Betrayal At The Last Supper

The Problem of Suffering: When We Cannot Understand 0:27

When something hard or difficult or terrible or grievous happens to us, we don't like it, and that's obvious. But what compounds the difficulty is not only do we not like the hardship that we're going through, but we don't understand it either. We say to ourselves, even as believers, especially as believers, we say to ourselves, I am a child of the Most High God.

He is in charge of all things. He decrees the end from the beginning, and yet, look what happened to me. Look what happened to my loved one. That's why we don't like it, but we also don't understand it, and that makes it harder.

And this was true even to the prophets. The prophets would throw their arms up to heaven and say, How long, O Lord? They would ask God, What's the deal? What's going on?

Now, here's the thing. God didn't give them all the answers, and He won't give you and I all the answers either, as desperately as we might want them.

The Comfort of God's Presence in the Valley 1:14

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.”

— Psalm 23:4 (NKJV)

But what He promises us in the midst of all that is that He's with us. He won't tell you that He's going to spare you from every circumstance that you don't like or you don't want. In fact, He tells you the opposite — that this is a hardened, fallen world beset by hardened, fallen ills, and if we walk through it, if we walk through this valley of the shadow of death, there will be difficult times.

He promises that, but simultaneously he promises that when we walk through this valley, when we face those things, we won't do so alone, that He is with us. Some of us need to hear that because we're going through difficulties. We throw our hands up to God. We say, What's going on?

You might not get an answer today or tomorrow or the next day, but you do have this, and you can take it to the bank, that as you face those hardships, that God is with you. That's the whole premise of the Shepherd's Song. Psalm 23, the most famous passage in all of Scripture, is famous for this reason, because it declares that although we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, that thou art with me.

Whatever we face in the holiday season, as difficult and distressing as it can be for some, we can rejoice to know that Emmanuel, the one whose birth we celebrate at Christmas, He wasn't just with us 2,000 years ago in Bethlehem or Judea, He's with you now. And that's why we rejoice when we come to church.

That's why we rejoice when we come to His word.

Why Christ Came: To Give His Life as a Ransom 2:29

“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

— Mark 10:45 (NKJV)

We're excited to know that the God who fashioned all this that we see in the world around us, his presence is with us no matter what we might be going through. Now, think of the disciples. The disciples in Christ's time, they had had the benefit of having Jesus right there for three years of ministry.

He was right there. They woke up, there He was. They went through their day, He was at their side. They followed in the footprints of their rabbi.

They learned from Him. They were blessed by Him. Spending three years with Jesus, you would think that would just be the most incredible time on the face of the earth. And it was.

But you know what their greatest fear was? That it would end. Their greatest fear was that this one who they loved and who meant everything to them and who did just the most amazing things and who encouraged them and who brought the best out of them, not the worst, but the best, their fear was that He would go.

And every now and then He would tell them that's exactly what was going to happen. Every now and then He would tell them that I must depart, that it is going to occur. And the reason why is because His death and His passing was the reason He came to earth in the first place.

In Mark 10, Jesus said it this way. He said it a lot of times, but he said it this way in Mark 10 to them. He said, the Son of Man did not come to be served or to sit on some high holy mountain and everyone, you know, come up and serve him.

So He says, the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many. As we approach in the chapters ahead, as we come to the death and crucifixion, as we come to these final stages here, at least as we come to chapter 27 next week, we have to remember Jesus is no masochist.

He did not enjoy pain and suffering any more than the rest of us. In His humanity, surely, surely He dreaded in His humanity the suffering that would be endured. And in His spirit, He understood the separation that would be occurring, if even for but a moment. And yet, even though He did not look forward with great enjoyment of expectation to what was about to happen, yet He still looked forward to doing it.

Why? Because that work, that act, that sacrifice would be the singular means that would make it possible for you and me to dwell with Him for all time. Jesus knew, and He kept trying to tell His disciples, that what was going to happen had to happen because it was a singular means by which fallen men and women could be reconciled to Him, to our God.

If a man is sin, the man must die. Jesus knew that. As the judge of all creation, He knew that. But He also knew that He had the power, the ability, and the inclination to lay down His life to purchase as a ransom the lot of us.

