Today we are going to take a look at the betrayal of Jesus. We are going to examine that moment when Judas betrayed Jesus. Everyone experiences betrayal at some point in their life. It will hurt. It will be painful. It will go deep. Before we dive into God’s Word on this, let’s make sure we understand what betrayal is.

To be betrayed is to be hurt by someone who you trust and had placed your confidence in. When you are betrayed your trust and confidence has been used against you.

Betrayal has four major components

There are four major components to betrayal.

  • Deception: This is deliberately causing someone to believe something that is not true, especially for personal gain.
  • Disloyalty: This involves unfaithfulness, untrustworthiness, and the like.
  • Disappointment: When you are betrayed, you will feel hurt, sadness, and let down.
  • Trust: Betrayal can only happen in the context of trust. The only people who can betray you are the people who you trust at some level. This is what makes betrayal so painful. You trusted them and they used that trust against you.

Betrayal in relationships can take many forms

Betrayal in relationships can take many forms. Let me give you some examples.

  • Infidelity: When a spouse has an affair, they have committed an act of betrayal against their spouse.
  • Lying: When someone you trust lies to you, they have committed act of betrayal.
  • Breaking promises: When someone you trust makes a promise to you, and then breaks that promise, that is an act of betrayal.
  • Disrespect: When someone you trust insults, mocks, or belittles you in front of others, that is an act of betrayal.

There is more to betrayal than just this, but hopefully you are getting a bigger picture of betrayal looks like. With that said, let’s take a look at Jesus being betrayed by Judas see what God has for us.

Let’s start with Mark 14:43-52.

And immediately, even as Jesus said this, Judas, one of the twelve disciples, arrived with a crowd of men armed with swords and clubs. They had been sent by the leading priests, the teachers of religious law, and the elders. 44 The traitor, Judas, had given them a prearranged signal: “You will know which one to arrest when I greet him with a kiss. Then you can take him away under guard.” 45 As soon as they arrived, Judas walked up to Jesus. “Rabbi!” he exclaimed, and gave him the kiss. 46 Then the others grabbed Jesus and arrested him. 47 But one of the men with Jesus pulled out his sword and struck the high priest’s slave, slashing off his ear. 48 Jesus asked them, “Am I some dangerous revolutionary, that you come with swords and clubs to arrest me? 49 Why didn’t you arrest me in the Temple? I was there among you teaching every day. But these things are happening to fulfill what the Scriptures say about me.” 50 Then all his disciples deserted him and ran away. 51 One young man following behind was clothed only in a long linen shirt. When the mob tried to grab him, 52 he slipped out of his shirt and ran away naked. (NLT)

Here is what we are going to do. We are going to walk through this one verse at a time.

Verse 43

Mark begins this section in verse 43 by saying, And immediately, even as Jesus said this…. Let’s stop right there. Everything that is about to happen is God ordained. It will look like God is not in charge, but He is. It will feel like God has abandoned the situation, but He is not. Prophecy is about to be fulfilled. God is about to be proven right again. The devil is about to be defeated. Sin is about to be conquered. Jesus is headed to the cross and the resurrection.

Now listen carefully, sometimes when God starts something it happens immediately. When God said let there be light, boom! There was light. Immediate. When Elijah prayed for God to consume an altar with fire, boom! Immediate. When Jesus spoke to the storm to be calm, boom! Immediate.

Sometimes God will make you wait, but sometimes God begins to move and do something in your life and its immediate. It happens fast. Sometimes God’s immediate actions feel wonderful. You meet that special someone. You have a baby. You get that promotion. You are healed of a disease. You start growing spiritually. God is doing stuff in your life and it feels like your life is moving forward in the right direction one blessing after another.

But then there are those times where God is moving quickly and immediately in your life and your life feels like its falling apart. That’s what it is going to look like with Jesus, but in reality God is at work and He is doing something incredible. Back to verse 43 which says, And immediately, even as Jesus said this, Judas, one of the twelve disciples, arrived with a crowd of men armed with swords and clubs.

Mark describes Judas as one of the twelve disciples. Mark is reminding us that Jesus is being betrayed by someone from His inner circle. Jesus has spent three years with Judas traveling together doing ministry together. Jesus has invested into Judas, love Judas, counseled Judas, and trusted Judas. From a human perspective, being betrayed by someone you are close to and have loved and have trusted for years can hurt deeply.

If you were close to someone and they betrayed you in some way, you are not alone. Jesus knows and understands how you feel and how it hurts.

Judas did not come alone. He arrived with a crowd of men armed with swords and clubs.[i] When Matthew described this event, he said it was “a large crowd” (Matt. 26:47). Sometimes the person who betrays you will recruit others to go against you. They will convince other family members, some of your friends, coworkers, and others to come against you. But remember, God was in control of what was happening around Jesus and to Jesus, but God is in control of what is happening around you and to you.

Then Mark says, They had been sent by the leading priests, the teachers of religious law, and the elders. These were the religious leaders of the day. They had decided that Jesus was wrong and needed to be dealt with severely. The reality is, Jesus was directly in the center of God’s will. He had lived a sinless life. He had blessed thousands of people. He had forgiven sins. He had healed bodies. He had healed minds. He had cast out demons. He had raised the dead. He had walked on water and calmed the storms. He had miraculously fed thousands. He was sent by the Heavenly Father and He was doing exactly what the Heavenly Father wanted Him to do. Jesus was directly in the center of God’s will, but He was still going to be betrayed by Judas along with those he recruited. Doing God’s will did not protect Jesus from being betrayed.

