Betrayal and Redemption: The Kiss of Treachery

This is the divinely inspired record of the treason of Judas and his betrayal of our Savior, and we ought to take to our hearts the grave significance of what is recorded here, not only for our information but for our admonition and for our edification. Please be seated. Let us pray. [00:01:51]

Again, O Lord, as we contemplate this act of infamy, by which our dear and sweet Redeemer was betrayed, we acknowledge that the seeds of betrayal always lurk in our own hearts, in our own weaknesses, and we pray that when we think that we stand that we guard against such arrogance lest we fall as well. [00:02:24]

Mark’s record here tells us that while Jesus was saying that His betrayer was at hand, Judas with a great multitude that is of soldiers, and we assume here that the soldiers who were present with swords and clubs were a mixture of those who were members of the temple guard belonging to the Sanhedrin as well as members of the cohorts of the Roman garrisons stationed there in Jerusalem. [00:03:26]

And so we read that Judas had given them a signal, saying, “Whomever I kiss, He’s the One; seize Him and lead Him away safely.” Now this was not an expression of Judas for the concern of Jesus’ safety. Obviously, that was not foremost in his mind, but his expression to the arresting officers that Jesus be led away safely meant simply that this action can be undertaken in such a manner as that we are not at risk, those of us who are involved in His arrest and seizure. [00:04:46]

Again, on Maundy Thursday evening I spent most of the time talking about the significance of the kiss of betrayal, the incredible paradox here, that a gesture of profound honor and affection, which customarily was given by disciples to their Rabbi, was the method used by Judas for a most evil and wicked mission. [00:05:32]

And Jesus was saying that at the last day people would come to Him, whom He did not know, who did not belong to Him, who would pretend that they belonged to Him, and would not only name His name but they would repeat it as if they were on intimate terms with Him, “Lord, Lord, didn’t I preach, didn’t I teach, didn’t I give my money.” [00:12:47]

And Jesus said in this scariest warning of all, “I will say to them, ‘Please leave. I don’t know who you are. I don’t know your name. Depart from Me, you workers of iniquity.’” You see why that’s so scary, that Jesus would ever say that? You know we have jargon in the Christian world where people will say, “Are you saved?” Or another way, they will say, “Do you know Jesus?” That’s not the issue. The issue is not do you know Jesus. The issue is does Jesus know you. [00:13:08]

Then we read, “Then they all,” meaning all of the disciples, “forsook Him and fled.” You see it wasn’t just Judas; it wasn’t just Peter; it was every last one of them. The ones who fell asleep while Jesus was in agony in prayer just a little while earlier in Gethsemane, now at the moment of His arrest these heroes of the faith turned tail and fled into the darkness. [00:16:08]

But what we find here is at this moment of crisis somebody reduced to nakedness fleeing in the dark calls attention to a text in the Old Testament in the book of the prophet Amos, where Amos in the second chapter goes through the list of three transgressions and four of Moab, of Judah, of Israel, and so on, and at verse 13 he says, “Behold, I am weighed down by you.” This is God’s rebuke of His people. [00:20:00]

I wrote a book many, many years ago first titled “The Psychology of Atheism,” then later retitled, “If There Is a God, Why Are There Atheists?” And in there I have a chapter on the nakedness motif that we find in sacred Scripture as well as in western philosophy. And I did a word study of that word “gumnos,” which is the Greek word for “naked.” [00:21:20]

And since that hour in the Garden of Eden, human beings have been the only animals who have adorned themselves and covered themselves with artificial garments, because it’s built into our fallen humanity to equate shame and nakedness, humiliation with nakedness. And throughout the pages of Scripture, when God speaks of bringing judgment against the guilty, He exposes their sin and strips them of their clothes. [00:22:11]

I wish I had time to speak much longer of that motif, but it’s at the heart of our understanding of redemption, dear friends, because all of us have garments that clothe us, and our righteousness is we are told like rotten, filthy rags, and that the only way any one of us can ever stand in the sight of God is to be stripped of those rags and then clothed afresh in the garments of the righteousness of Christ. That’s the gospel. [00:23:04]