In moments of despair we might cry: “The whole WORLD is against me!” This overdramatization was no exaggeration for our Lord. Within one week, the Jews of the nations went from crying out for His Coronation (Mark 11:9) to demanding that a slayer be given them rather than the Savior (Matthew 27). They hated Him.
As we grow nearer in our series to the end of Christ’s humiliation, his death, then, his burial, it is, at this time, we begin to see a growing dissonance between who we know him to be and the events that unfolded around him. When thinking of the redemptive realities of Humiliation and Exaltation, the matter of Christ’s death speaks really to that full set of events leading to that moment when he would breath his last, His Passion. Throughout that handful of days, we see this on the human level, with the turning of every relationship around him toward hatred, abandonment, and seeking, ultimately, His death. We then also note the spiritual dimension, what Christ experienced internally as he fulfilled the work he agreed to with the Father to redeem God’s people.
This begins with being betrayed by Judas. One of his inner circle and one whom up until the final hours of his life did he show great respect and care for (John 13:26). Most of us can probably relate to betrayal by a friend, someone we cared about deeply. Even in the most painful of those broken relationships on earth, though, that is still a sinner betraying a sinner. Here, the excruciating reality is that Judas is betraying his Master, indeed the Lord of all the cosmos, for the price of a slave (Matthew 27).
