tell him they are looking for Jesus of Nazareth. 

 

Now look very carefully at how He answered.  They said, “Whom are you seeking?” And He said to them, “I Am.”  The “he” is in italics which means it wasn’t in the original texts.  It was added by the transcribers to add clarity.  In this case, they didn’t add clarity.  They clouded the message. 

 

Jesus identified Himself as God.  He answered with God’s name.  And when He said that, the whole bunch of them collapsed to the ground. 

 

And when they got up and got themselves composed, He said, “Who did you say you were looking for?”

 

And they said, “Jesus the Nazarene.” “He said, I told you, I am.”

 

Now if you had just seen Jesus, with the power of two words, knock a 1,000 people to the ground, you might get a little strut in your step, and maybe even have enough courageous to whip your sword out and try to take a head off!

 

After all, you’re walking with God!  And all He’s got to do is open His mouth and clear a path for you and together you could handle this crowd! 

 

Last week we took the boys to the OU Legends basketball game. One of the former Sooner stars who was there was Stacy King.  Stacy was a Lawton boy who had a phenomenal career at OU, then went on to play for the Chicago Bulls with Michael Jordan.  After a win one night, he said, “Tonight will be remembered as the night when Michael Jordan and I combined to score 70 points”, which was true. 

 

Michael had 69 and Stacy had one!  That’s the kind of scenario we have here. And it was this amazing, miraculous, triumphant, glorious powerful act of Jesus that filled Peter with the courageous he needed to try and prove his loyalty to the Lord. 

 

Unfortunately, Peter is a whole lot better at throwing nets than he was swinging a sword because I am quite sure he wasn’t aiming for ears.  He was aiming for the throat, but the gut ducked and lost an ear.

 

And according to Luke, Jesus reprimanded Peter, healed the ear and continued to the cross. 

 

So you see the crowd, the betrayer, and you see the impulsive disciple. And then in the next little scene, you see

 

 

Verses 48-49

 

Once again, we see that Jesus is in charge.  They have never witnessed from Him any violence, and yet they make this big production of bringing an army of soldiers who are armed for war. 

 

And I wonder if He mentions why they didn’t arrest Him earlier to remind them that they couldn’t?  You would think with as much firepower as they had, they could do anything they wanted to do, but more than one before, He had just slipped from their grasp and disappeared into the crowd. 

 

And I think He asks this question as if to say, “And it wouldn’t be happening now if I didn’t want it to.”

The only reason they are able to arrest Him is because it’s the right time to arrest Him.  This is the day when Scripture will be fulfilled.    And they didn’t need all the weaponry because He will go willingly. 

 

So we have the crowd, the betrayer,  Peter swinging his sword, Christ, in absolute control, and in verse 50, we see

 

 

Verse 50

 

Just that quickly, the prophecy Jesus made a few hours earlier is fulfilled.  He said they would scatter, just as was prophesied, because of Him and they did.  He said they should wath and pray so they wouldn’t be overcome by temptation and instead they slept. 

 

And now, when push comes to shove and they should have been strong, they are weak and afraid and ultimately, unfaithful. 

 

And then there’s a closing picture of

 

 

Verses 51-52

 

Isn’t that weird?  This mysterious stranger is lurking around, wearing nothing but a bedsheet and when they tried to catch him, the sheet pulls away and he runs home naked. 

 

And we don’t know anything more about this incident than we have here in Mark.  No one else mentions it. 

Somebody asks, “So who is this young man?” I have absolutely no idea who that young man is!  How would I know? I’m looking at the same Bible you’re looking at and I don’t see a name. And he’s not mentioned anywhere else! 

 

So what is the linen sheet? I have no idea!  I’m guessing he had linen sheets on his bed, he hears all this commotion going on and decides to check it out.  Instead of getting dressed, he wraps the sheet around him and then got in a situation he wished he hadn’t gotten into!

 

And when they tried to seize him, they jerked the sheet off of him and he had to run home naked and try to explain it all to his wife or mother!

 

I don’t know what it’s all about!  But I will tell you I love stuff like this about the Bible!  I love hwo we are left wondering about some things!  I love it when the New Testament quotes things that aren’t in the Old Testament and yet, we know they are true because there they are, documented by the Holy Spirit Himself!

 

If a Baptist committee was putting all of this together, they’d say, “We better leave that part of the story out it doesn’t add anything and it will make people wonder why it’s there!  After all, what’s the point? Who’s the guy and why did he do it and what’s the sheet and all of that?”

 

I don’t know why it’s there or why it happened and neither does anybody else.  Beyond what we read here in Mark, everything else is just speculation. 

 

Some will try to tell you it was Mark.  Who else would have noticed or cared enough to write it down?  Maybe it is Mark and now he doesn’t want to admit to running around without his clothes on in the middle of the night.  I don’t know, maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. 

 

But at best, when we speculate beyond Scripture, we are creating fiction.  So what is the point of its inclusion?  Here’s what I take away from it. 

 

When push came to shove and Jesus was arrested, He was left all alone.  Everyone else is gone.  The disciples are all gone.  Peter is gone.  Even this buck naked stranger, who it says “followed Him”, not them (he wasn’t following the crowd, he was following Jesus) ran away. 

 

There is no one left as Jesus is led away to to a Kangaroo Court to put Him through two trials with three parts each, six separate tribunals, trumped up charges, bribed witnesses, corrupt judges, get Him on the cross in the morning and He’s dead in the afternoon.     

 

Jesus triumphantly knowingly goes to the cross, fulfilling prophecy. But He goes willingly. He does it out of love for His Father and love for you because it’s your sins that He carried there.

 

Let’s pray.