New Here

New Here

New Here

Close to Jesus, But Far Away

January 19, 2025 Speaker: Jim Davis Series: Matthew

Passage: Matthew 26:1–16

Matthew 26. We are continuing our high level walk through the days of what we call Holy Week. That is, the last week of Jesus’ earthly life. We jumped back into this series last week on Tuesday and today we are looking at Wednesday in Matthew’s account of the week. If you are wondering why we are not looking at Matthew 24 and 25, it’s all in the Enews:) 

 

I told you last week that I call Tuesday Entrapment Tuesday because of the ways the religious leaders tried to trap Jesus with some trick questions. Jesus boldly faces them, evades their traps, and calls them hypocrites, blind guides, and white washed tombs. Wednesday kind of feels like the calm before the storm, but a lot actually happens on Wednesday. It just happens in back allies, shadows, and homes. I don’t need to make up a name for Wednesday because it already exists: Spy Wednesday. The public scrutiny of Jesus didn’t work, so now the conspiracy quietly races forward. 

 

In this passage we see a spectrum of responses to Jesus all the way from worship on one end to betrayal on the other. And all of this by people who were in close proximity to Jesus. I remember when Angela and I were young and had been married a few years. We had just moved back to the states and we were in a great Sunday School class in our church. There were some great older mature people who had walked with the Lord for many years. There were people in full-time ministry. There were some younger Christians. Then, kind of out of nowhere, our Sunday School teacher (who was also in our community group) decided he was leaving the faith and his young family. This was someone I knew very well. Some people were sad, some were confused, and some somehow seemed like they were growing closer to the Lord as this guy totally fell away. 

 

We were all connected to the church, we all had made public professions of faith, we all took our faith seriously, but now when things got confusing, everyone seemed to respond differently. This is exactly the kind of scene Matthew is showing us in this passage. So this morning, let’s look at 1) The plot twist and 2) How the disciples respond. 

 

  1. The plot twist

 

The plot twist has two parts. The first is Jesus foretells his imminent death. This is actually introduced on Tuesday night as best I can tell. After Jesus had finished his teachings on what is going to happen in the future, he tells his disciples that in two days, he will be delivered over to the authorities and crucified. Imagine having spent three years with Jesus. Having given up your job, your family, and in many ways, your reputation for Jesus. You saw Jesus’ miracles. You saw him multiply the bread and the fish. You saw him walk on water. You saw him raise Lazarus from the dead. You saw Jesus enter Jerusalem on Sunday to a cheering crowd. And not just a cheering crowd, but a crowd that was giving Jesus the praise that should only go to God…and he was accepting it. You saw Jesus absolutely school all the religious leaders of the day in a very public way. The disciples were already discussing who would be on Jesus’ right and left when he establishes his kingdom. 

 

And now, he tells you he is going to die in two days. And not just die, but die a horrible death on a cross. A death reserved for criminals. Even though this is not the first time Jesus has predicted his death, it’s the clearest. He gives the time (2 days), he gives the manor (someone will deliver him over), and he gives the method (Roman crucifixion). It’s hard to overstate the confusion this would have introduced into the people who had devoted their lives to him. 

 

I tried to think of modern historical examples that could maybe get us closer to understanding the feelings the disciples would have had. Even though there is no true one to one correlation, maybe…maybe the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. He had developed a huge following, he was a beacon of hope to many, a leader of people toward justice and equality, and he was killed. Many of his followers felt utterly lost, like their dreams had been stolen from them. Again, it’s not a perfect one to one, but I think it gets us somewhere into the head and heartspace of the disciples. Or, maybe 9/11. Those of us who were alive remember the feeling of American invincibility and then we all saw her bleed. In both cases, people received news that changed the way we look at our world. 

 

That’s the first part of the plot twist, the second is happening, but the disciples don’t even know about it. The religious leaders conspire to kill Jesus. The chief priests and elders gathered together at the palace of the high priest named Caiaphas. Caiaphas was known for being a shrewd politician who knew how to keep power. This is really interesting because this group that is gathered are not people that would have normally worked together. They have significant theological and political disagreements. But, if it means getting rid of Jesus, they will work together. For them, it is almost a political necessity. Jesus has won the crowd. They can’t have power and authority as long as he is around. 

 

And we have to appreciate their position. They only had power in Israel because the Romans had allowed them to. They were deeply concerned that if Jesus caused some Messianic revolt, like the Maccabees did 200 years earlier, Rome would step in and at least arrest and likely kill them all.

 

The problem, though, is that Jesus has such high public approval. If they did something to him during Passover when at least a few hundred thousand if not a million visitors were in Jerusalem, they could have riots on their hands. And, let’s be honest, Passover in general is a bad time for political assassinations. So, they try to come up with a plan to quietly order the arrest of Jesus and kill him. But, the problem is how will they quietly get Jesus? Well, he’s about to fall into their lap. And this sets us up for three very different responses to the first part of the plot twist: Jesus telling his disciples he will be killed. 

 

  1. Three responses of the disciples

 

The first response I want to look at is from Mary Magdalene. Mary responds by worshiping. While they were still at Bethany, Matthew says ‘a woman’ came up to him with an alabaster flask of very expensive ointment. We know from John’s account that this woman was Mary. She poured it on Jesus’ head as he reclined at the table. This ointment in today’s money would be between $15,000 and $20,000. It was a huge sum of money. Now, we aren’t told if Mary had heard about Jesus’ prediction of his own death, but I strongly believe that she had. Jesus says that what she is doing was to prepare him for burial. 

