Matthew 27:1-10 - Homiletics

The end of Judas.

I. THE FORMAL CONDEMNATION OF OUR LORD .

1 . The Sanhedrin. "When the morning was come," St. Matthew says—the morning which followed the long sad hours of that night of mockery and shame; the morning which ushered in the greatest day in the world's history, the day signalized by the darkest crime ever wrought upon this sinful earth, illustrated by the one all-sufficient Sacrifice for sin, by the noblest deed of holiest self-devotion which has brightened the annals of the human race;—on that memorable morning all the chief priests and elders of the people came together. They met now to pronounce the formal sentence of death. Their previous meeting was illegal. A capital cause could, by their own rules, be tried only during daylight. This meeting, which St. Luke describes at greater length than the first two evangelists, was held to render valid the irregular sentence passed in the night. They were careful to observe forms and precedents; they heeded not the awful guilt which they were contracting.

2 . The delivery to the Gentile ' s. Again they bound him who is the King of kings. And then they fulfilled his own prophecy—they delivered him "to the Gentiles to meek, and to scourge, and to crucify him" ( Matthew 20:19 ). They had determined on his death. It was "not lawful for them to put any man to death;" but they scrupled not to employ the agency of the hated Romans to accomplish their wicked purpose. They hated Pilate; he had deserved their hatred by his Cruelties and by his scornful contempt of their religious prejudices. But they hated the holy Jesus more than they hated the cruel and haughty Pilate; and they delivered Jesus, that is, they betrayed him; they completed the evil deed of Judas. As he betrayed his Master to them, so they betrayed their King, their Messiah, to the Roman Pilate. It was an act of treason, awful treason, against the Divine King of the Jews. Indeed, they knew not what they did. "I wot," said St. Peter, after the Ascension, "that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers" ( Acts 3:17 ). They would not have dared thus to treat the Lord, had they believed him to be the long expected Messiah. But their ignorance was guilty ignorance. If they had searched the Scriptures with a single heart, they must have seen in the Lord's life the signs of the Messiah. Some of them were old enough to remember the visit of the Magi, and the excitement which it caused in Jerusalem. All knew more or less of the Lord's beautiful life, of his holy teaching, of his works of love and power. But they were blinded by hypocrisy and self-interest. They had long sought his death. The solemn entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, the "Hosanna! "shouts, the enthusiasm of the multitude, followed by the controversies in the temple, with the Lord's awful parables and his stern condemnation of the dominant religionism, deepened their resentment and confirmed them in their wicked purpose. They proposed to seize him alter the feast day; but the unexpected treachery of Judas enabled them to take him at once without uproar or danger. They knew his absolute innocence; they saw his holy calmness, his meek, patient self-possession in the midst of insults; they heard his majestic assertion of his Divine office and dignity. They would not believe; they were blinded by their prejudices, their pride, their interest; they made the guilt of Judas their own; they completed his fearful treason, and delivered their King into the hands of the merciless Roman governor, whose cruel contemptuous character they knew so well, and whom they expected to be the ready and willing instrument for carrying out their evil design.

II. JUDAS .

1 . His remorse. He had probably mingled with the crowd of spectators, like Peter. He had nothing to fear, as Peter had. It is said that there is a strange, awful attraction which draws a murderer irresistibly to the scene of his crime; some such feeling forced Judas to linger about the high priest's palace. We know not what his thoughts were during that fearful night. It is possible (though there is no Scripture foundation for the theory) that he may have looked forward, even more eagerly than the other apostles, for the expected earthly reign of the Messiah; he may have been vexed and angry with the Lord for not claiming the throne of David, and thus raising his followers to rank and eminence. It is just possible (very improbable it seems to us) that he may have designed by his treachery to force the Lord to declare himself as the Messiah, to exert his supernatural power, and to set up his kingdom in Jerusalem. It is certain that his avaricious spirit was troubled exceedingly by what he called the waste of Mary's precious ointment, and that the Lord's reproof, though gentle and loving, irritated his dark and gloomy temper, and became, through the temptations of the evil being to whom he had sold himself, the goad which drove him to his deadly sin. He brooded over his supposed wrongs; he fretted himself till he was moved to do the most evil deed the world had ever seen. He gave place to the devil; Satan entered into him, and filled him with malice and hatred, and whispered that he might by one act have his revenge, and compensate himself for the fancied loss caused by Mary's generous offering. Perhaps evil thoughts like this, bitter recollections of supposed slights, cruel exultation over his successful treachery and his ill-gotten gains, filled the traitor's heart during the night, and for a while kept him from feeling the horror of his crime. But in the morning he saw that Christ was condemned. He had not exerted his Divine power; the twelve legions of angels had not come to his aid. He was condemned like any common malefactor, and delivered to Pilate for the cruel death of the cross. And Judas was the cause of this. He had murdered his Friend, his Master, his Lord, the Innocent, the Holiest One. He repented now; but his repentance was not μετα ì νοια —not a change of heart, not repentance unto life; it was only μεταμε ì λεια , a change of thought as to his crime (comp. Trench, 'New Test. Syn.,'sect. 69). He saw his sin now in a different point of view. He could no longer gloat over the luxury of revenge, the evil pleasure of wicked gains; for his crime seemed to glare upon him with fiery eyes; he saw its full horror, its blackness, its hideousness. The thirty pieces of silver which he had coveted were cankered now; they were a witness against him, a witness of his infamy and of his foul treachery; they seemed to eat his flesh as it were fire. He loathed, he hated them; he returned them to the chief priests and elders. "I have sinned," he said, "in that I have betrayed innocent blood." Can he have thought that by returning the price of blood he might stay the accomplishment of that deed of blood? If he had such a thought, his hope was at once extinguished by the cold cruelty of the answer, "What is that to us? see thou to that." The guilt was his, they said. They forgot that it was equally theirs. Pilate very soon after forced them to admit it; he was innocent of that blood, he said, "See ye to it." But now they derided the misery of their companion in guilt; he was their feel; he had served their purpose; they would fling him away.

