Thirty Shekels & A Noose
Everybody has their price.
How much would you be willing to pay to go on your dream vacation? How much money would you need to be paid in order to sell your current home? How much time are you willing to spend in order to attain that comfortable or luxurious life you always dreamed of as a child? How many pursuits are you willing to chase after in order to attain that blessed goal called “happiness”? How many friends would you be willing to give up in order to meet the love of your life? How much pain would you be willing to endure in order to make that love last? How many moral convictions are you willing to betray in order to get your hands on that one thing that you have always wanted…that one thing that has always been just slightly out of reach?
Everybody has their price. Since the beginning of history, we have been tacking price tags onto every decision we make, and those decisions testify not only to the value with which we esteem that thing which we are attaining, but likewise to the character of the decision maker, that which causes him or her to value those things so highly or so lowly.
Betrayal, Greed, and Pride: The Story of the Bible
Eve had her price: She valued what appeared to be the promise of wisdom and pleasure more highly than she valued the commandment of God, and so she ate of the fruit. Her son, Cain, had his price as well: He valued his damaged pride more highly than he valued the image that God has bestowed upon man, and so in jealousy he committed the first murder by slaying his brother Abel. Jacob’s sons, too, had their price: They valued a coat of many colors more highly than they valued their brother’s life, and so they planned on killing him before instead selling him into bondage, carried away into a distant land. The Israelites had their price: They valued the filling of their bellies more highly than they valued the worship of their God, and so within days of being delivered from Egypt all they could do was grumble and complain about all the LORD was doing. Delilah had her price: She valued a few thousand silver coins more highly than the man who said he loved her, and so she betrayed him unto the Philistines. But Samson, too, had a price of his own: To insatiate his lust was more valuable unto him than to fulfill his commission by the LORD, and so he was left blinded and chained to two pillars before he finally called upon God for deliverance. Saul valued his own authority more highly than he did God’s, and so he offered sacrifices that were not his to offer and spared people that were not his to spare. David, like Samson, valued his lust more highly than he did honoring God or others, and so when he gazed down from the rooftop, he did not look away and did not repent until a prophet came calling, a woman was pregnant, a man was dead, and a baby was doomed to die. The Northern and Southern Kingdoms valued being like the surrounding nations more than they valued being holy as the LORD had called them to be holy, and so they turned to sin and idolatry. Simon Peter valued his life more than he valued standing by Christ’s side, and so by fear he denied his Master three times on the night He needed him most.
The Bible is laden with stories such as this: Stories of betrayal, stories of greed, stories of pride, stories of lust, stories of sin. And each of these—every single one—comes at a price. Any time we make a decision, we are making a choice: What do I value most? Any time we make a judgment call, be it big or small, we are attaching price tags to things, declaring one more valuable than the other. And thus, in picking one, we reject the other. By esteeming the one, we betray and belittle the other.
The Greatest Betrayal of All
There is perhaps no greater story of betrayal in all of human history than that between Jesus Christ and Judas Iscariot. The former of these men was no ordinary man, but was in fact God in the flesh, the very God of very God, incarnated and become man so that He could accomplish through His life and by His death and in His resurrection what none of us could. He was a man of love and truth, of grace and mercy, of peace and joy, of sorrow and grief; He was perfectly righteous, perfectly pure, perfectly good, perfectly humble, perfectly holy, perfectly perfect. By love did He come into the world to live, and by love did He come into the world to die, yet when He was in the world He was rejected by the world, and though He had created the world, the world did not recognize Him as their Creator. He had given all of them life, yet when He came to them they took His life and killed Him.
The latter of these men was, in contrast, a very ordinary man. He was likely a young man from the town of Kerioth, eager to see the kingdom of God overthrow the Romans and hungry to taste the prosperity that God had promised their ancestors. As with any man, this man had his vices, primarily that of greed: When Jesus called him as one of the Twelve—the twelve men composing Christ’s inner circle of followers—it was he who was placed in charge of the money, and in time the others would come to learn that he regularly stole form the purse for his own selfish purposes. Yet everyone had their vices, and none of the other eleven saw him as any different: He, like all of them, had abandoned everything to follow Jesus; He, like all of them, was committing to a life of making Jesus known; He, like all of them, had been given the ability to go and cast out demons. In fact, whenever Jesus said that one of them was going to betray Him, each of the eleven doubted himself and did not point to Judas. Judas was, by all means, an ordinary man.