The same is true for you. Doing God’s will does not protect you from betrayal. When you are in the middle of God’s will doing exactly what your Heavenly Father wants you to be doing there are going to be people will not like it, understand it, agree with you, and try to strop you. When you are opposed, you must remember that God is in control. Stay faithful. Keep your calm. Keep doing what God has called you to do.

Verse 44

Let’s move to verse 44, The traitor, Judas, had given them a prearranged signal: “You will know which one to arrest when I greet him with a kiss. Then you can take him away under guard.”  Even though Jesus is God in the flesh, Jesus did not look any different from you or me. He didn’t glow in the dark. He didn’t have a halo. At night, in a crowd, it would be easy to mistake him for someone else. There was nothing external that identified him as the Son of God. They needed a way to make sure someone else did not step up and say, “I am Jesus,” during the arrest so they ended up arresting the wrong guy at night by mistake so the real Jesus escaped. This is why Judas gave them a prearranged signal. Judas would identify Jesus with a kiss.

In that culture at the time, a kiss on the cheek between two men is similar to two men giving each other a hug. It was a sign of love and friendship. Here is where we begin to see the depth of Judas’ wickedness and selfishness.

Not only did Judas plan to identify Jesus in the darkness of the night with a kiss, but Judas also told the Roman soldiers and temple guards what they should do to Jesus once Judas marked him with a kiss. Judas told them, Then you can take him away under guard.

Judas was a person who was comfortable living a double life. He had no problem faking love for Jesus one moment, then instantly moving to the betrayal of Jesus the next. This was not new for Judas. He would sit with Jesus, listen to Jesus, minister with Jesus during the day and steal from the ministries finances at night. Judas was pretending to be something that he was not.

People who live a double life, think they are fooling everyone, but the one person you cannot fool is Jesus. Jesus knew everything that was taking place in the heart of Judas, just as Jesus knows everything taking place in the hearts of those who choose to live a double life today.

When you are betrayed you are being betrayed by someone who is able to pretend to be your friend when they are not, they pretend to be loyal when they are not. They are able to live a double life. When you are betrayed by someone that is when you see both their lives and it hurts. They are not who you thought they were.

Verse 45

Then in verse 45 Mark says, As soon as they arrived, Judas walked up to Jesus. “Rabbi!” he exclaimed, and gave him the kiss. When Luke describes this, we are told that right before Judas kissed Jesus, Jesus said, “Judas, would you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?” (Luke 22:48, NLT). According to Matthew, immediately after Judas kissed Jesus, Jesus said, “My friend, go ahead and do what you have come for” (Matthew 26:50, NLT).

To me, this is hard to watch. Judas used an intimate expression of love and respect to betray Jesus. Judas’ actions were two-faced and hypocritical. His actions said, “I respect and honor you,” at the exact time he was betraying Jesus to be murdered. This had to hurt Jesus. Jesus loved and cared for Judas.

This illustrates Proverbs 27:6 which says, “Wounds from a sincere friend are better than many kisses from an enemy” (NLT). Wounds from a sincere friend occur out of love and concern. What they say may hurt, but you need to hear it for your own good. However, the kisses or affection from an enemy are deceitful because they serve his hidden agenda. Judas had a selfish and hidden agenda.

When someone pretends to be your friend and you find out later, they aren’t your friend and they betrayed you or used you, it will hurt. David expressed this thought in Psalm 55:12 when he said, “If an enemy were insulting me, I could endure it; if a foe were rising against me, I could hide. But it is you, a man like myself, my companion, my close friend, with whom I once enjoyed sweet fellowship at the house of God, as we walked about among the worshipers” (Psalm 55:12-14, NIV). When you feel betrayed by someone you trusted you will feel confused, shocked, and hurt.

Job’s emotional pain also foreshadowed Jesus’ sorrow when Job said in Job 19:19, “Those I love have turned against me” (NIV). When you are betrayed that is what it feels like. It feels like those you loved have turned against you.

If you have been hurt by someone who has betrayed you, lied to you, or used you then you need to know that Jesus understands your pain. He’s been there. Hebrews 4:15 says, “This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin” (NLT). When you feel betrayed by someone, you will be tested. You will be tempted to lash out, get revenge, or to hurt the other person. You will be tempted to become selfish when you are betrayed.  

Conclusion

When you feel betrayed by someone what do you do? How do you respond? We will get into this more as we move through the gospel of Mark, but let me give you two things based on what Jesus did with Judas.

  • Trust God’s sovereignty. When you are betrayed, its not your fault. They decided to violate your trust and use your trust against you. In that moment, you will need to lean hard on God’s wisdom, God’s plan, and God’s sovereignty. This is where you say, “God, this hurts. I trusted them. I’m confused. I’m wounded. I don’t know how you are going to use this, but I know you can. It doesn’t make any sense, but I’m going to stay faithful to You and trust you to get me through this.”
  • Forgive them. Jesus is about to go to the cross and one of the things He will say while being nailed to the cross is “Father, forgive them because they do not know what they are doing.” When a person betrays you, they think they know what they are doing. In reality, betrayal is a sign that someone is blind. Blind to their own sin. Blind to their own selfishness. They are convinced themselves and rationalized what they are doing is the right thing or the best thing in some way. The bottom line is they are sinning against you and that requires forgiveness on your part.

[i] “Swords, “small swords,” were the regular hand weapons of the Roman soldiers, while the staves, “objects made of wood,” clubs, were the regular weapons of the temple police.”