And apart from His death on Calvary, it wouldn't happen.

God Brings Good Out of Evil 5:07

In this instance, God brought good out of evil. There's no more wicked thing that's ever happened on the face of the globe than when the perfect, divine, loving, kind, forbearing Son of God came to earth and was massacred, was crucified. There's no more wicked thing that's ever happened than that. And yet, did it not accomplish the greatest good?

The glory of God and the salvation of us. So if you ever wonder, can God bring good out of something in your life, some loss you might have had that's just so bad and so terrible? The answer is yes. Where faith comes in is that we have to recognize that answer even if we don't see how it's possible.

In any case, today we're going to see the good, we're going to see the good, but we're also going to see how that good is going to come out of some very bad circumstances.

The Plot of the Chief Priests and Elders 5:50

Let's look at verses one through five and again work our way through as time allows. Verse one, so it came to pass when Jesus had finished these sayings. Remember, this is the end. He just gave the Olivet Discourse.

That's the last discourse. He's done talking. At this point, his action before him is all that remains. So it came to pass when Jesus had finished, He had completed all these sayings, that He said to His disciples, You know that after two days is the Passover, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified.

And then the chief priests and the scribes and the elders of the people assembled at the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas, and they plotted. They plotted to take Jesus by trickery and to kill Him. But they said — they're pragmatic here — they said, Not during the feast, lest there be an uproar amongst the people.

They were looking to do something very shady. They just didn't want to get caught doing it. All right. As we said a few moments ago, the cross that awaited Jesus was no surprise to Him.

Jesus didn't one day end up on Calvary and go, How did this happen? How did I get here? He knew it. And He kept telling His disciples exactly when and where and what.

He knew He'd be crucified. He knew the exact day it would happen. He knew all of this. And He also knew who would be responsible.

He also knew the culprits and who they would be. And to their shame, He identifies them in verse 3 — what we see in verse 3 — it would be the priests and the scribes and the elders. They'd gather in the palace of the priests. This was the religious elite of the age.

These were the very people who you would think were the most trained to recognize the Messiah when He finally showed up. And when He did show up, they had the exact opposite reaction of adoration and worship. They hated Him. And so they banded together and they spoke in shadowy rooms and they whispered to one another about ways we can take Him down.

They're plotting by trickery. Jesus has been open. He'd been ministering publicly. He'd been ministering in the temple.

And yet they had gone into these smoke-filled rooms to have these conversations. Now this happened through Christ's ministry, but as a side note, it happened in the book of Acts. Do you ever read Acts 5? You have Peter and the others, and what do they do?

They go to the temple and they preach, and they're preaching to everyone. And what happens? Well, the others, the priests and the like, they come together to scheme, to plot against them. With that said, Jesus still, and Peter in the book of Acts, still offers forgiveness for all this.

Jesus, even when He was on the cross, what did He say? He said, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. So the first five verses here, they set the stage. There's palace intrigue that's going on.

All they need, all the priests and elders need, is they need a spark. They need a one. They need some mechanism, some tool by which they can lay hands on this guy that they hate so much, and they're trying to figure out how they're going to accomplish it. Well, little they know, they're going to get the answer.

The answer is going to be handed to them on a silver platter named Judas in just a few verses.

The Anointing at Bethany for Christ's Burial 8:37

But before we cover those verses, let's see what Jesus does next in verses 6 through 13. And when Jesus was in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper, a woman came to Him having an alabaster flask of very costly fragrant oil, and she poured it on His head as He sat at the table.

But when His disciples saw it, they were indignant, saying, Why this waste? For this fragrant oil might have been sold for much and given to the poor. But when Jesus was aware of it, He said to them, Why do you trouble this woman? For she has done a good work for me.

For you have the poor with you always, but you do not always have me. From pouring this fragrant oil on my body, she did it for my burial. Assuredly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will be told as memorial to her.

All right, so verse 6, the setting of this chapter has changed. In verse 6, we see that Jesus has traveled to Bethany, which wasn't that far from Jerusalem. But interestingly, He goes to visit a guy who's called Simon the leper. He goes to a house of a guy named Simon the leper.