Yet on one day, while Christ and His disciples were in Jerusalem preparing for the Passover, Judas devised a plan:
Then one of the twelve, whose name was Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, “What will you give me if I deliver him over to you?” And they paid him thirty pieces of silver. And from that moment he sought an opportunity to betray him.
Matthew 26:14-16 (ESV)
You see, Judas had a price of his own: For thirty pieces of silver, he was willing to hand his Master over to the chief priests. Other than his greed, we can only speculate as to what motives drove Judas to commit such an act, but what we do know is that late on Thursday night, as Christ was praying in a garden just outside of Jerusalem, Judas arrived with a squad of troops in tow: They had come to take Jesus away. For thirty pieces of silver—the price of a common slave—Judas had betrayed the Son of God, the Son of Man, the Maker of heavens and earth. Jesus, of course, had known it would happen from the beginning, but that does not change Judas’ guilt. He, one of Christ’s twelve closest friends, sold him for cheap change. He walked up to his Master, kissed him on the cheek, and called Him “Teacher” one last time. And with that, the soldiers marched Jesus away. By nine o’clock the next morning, Jesus was hanging from a cross, His body representing more so a slab of raw meat than it did a living man. By three o’clock that afternoon, Jesus—God in the flesh—was dead.
But Jesus was not the only one who died that day. Judas, seeing the death sentence placed upon his Master’s head, realized the gravity of what He had done:
Then when Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he changed his mind and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders, saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” They said, “What is that to us? See to it yourself.” And throwing down the pieces of silver into the temple, he departed, and he went and hanged himself.
Matthew 27:3-5
Judas had valued Jesus at thirty shekels of silver—the price of a common slave—but the exchange ended up costing him much more than that. Judas did not keep the coins; he did not even keep his life. Instead, recognizing the horrible thing he had done, Judas Iscariot found a piece of rope, ascended a hill, tied it to a tree, formed a noose, and hanged himself.
For the price of thirty shekels and a noose, Judas Iscariot sent Jesus unto death.
What is YOur Price?
I wonder, what is our price? Throughout all the Bible and all history, we see people making judgment calls that demonstrate how highly they value something. Oftentimes we look at these people and scoff at them—How could Eve eat the fruit? Why on earth would the Israelites grumble against God? What was Judas thinking?—but just as often, we forget the fact that these were real people, in real time, which means that we are just as prone to make the same mistakes as they did, and just as likely to overlook our own vices in the same way that they overlooked theirs. Especially in religious circles, it is so easy go through the motions of empty religiosity that we convince ourselves our hearts are in the right place, yet in fact they are far from it: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world” (Jas 1:27). True religion flows forth from the heart; mere actions won’t do the trick. Judas abandoned everything to follow Jesus. He was one of Jesus’ closest friends, hand-picked by Jesus to accompany Him on the road. When Jesus sent the disciples out to cast out demons, Judas was amongst their ranks. When Jesus said that somebody would betray him, nobody pointed to Judas and said, “Oh yeah, it’s definitely that guy.” Instead, they doubted their own selves before even thinking to accuse him. Even when he rose up to leave and go gather the guards, the other eleven simply assumed that he was leaving to go and hand out money to the poor.
Judas went through all the motions, yet for thirty shekels and a noose he was left kissing Jesus on the cheek.
