What a Wasted Life!

N.T.#298 "What a Wasted Life!"

May 6, 2024

Matthew 27-Part 2

LET IT GLOW

Probably we have identified someone as having lived a wasted life. Perhaps they were self-centered and did not care about others. Maybe they were educated and quit the job for which they spent time studying. So many young people take their own life at an early age. It makes you wonder why, what was so bad to cause this tragic end. Could it have been wrong choices or turning away from God? Judas was there.

Although Pilate declared Jesus not guilty of breaking any Roman government, he sent Jesus on to Herod. (Luke 22:4-7) After all, Jesus' claims of kingship, not of this world, was mere religious superstition, not an offense deserving of death under Roman law. (So Pilate thought.) The Jewish leaders continued to push hard for Jesus to be executed for blasphemy according to their own Law. (John 19:7) Yet Pilate found no fault in Jesus. (Luke 22:4) Jesus' fourth trial was completed. 

LET IT GROW 

Taking a moment to pull back the curtain, Matthew inserts here what Judas did. When Judas saw Jesus taken before Governor Pilate, condemned, Judas repented (to regret) realized he betrayed innocent blood for money, becomes guilty, returns the money, throwing it down in the Temple, departed, and commits suicide.by hanging himself.

What a double-cross-Judas betrays Christ in collusion with the priests, who in return, reject him! The chief priests felt no guilt in giving Judas money to betray an innocent man, but when Judas returned the money, the priests couldn't accept it because it was wrong to accept payment for murder! Their hatred for Jesus had caused them to lose all sense of right and wrong. (Life Application Study Bible)

It was unlawful to put the 30 pieces of silver into the Temple treasury, because it was blood.money. (verse 6) In verse 9, Jeremiah 32:6-9, where God told Jeremiah to buy a field for a specific amount of money, keep the deed, place a clay pot broken buried. God would restore Jerusalem after the coming judgment on the land. 

The land the counsel bought was a potter's field of broken pottery and was used to bury strangers there. In a sense, Judas purchased the field, so it was put into his name. (Acts 1:18) Perhaps Judas' body remained dangling until it decayed and eventually fell from the noose. A hanged man was accursed of God and the land was considered defiled if the corpse was not buried the same day. (Duet. 21:22-23)

The priests didn't want the money and no one wanted the land. In a sense, the money paid to Judas became the money used to buy the land where he handed himself. What a tragic legacy for a tragic life! It was Judas' self-inflicted fate. It would have been better if Judas had not been born.

What is ironic is that Judas heard Jesus preach about love, seen His miraculous healings, and witnessed Jesus standing up to the Jewish leaders of hypocracy. What a wasted life. That sums up verses 3-10. 

LET IT GO 

Jesus, You are our Hope, our life.

Help us hold on a little longer, for You have this.

You can turn ashes into beauty.