Now, was Simon still a leper at this time? Probably not. He's probably someone that Jesus had cured at times past, but it's still interesting. Think about it.

Jesus only has a many hours left till He's going to die. What does He spend them with? He spends it with Simon the leper and his family. You know the phrase bucket list?

I assume that this has been around longer than I am, but I only really remember this in about the past 25 years, the concept of the bucket list. And the bucket list is things you want to do in life, things you say, I think I'd like to accomplish X, Y, Z. As an aside, the main thing in all life that I've always wanted to do, I want to scuba dive.

I hope I get a chance to someday. Hasn't happened yet, but someday I'd like to do that. So that's on my list. But what was on Jesus' list?

He's got a couple days to work with, so what's He do? Does He seek out some personal fulfillment and just, you know, check boxes? No. What was His mission? Why did He come to earth to begin with?

To serve, to save, to lay down His life. And so His bucket list wasn't about His personal fulfillment here and the things He wanted to do that would be enjoyable, what have you. He wanted to do what He'd always done. With the first minute in the last minute, He wanted to serve and to sacrifice.

And so He comes to the house of Simon the leper. Now while He's at the table, literally it's like the Thursday, you know, Good Friday's coming. While He's at Simon the leper's house, a woman comes to Him. And we believe that this is Mary because she's identified in the other gospels, the sister of Martha and Lazarus.

She comes to Him and she does something, and no one saw it coming. She's got this alabaster flask and it's filled with, you know, costly perfumes and fragrant oils. And to everyone's shock, she takes this and she pours it on Christ's head. Now, why did she do that?

Well, Jesus Himself would explain why she did it. She did it to anoint His body for burial. This was God using Mary to anoint God's son for what was about to happen. See, Jesus had been anointed at the start of His ministry.

That's what the baptism was. He'd been anointed, the spirit came down, He'd been anointed, commissioned for ministry. And yet this is understood, this moment is understood to be an anointing for the sacrifice. It was an anointing for the death that was about to occur.

And that's what He tells everyone. He says, She did this, and it's a good thing that she did it, because I'm being anointed for the burial that's about to happen. You just wait for it. It's right around the corner.

She did this. And it wasn't her that did it. It was really God who did it through Mary. And yet, He says, because of what she did, you all are casting aspersions on her, saying, Why did you do this?

People are going to be talking about this 2,000 years from now in Gulfport, Mississippi. People are going to be talking about this everywhere the gospel is preached, because it's that good a thing that she did.

The Cost of Devotion and the Disciples' Objection 12:10

Now, what was the nature, the reason why they were so contentious against this? Why didn't they like it? Why were they negative about this? It was the cost.

It was the cost. I don't know much about oiled, fragrant perfumes or an alabaster. This is not my thing. But, but again, I've told you before, I know Google, and Google identifies that the cost of this, the cost of this particular perfume in this alabaster thing, it's like 300 denarius.

There's another passage in another gospel that says this, 300 denarius, which is the equivalent of 10 months of labor. Think of your paycheck, whatever it is, for the next 10 months, and imagine having it in a bottle and pouring it out. Now, if it was to be poured out to anoint Jesus for burial, it's worth every penny, but that's not what the disciples saw.

They saw what? They saw waste. And they all freaked out. There's no sign — like they didn't — they just, they freaked out.

It seemed like a waste based on the expense of this thing. They had an economic worldview that saw things as finite resources. They did this up on the mountain. You remember with the bread and the fishes?

There they are. There's all these people gathered around. They're all hungry. And Jesus says, Let's get them some food.

And they say, From what? Where is this food going to come from? I mean, this kid over here has got the three fish, the five loaves. That's all we got to work with.

What they could only ever see was the finite provision or options that were before them. God says, Come on, man. Jesus said, Just give Me the basket. We'll make it happen.

The disciples, in this case, had the same mentality. All they could see was this cost associated with it, and God says, Come on, guys. What she has done is worth every penny, and she'll be awarded infinite times over for having done it. God blesses that which He ordains.

Judas Bargains for Thirty Pieces of Silver 13:52

God provides for that which He has ordained. Let's see what happens next as we look at verses 14 through 16, because it's in these verses that the plot thickens. Verse 14, then at the culmination of this event, the perfumes and the like, then one of the 12 called Judas, Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priest and said, What are you willing to give me if I deliver him to you?

