Have you ever tried to make a deal out of your closeness to God -real or pretended closeness- and end up in a pickle? I have been there, and in all honesty, I think we all had at some point fallen prey of that temptation: It goes like “God promised that if I get close to Him, I will get … (Fill in the blank)”, and so, we try to make the deal.
We might not even realize how we got there, whether through a thought process, or because of a dire need that pushed us to try to get the best deal we could.
Synonym with betrayal
We know the story of Judas, one of the Twelve apostles, the one who betrayed Jesus. Even non-Christian’s do, and use the name Judas as a synonym of betrayal, and of all things people do that we do not like.
What if we read that wrong? Yes, there was betrayal, that is clear, but what was the mindset of Judas when he concocted his plan? What were his expectations, besides the obvious 30 coins he was to obtain?
Before it was news
Let’s look at the story. What transpired in those years before that tragically charged night of betrayal and the subsequent arrest of Jesus.
Judas knew the power, he knew who Jesus was, he had seen Jesus performing impossible miracles, and probably more importantly to Judas thought process, he saw Jesus time and again escaping situations of peril, when the mobs or the authorities were after Him. Judas saw Jesus demonstrating without doubt, that He was really God.
To compound the above, Judas also saw how Jesus opposed the powers that be; but not only that, Jesus confronted them, spoke straight to their faces, and humiliated them. Those leaders, religious and political alike, were highly incensed and tried to get hands on Jesus, yet Jesus always escaped them
Judas saw that.
The win-win scenario:
Judas, knew the power of God and how Jesus acted. So, what if he calculated a win-win option: He would sell Jesus to the authorities, then Jesus would escape the priests just like he did before, and go on without harm.
And Judas would get to keep the money. Winning plan if there was ever one. It seems to me that Judas could not conceive that Jesus would allow Himself to be in harm way.
His miscalculation? He tried to use Gods power for personal gain.
The outcome
Matthew wrote that “when Judas saw that Jesus was condemned” he went out returned the silver and killed himself.
This gives us the clue to think that he was not betraying Jesus out of hate or because he wanted to get rid of Jesus, or just because of greed without regard to what Jesus would suffer; rather, Judas was trying to use the power of Jesus to profit from His escape once again, from the power of the elite.
After all, when the authorities realized that -in the scenario in Judas mind- Jesus had escaped again, Judas would still have the silver, and no matter what they would say, it was not his fault that Jesus used His power to trick Himself out of their grip.
But this time around Jesus did not escape. He submitted to the will of the Father and gave His life on that cross.
Corollarium
Don’t ever try to cut deals based on what you believe God would do. The beginning of blessings in submission to God. The outcome of faith is within relationship with God, not in the deals we think we can cut.
Real closeness to God always leads to submission and reliance on Him. The moment we try to use closeness with the Holy Spirit to device and cut deals with God, we start drifting away from that close relationship we may have.