Matthew 26 and 27
Palm Sunday 2026
✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠
You can only be betrayed by a friend, or at least someone who once was your friend. You can only be betrayed by someone that is close to you, someone you trust. Only then can that trust be taken advantage of. An enemy can slander you; someone you don’t know at all can mock you and make fun of you–and that hurts. But what hurts even worse is when someone you love and who once loved you turns against you. That is when the greatest heartache comes–when a spouse deceives you, when a child or a parent takes advantage of you or rejects you, when someone whom you once thought was a kindred spirit uses you.
In a very deep way, this is the betrayal that Jesus feels and knows from Judas. Of all the myriads who followed Jesus and listened to Him, Judas was among the few, the 12 apostles. He had been sent out earlier by our Lord to preach His Word. He had heard Jesus’ teaching and witnessed Jesus’ miracles. They had been together for three years and shared many meals. Being together for that length of time, they weren’t mere acquaintances; they were more like a band of brothers. Just listen to the language that the psalms use: “It is not an enemy who taunts me; then I could bear it . . . it was you, a man my equal, my companion. . . We took sweet counsel together, and walked to the house of God in the throng.” Psalm 41 also prays, “Even my own familiar friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted up his heel against me.” Those words are fulfilled in today’s Passion reading, “He who dipped his hand with Me in the dish will betray Me.”
The first suffering that Jesus endures, then, for us, in His passion is the wound of betrayal. Though He is not cut physically yet, He is still cut to the heart. Though He knows this is going to happen in advance, the pain is not any less, just as knowing a loved one will soon die does not really make it any easier when it happens. As a true human being Jesus experiences this betrayal in its fulness on our behalf.
It is worth noting that when Jesus announces to the 12 that one of them would betray Him, all of them–each one of them–thought to themselves and said, “Lord, is it I?” Though Peter would later brashly claim that He would never fall, and all the disciples would claim to be ready to die with Jesus, yet in this moment at least, they seem to realize that none of them were beyond being led astray. Their faith was sometimes weak; their loyalty was imperfect. To say, “Lord, is it I?” is to acknowledge the possibility that betrayal may dwell in your heart.
Search your own hearts, then. Ask the question: “Have I sold You out, Lord, in what I’ve said or done? Have I bought into this world and its pleasures and lived for them like greedy Judas, rather than wanting to be in communion with You, hearing Your words of life? Have I lived as if I mattered most and You came in 2nd or 3rd or last place? Lord, is it I?” Take to heart these terrifying words that our Lord speaks regarding Judas, and repent. “Woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been good for that man if he had not been born.” Far worse is it to have known Christ and turned away from Him than never even to have known Him or life at all.
Jesus speaks this woe about Judas not merely out of anger but out of grief. He knows that Judas will despair of the mercy of God and think that he’s beyond being forgiven. How little Judas really understood the one whom He betrayed! For it was also precisely for the sin of Judas, and the sin of all of us Judases, that the Son of Man stretched His hands on the wood and let them pound in the nails. It was for Judas and for us all that Jesus pleaded, “Father, forgive them!” It was for Judas and for us all that the Lord of life let “grim death, with cruel rigor” rob Him of His life, so that sin and death would lose their claim over us forever. Never despair as Judas did. There is always hope for you in Jesus. In Him your sins have been answered for; you are forgiven and restored to God.
Always remember that our Lord Jesus was willing to be betrayed into the hands of sinful men to rescue you and redeem you. He let this come upon Himself out of love for His Father and for you. In fact, this very act of being betrayed is part of how Jesus has saved you. The prophet Isaiah wrote, “Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.” He knows what you’ve been through, the times you’ve been mistreated or stabbed in the back by someone you’ve trusted. Jesus has carried all of that for you to take that hurt away from you forever. In Judas Jesus has endured every betrayal; for through this betrayal Jesus has suffered for every sin on the cross. Our Lord can truly sympathize with you in your weakness and affliction. He’s literally been there for you. And He is with you now to carry you through the dark times to the light of the resurrection.
Jesus is the one who will never betray you. He is the one who will never abuse your trust in Him. You can count on Him to be your faithful ally who will never abandon you. For it is written, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame” (1 Peter 2:6). The Lord Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5). And the Psalmist prays, “Blessed are all who put their trust in Him” (Psalm 2:12). Jesus never gave way to bitterness or vengeance; He did not take the easy way out. He remained faithful even to the point of death, so that you would have life forever.
This is the love that sets us free to love as He has loved us. When you are betrayed by one you have loved and trusted, when the old Adam rises up inside of you with an eagerness to get even, by the strength of your baptism into Christ’s death, you get to crucify your old Adam and say, “No, through the power of Him who loved me, even when I sold Him out, I will not seek vengeance against those who sold me out. He forgave; I will forgive.” That is a real bearing of the cross with Jesus, like Simon of Cyrene, that you may share in His life and His resurrection.
One final thing: Jesus had said that the betrayer would be the one who dipped His bread in the dish with Him. That marked Judas as the condemned one. But now our Lord invites us to dip our hand in the dish with Him, so to speak, to mark us as ones who are recipients of His mercy. This dish is the supper that He instituted on the night when He was betrayed. That word “betrayed” literally means in Greek “handed over.” It’s the very same word St. Paul uses when he talks about handing on the Lord’s Supper to the Church. He says, “For I received from the Lord that which I also handed over to you.” You see, Jesus was handed over for you, and now He is handed over to you. His betrayed body and blood are a life-giving body and blood, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins. His sacrificial love overcomes all betrayals and hands you over into the loving care of the Father. For you Jesus is wounded in His betrayal, and by His wounds you are healed.
✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