And they counted out to him 30 pieces of silver. And so from that time, he sought opportunity to betray him. You know what the most interesting part of this verse is? So you got like the high priests and, you know, Caiaphas and all the palace intrigue.

Remember, they're all talking about ways to get to Jesus. And you would think that maybe one of the options is maybe we can get an inside man. Maybe we can go twist someone's arms. Let's go blackmail Matthew.

Yeah, he used to be a tax collector. Let's go and try to twist some arms and blackmail one of their guys to help us, to come alongside to do it. You would think that that's one of the options that they had. But you know one of the weirdest parts of this?

Judas didn't need to be blackmailed. He just up and volunteered. You have these guys, and they're all trying to figure out, How are we going to do this? Guys, guys, what are we going to do about this guy?

We've got to do something. Can't let this keep going on. What are we going to do? What are we going to do?

And Judas just shows up and says, Hey, I know. Now, what was his motivation? Did he like just secretly just start to hate Jesus? Was he like, Man, this guy is just not where it's at?

Did he start to hate him? Perhaps he thought that Jesus wasn't fulfilling all his expectations. I don't know. It's certainly possible.

Could have been. That could have been what he thought, but we don't know. We honestly don't know what his motivation was, except for one thing. Do you know what his motivation was?

In this text, we see it's money. What does he say? Then one of the twelve called Judas Iscariot went to the chief priest and said, What are you willing to give me? What are you willing to give me if I do what you guys want done, if I deliver him to you?

What do I get out of this? You know what's interesting? 30 pieces of silver — it's not a tiny amount, but it's not that much either. He sold Jesus out cheap.

The perfume cost more than he got in this case. The perfume that was poured out cost more than that which he took here. He didn't even negotiate. They counted out to him 30 pieces of silver.

Why? Because read the Old Testament. There's a prophecy that says exactly what would happen, that this is exactly what would occur. Nevertheless, he doesn't even negotiate.

He just shows up — money, money, money. What are you going to give me? They tell him 30 coins. He says, Deal.

And he looks for an opportunity to betray them.

One of You Will Betray Me: The Passover Table 16:33

All right, so let's read more about Judas here, verses 17 through 25. Verse 17. Now on the first day of the Feast of the Unleavened Bread. That came with the Passover.

The disciples came to Jesus saying, where do you want us to prepare for you to eat the Passover? And he said, go into the city to a certain man and say to him, the teacher says my time is at hand. I will keep the Passover at your house with my disciples. And so the disciples did as Jesus had directed them and they prepared the Passover.

Now when evening had come, He sat down with the twelve. And as they were eating, He said, Assuredly, I say to you, one of you, one of you will betray me. And they were exceedingly sorrowful. And each began to say, Lord, is it I? Lord, is it I? And He answered and said, He who dipped his hand with Me in the dish will betray Me.

The Son of Man indeed goes just as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the son of man is betrayed. It would have been good for that man if he had never been born. Then Judas, who was betraying him, answered and said, Rabbi, is it I? And Jesus said to him, You have said it.

All right. At some point on that Thursday preceding Good Friday, Jesus had told His disciples, let's make arrangements for where to eat this Passover meal. Now this would be the last time they'd be able to eat together. Jesus longed to celebrate the Passover with them one last time.

The Passover was the most important event in the life of the Jews, primarily because it pointed to the Messiah that was to come, the Lamb of God Himself. So it's no surprise that the Lamb wants to celebrate the Passover one last time before He is slain, as all the other lambs have been sacrificed for all the centuries prior.

So He says, let's do it. Let's find a place. Go find a place. Here's where you'll find the place.

And that's what we see in this text. With that said, after the arrangements have been made for where they're to eat, we see that they sit down in verses, you know, 17 through 19. They sit down to eat in verse 20. And we don't know all the conversation that happened that night around the table.

But Matthew here says that while they were eating, while they're dining, Jesus said something that would have gotten the attention of everybody at the table. He says something that everyone, whatever they're eating and whatever they're drinking, they put down their cup, they put down their food. It froze the conversation. He looks around at everyone, verse 20, and He says, Surely, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.

