Holy Week: Wednesday

Judas looked for an opportunity to betray Jesus

(Matthew 26:16)

The night before, while staying at Lazarus house in Bethany, just down the road from Jerusalem; Mary poured out a “very costly ointment on Jesus’ head.” The disciples made a fuss about it, insisting that the ointment could have been sold and the money given to the poor. But Jesus sides with Mary: “She has prepared me for burial. Wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her” (Mt 26:12-13). Isn’t that something?

In the morning, when Jesus returns to the city, the rulers of the temple “gathered and plotted together how to seize Jesus by stealth, and kill him.” They accused him of threatening to destroy the temple: "This fellow said, 'I am able to destroy the temple of God and to build it in three days'” (Mt 26:61). It’s true. Jesus did say that or something very close to that (Jn 2:19). They couldn’t seize Jesus straight up lest the people riot. In order to “seize Jesus by stealth,” they needed an informant, one of Jesus’ own. So, while people gathered to listen to Jesus as he taught from the temple mount, Judas slips out to betray Jesus to the temple rulers for thirty pieces of silver.

What contrast this day of betrayal brings to that night in Bethany when Mary anointed Jesus for burial. Man, in his power, denies and betrays; while the women somehow get it. Mary, along with Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Salome and “the other women who came with Jesus out of Galilee” will remain faithful to the Cross, and to the Tomb, and be the first to encounter our risen Lord—the first to announce the good news that “He is risen!”