So what is your price? You can read your Bible each day, you can know the lyrics to all the best Christian songs, and you can give all your money to help fund the local church, but what good do any of those things do if they don’t flow from a heart of genuine love for God? When you stand before God and He asks you why He should allow you into His heavenly abode, will He be impressed by your journals of Bible notes, your cross necklaces, and your Christian t-shirts with the zany one-liners? No; for look to the words of Jesus:
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”
Matthew 7:21-23
Judas did all these things in the name of Christ, yet Christ says, “The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born” (Matt 26:24). Judas did wondrous works in the name of Christ, yet works won’t make the cut: The issue dwells with our hearts. God isn’t going to be impressed by your actions. The way the Apostle Paul describes it, the surrender of our entire selves unto serving God is nothing more than an “acceptable” practice (Rom 12:1): It is what is expected of a person who genuinely loves God, but it isn’t what gets you to God in the first place. No, for Jesus says that this can only be accomplished by doing the will of the Father, which He elsewhere clarifies: “For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day” (Jn 6:40). The way Paul puts it, quite simply, is this: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph 2:8-9). Empty religious motions will not satisfy God; what He desires is a heart of faith, for “man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” (1 Sam 16:7).
And so I ask you again, what is your price? Our actions do not impress God, but as I pointed out above, they can testify to the contents of our hearts. Jesus puts it this way: “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt 6:21). The question, then, is whether or not you treasure God above anything and everything else. That is the true question. If somebody were to make a movie of your life, what would be the theme and what would be the defining motivation? Where do your greatest temptations lie, and where do you find yourself most struggling? Is it late night when Google starts calling your name, tempting you to search up things you know you ought not search up? Is it that pesky rush hour traffic that really gets under your skin and causes some deep, hidden anger to rise to the surface, turning you red in the face in brutal impatience? Is it date night all alone with your boyfriend or girlfriend, when the temptation becomes too strong to bear? Is it your ego that tempts you to view yourself more highly than all those around you? Or is it, in fact, a sense of self-righteousness that sways you, religious piety and disciplined devotion that distracts your mind and leaves you blinded to the fact that you are not exalting Christ by your actions but are in fact exalting only yourself, a Pharisee in your own right, a whitewashed tomb, with ritualistic actions flowing forth not from a heart of love but from a heart of uncensored pride? My friends, my friends, we need to be aware of these things; God does not want just your money or your time—He wants your life. He wants your heart.
In the examples cited above, some of our favorite biblical heroes failed because they valued their own desires more highly than they desired God. Even David, the man after God’s own heart, allowed himself to succumb to great sin because he began to value his own fleshly desires more than he valued the God whom he had met in the shepherd’s fields. And so I ask you, do you treasure God above all else? If not, it is not too late to start. Because trust me when I say this: You can live a holy life and call Him “Master,” “God,” and “Lord,” and you can go out sharing His name with all the people you meet and devote all the time you can afford to meeting up with Bible study groups and pouring through Scripture—and these are great, commendable things to do—but religiosity built upon me, you, or any man will surely succumb to Satan’s plan. The question isn’t the cost of our betrayal, and our biggest sin isn’t straying from the truth; the issue at the heart of the very reason that we fall is just one, single question: How much is He worth to you? If we value anything above God, then we cease treating Him as God, and we have placed an image, an idol, in His stead. We may give Him lip service, but He knows our hearts; we may go through all the right motions, but He knows our hearts; we may impress all the other Christians by how devoted we outwardly appear to be, but He knows our hearts. So, dear friend, I challenge you to answer this single question: How much is He worth to you? Judas sold him for the price of a slave, and every time we choose to sin, we sell Him again and again and again, for it is our sins that nailed Him on that cross. The hammer is in our hands.
A Word of Encouragement
You may read this and despair, but I want to encourage you. If Judas had simply repented, I have no doubt in my mind that Christ would have been the first to forgive him. Judas, however, did not repent; He valued the extent of His own failure more highly than He valued God’s capacity for forgiveness, and so he tragically went and took his own life. We do not have to do the same; rather, we can rejoice in the good news that is the gospel of Jesus Christ, and we can recognize that if we simply repent and believe, we can find life in His name. Every single one of us has sinned, and every single one of us will sin; the beauty of it is that every single one of us is given the blessed opportunity to take that sin and lay it at the foot of the cross and let Christ’s innocent blood cover it up, so that we may value Him more day by day and serve Him more and more out of hearts of genuine love and genuine faith—out of true religion, religion built not on man, but on God.
Everybody has their price. What is yours?