One of you will betray me. Now, if you were one of those disciples at that time, what would be your next question? What would you be thinking? What would you be wondering at that exact moment?

As you're looking around at the other faces, you're wondering, all right, who's it going to be? Who is this betrayer? Could it be me? Could it be?

It can't be me. That's what we'd be asking. So the disciples, undoubtedly, that's what was going through their mind. They wonder who this betrayer is, and they hope He's not talking about them.

Dear heavens, of all the things you do not want to be known here at the economy of God, at the Lord's Supper itself is the one who gets identified as the betrayer. And so they ask him. They try to discount themselves, make clear in front of everybody. It's not me, is it?

Not me. Are we good, Jesus? So they ask him, is it I, O Lord?

Rabbi Versus Lord: How Judas Addressed Christ 20:00

However, from the chronology of this passage, it appears that one man was silent. One man is silent. You see, it's only after Jesus talks further about the nature of the betrayer — dipping his food in the oil and eating from the same meal and the like — it's only after Jesus talks a little bit further about this betrayer that one last guy speaks up, and that's Judas, Judas Iscariot.

And he asks Christ this question. He says, Rabbi, is it I? Is it I? Now I want you to notice something important here. Every other man, when they asked Jesus if it was them, said this, said, Lord, is it I? But here we see that Judas asked, Rabbi, is it I? Judas had seen Jesus do all this stuff, perform miracle after miracle, healing after healing, raised the dead, walked on water and the like.

Judas had seen enough to call Christ Lord — or as Thomas would a chapter or so later, oh Lord, oh my God, my Lord and my God. But that's not what he calls Him here. He defers to Rabbi. Rabbi's what?

Rabbi's teacher. It's just a different phrase. It's just not as affirmative. Whatever the case, we see here he asks, Rabbi, is it me?

Am I the one? And Jesus confirms it and says, You've said it. You have said it. Now at this point, it looks like from what we can tell that no one knew what to make of all that's going on.

The other guys evidently were kind of confused by what's taking place. However, Judas knew what was implied. And John's gospel, the other gospel accounts say, they add something that Matthew doesn't. They say that Jesus looks at Judas and says, All right, whatever you're going to do, do it quickly.

Whatever you do, do it quickly. And after hearing those words, what did Judas do? He went out into the night to go and betray.

The Institution of the Lord's Supper and the New Covenant 21:47

“For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.”

— Matthew 26:28 (NKJV)

All right, let's look at our final verses for today. Let's look at verses 26 to 30. And as they were eating, Jesus took bread and He blessed it and He broke it and gave it to the disciples and said, Take and eat. This is my body.

Then He took the cup and He gave thanks. And He gave it to them saying, Drink from this, all of you, for this is the blood of the new covenant, which is shed for you for the forgiveness, the remission of sins. But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink of it with you in my father's kingdom.

Then finally, verse 30 says this: that when they had sung a hymn — when they then, after all that went down, after all the betrayal, and right before they go out to the Mount of Olives — verse 30 says, when they sung a hymn, even with all that scary stuff in view, when they sung a hymn, they went out and they went to the mount.

All right, on other occasions, we've looked at this text in order to study the sacrament, in order to understand the new covenant. We've talked about the blood and the bread, you know, the cup and the bread. We've talked about the blood and the body. So we've talked about the sacramental aspects at different avenues.

We've also at different times talked about the new covenant and identified what that is. For this morning, for our purposes today, I want to highlight maybe something different that we haven't always focused on in times past. Now earlier this morning, we talked about those times in our lives when things terrible might happen.

Something that seems awful, you know, very bad, no good, that can't possibly have a good outcome in our view. You know, the example that's the most recurrent, at least in my own ministry, that's difficult for folks in a way that nothing else is difficult, is when they lose someone, when we lose someone that we love.

When a loved one dies, all we see is the loss, rarely the good.

The Covenant of Redemption: No Cosmic Accident 23:28

And that's natural, for what it's worth. That's natural. At the end of chapter 26, death hung in the air. It was unmistakable.