2 . His despair. There was no hope for him; those cruel words drove him to madness. Perhaps he remembered words more awful still, though they were spoken in warning, "Woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! good were it for that man if he had not been born." He had not listened to the Saviour's warning voice; he had thought more of that paltry bribe than of his own poor soul. Avarice, that degrading vice, had eaten all good and holy thoughts out of his mind; his heart was hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Could he not even now in his misery see his guilt and own his sin, and weep like Peter, and like Peter be forgiven? Alas! no. A horror of great darkness seemed to engulf him; he could not see that look of love and sorrow which had won Peter to repentance. He had trodden underfoot the Son of God; he could not bear even to think of Christ. He had done despite to the Spirit of grace; the Spirit had departed from him. He had no hope either in this world or in the world to come. He could not enjoy the miserable wages of his treason; he threw the pieces of silver back to the priests as they sat or officiated in the sanctuary. He departed; he went and hanged himself. His death was attended by strange circumstances of horror; his name has become a word of reproach; his memory is associated with all that is hateful and accursed. Yet he was an apostle, "one of the twelve," one of the princes of the Church, who were to sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. His history is full of awful warning to all Christian people, especially to the ministers of Christ's Holy Word and sacraments. It reminds us that the highest places in the Church are not always safe, that we may not dare to trust in external privileges, however great they may be. It warns us that the deadly sins of ambition and avarice may ensnare those who seem very near to Christ. It adds force and weight to the Lord's solemn lesson, "Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation."

3 . The conduct of the chief priests. They would not put the money into the temple treasury, because it was the price of blood; yet they themselves had brought about the bloodshedding of which that money was the price. The money was accursed in their eyes, but not the wicked deed.

Very strange is the self-deceit with which hypocrites blind their hearts and cheat their consciences. They bought with the pieces of silver the potter's field to bury strangers in. It was the field, it seems (comp. Acts 1:18 ), in which Judas had put an end to his miserable life, the field which he had designed to purchase with the reward of his iniquity. It was well called "the field of blood;" it was defiled with that scene of blood and horror, and it was bought with the price of blood. The chief priests perhaps regarded this purchase as a work of charity. So again and again in the course of history have men sought, by charitable foundations of various kinds, to atone for past transgressions. Many such gifts Lave been given in true repentance; and as the earnest and expression of repentance they are, we may not doubt, accepted. Without repentance and faith they can no more help the guilty soul than the gift of the potter's field could atone for the blood guiltiness of the chief priests.

4 . The fulfilment of prophecy. St. Matthew again, as in so many other places, refers to the writings of the prophets. His thoughts seem to have dwelt much in reverent awe on the great mysteries of the sovereignty and foreknowledge of God, and of that overruling providence which ever brings to pass the counsels of the Most High. There is, apparently, an ancient transcriber's error here, and other difficulties, which this is not the place to examine, But the passage ( Zechariah 11:12 , Zechariah 11:13 ) is very remarkable. The price to be given is weighed, it is to be fixed at thirty pieces of silver. The Lord speaks of it as the "price that I [the Lord God] was prised at of them." The price is cast down in the house of the Lord; it comes ultimately to the potter. The prophecy was fulfilled. The price of the Saviour's blood bought a resting place for the bodies of Gentile strangers in the neighbourhood of the holy city—an illustration of the great and blessed truth that by the blood of Christ those are made nigh who sometime were afar off, who were aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise; but now, through him, are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God.

LESSONS .

1 . "The love of money is the root of all evil." Fight hard against it.

2 . It grows and strengthens with years. Resist it in its beginnings.

3 . Ill-gotten gains bring misery. Flee from them.

4 . Mark the strange inconsistencies of hypocrisy. Pray to be true and real.