The betrayal was imminent. The betrayal, in fact, had just gone out. The night had grown dark. Christ's enemies were even now closing in around him.

From a human standpoint, this was grim. From a human standpoint, you come to the end of chapter 26 and you get in chapter 27, this is as grim as it gets in really the whole book. And yet, and yet, everything that was happening from God's standpoint was happening right on schedule, right on schedule, even the difficult parts.

The death of Christ was not a cosmic accident. It was not a surprise to Jesus Himself. It was always God's plan. That's what we call a covenant of redemption that took place before the foundation of the universe itself.

Christ knew what His future held. And rather than run from it, He embraced it. He set His face like flint to face it. Jesus had just been betrayed.

What does He do? Puts His napkin down. Says, Let's sing, boys. They sing a hymn.

Sets His face like flint with a song on His lips. He goes to the mountain, knowing what's about to happen. None of that was accidental. None of that was happenstance.

None of that should lead us to the conclusion that this all happened because of Judas, or this was Judas's plan, or Pilate's plan, or Caiaphas's plans, or the Romans' plans, the high priest's plans, or what have you. There's no Judas, there's no high priest, there's no Caiaphas, no Pharisee on this planet that could have taken Christ's life from Him if He was not willing to lay it down, and He says that elsewhere He laid down His life freely and willingly.

While We Were Yet Sinners, Christ Died for Us 25:07

Why? Well, in part because of this: because He loves you. You and I are sinners. The wages of sin is death, and yet here's the good news that we extract not only from this chapter, but from the entirety of the book.

While we were yet sinners, while we were rebels kicking against the goads, so to speak, Christ determined to save us even in our rebellion. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Jesus knows everything you've ever done, everything you'll ever do. God has known everything about you, and in spite of who you are, not because of who you are, but in spite of who you are, He determined to save you, and He determined to save you by pouring out that which is the most precious to Himself, His own son's blood on Calvary.

For those of us who have problems with self-esteem, for those of us who look in the mirror and we see nothing worth valuing, for those who look in the mirror and even hate sometimes the face looking back, know this: the one who formed you doesn't think that way. The one who formed you loves you.

The one who formed you loves you back then, He loves you now, and He loves you on to the future, because that's what fathers do. They love their sons and their daughters, and they work to clean and to sanctify and make better their sons and daughters, to make them more presentable in the time yet to come than they were in times past.

And God knows the whole lot of stuff you've done, the stuff you would hesitate to name to the people to your left and your right, lest they were to shy away from you this morning. He knows it all, and He doesn't shy away from you. He embraces you. He hugs you close.

Jesus knew what was going to happen on Calvary. He knew it. He knew it right down to the moment it would occur, and He knew how awful and terrifying and horrible it would be in every regard. And yet, He set His face like flint, He put a song on His lips, and He marched to the cross.

Why? Because that was the price required to buy you back. You think you don't have any value? Know this.

You have enough value that God poured out His own blood to purchase you so that you could be with Him for all eternity. You have value, whether you see it or not. You have value in the eyes of the one who has made you, and that's not going to change tomorrow when you mess up.

On Calvary, His blood was poured out, His body was broken, so that our life may be spared.

Repent and Believe: See Him as the Divine Son of God 27:14

In chapter 26, Jesus knew and embraced what was coming in chapter 27, which we'll get to next week. So we know what He's done. What's required of us? What's required of us, then, following Christ's sacrifice on Calvary?

What must you and I do? Well, the answer is simple: repent and believe. Turn to Him in faith. As we said before, when Judas looked at Jesus, he saw him as rabbi.

And that was not sufficient. When the others looked at Jesus, they saw Him as Lord. Or as Thomas would say, my Lord and my God. This Christmas season that evidently we're entering into very quickly here, this Christmas season, the question is, how do you relate to the one in the manger?

Do you see Him as a prophet, a teacher, a great leader, a visionary, all these things? Here's a newsflash. None of those things will save you. The thing that will save you is this: that He is the divine son of God.

This season, we need to have a reckoning with the one in the manger. This year, this season, we need to see him as Judas did not. We need to see Him as the divine son of God who sacrificed, purchased us back from sin and death, to which nothing could be added, nothing taken away from.

Let's pray.