 

Dead bodies in that day were prepared for burial first by washing them with clean water to purify them and to make them ritually clean. Then they were anointed with oils or spices to honor the deceased and to mask the odor of decay which was particularly important in the warm climate of Israel. Then, they would wrap the body in linen. But, crucified criminals would rarely get such a treatment. The body was often left on the cross to decay as part of the punishment and then discarded. Only in rare exceptions was the body buried. It makes all the sense in the world to me that news had gotten to Mary and she wanted Jesus to have this anointing before he went to the cross because she didn’t think he would have it after. 

 

Mary doesn’t understand why Jesus must die any more than anyone else did at this time, but she doesn’t protest, she doesn’t doubt, she worships Jesus in the midst of the sadness and confusion. It’s almost like this devastating news was bringing her closer to Jesus. Her worship was not only more focused, but more sacrificial. She didn’t understand why Jesus said this or why he must die, but she trusts him and worships him. 

 

At any given moment, God may be doing 10,000 different things in our lives, but we may, if we are lucky, see two of them. If God is really God, then we can trust him when things are hard, when things are confusing, or when things are painful and the right response to who He is is to draw closer to Him and worship Him as the sovereign God of the universe. And that is exactly what Mary is doing. 

 

I’ve told this story before, but there was a woman in Mississippi who got a knock on her door late at night and she opened the door and there was a police officer there to tell her the news no one ever wants to get. Her husband was dead. She just stared at him in shock and when he asked if he could do anything for her, she just said, “No, only Jesus can help me now and I need to go be with him.”

 

Now that is an extreme example, but many of you know what it feels like for life to get hard. You know what it’s like to have the wind kicked out of you, but to find a comfort in Jesus that you had not known before the trial. The comfort that comes from acutely feeling that Jesus really is the only hope in the midst of a storm. Jesus is our only hope when times are easier, but we somehow feel that truth even more when life is hard. But we will only feel it when we turn to him and worship. Not because our circumstances have earned Jesus the right of our worship, but because who he is demands our worship. 

 

That’s Mary, then we have the disciples. They respond in denial. They see what Mary is doing and they rebuke her. They call what she is doing as a waste because it could have been sold and given to the poor. Matthew actually says they were indignant. It’s as if they heard what Jesus had said and they were just continuing on business as usual. They don’t draw closer to Jesus, they don’t grieve, they don’t even seem to try and process the grief that losing Jesus will be. 

 

We know today that denial is a protective mechanism and comes in the early stages of grief. It allows someone to momentarily distance themselves from the full weight of the loss. And denial can be a blessing at times. It can be an emotional defense that helps us cope with overwhelming pain or grief. It can be like a circuit breaker on a home that flips so that the house doesn’t burn down. 

 

I once had to tell a 10 year old boy that his parents were dead. One of the worst things I have ever had to do. And he cried for ten minutes and then something flipped and he was playing outside as if everything were fine. The human brain is an amazing thing. His denial circuit switch flipped so that his emotional house didn’t burn down. So there is grace and even blessing in denial, but sooner or later, we have to face the truth and process our emotions fully and move toward acceptance. 

 

I do think the disciples were in a form of denial. They were confused and they didn’t know how to process what losing Jesus would mean for them. They had given him everything. Their time, their vocations, and their reputations. They had hoped he would rule all of Israel and now he says he’s going to die as a criminal on a cross. It just didn’t make sense. That is a lot to process. What they don’t understand is that it is in those times that we should draw nearest to Jesus. But they didn’t draw near to him in worship, they kind of put it away. 

 

I heard one of my favorite Bible teachers once say that if you follow Jesus long enough, He will let you down. And what he meant by that is just what we see in the disciples. They don’t like what they hear. It wasn’t that Jesus was actually letting them down, it was that Jesus wasn’t doing what they expected him to do. My friend, Damien Schitter, says expectations determine experience. The disciples’ expectations weren’t too high for Jesus, they were just wrong. 

 

They don’t draw near to Jesus in worship because they don’t have the proper expectations to trust him. Following Jesus in this fallen world will mean there are times when we don’t understand what he’s doing, but just like his decision to go to the cross, what he’s doing is better than what we would expect…even though it’s incredibly painful. And for what it’s worth, that Bible teacher was Ragan Bartholomew’s dad who will be leading our men's retreat so keep an eye out for registration:)

 

And this is when Jesus rebuked the disciples. He said that what Mary is doing is not only acceptable, but beautiful. He asked them why they were troubling Mary by rebuking her. He said they will always have the poor with them, but they will not always have Jesus. It’s as if Jesus knew they were not fully accepting what he had said and he’s reminding them that this IS going to happen. Jesus says that this is, in fact, a preparation for burial and wherever the gospel is preached from that day forward, what Mary has done will be told in memory of her. And here we are today doing just that. 

 

Then, lastly, we have Judas. Judas responds by betraying Jesus. Judas is forever known as one of the darkest characters in human history. Up until the 20th century, he would have been widely regarded as the most infamous person in human history. Then we got Hitler, Mousolini, Stalin, and Mao, but Judas still remains on the list. In every list of the disciples in the gospels, Judas is mentioned last and they make clear that he is the one who betrayed Jesus. And this is where we see that betrayal. Judas decided to go to the chief priests and give them the one thing they wanted most: Jesus away from the public. Judas offers to do this for thirty pieces of silver. 

 

Many have speculated why exactly Judas would do this. Maybe he wanted to be at Jesus’ right hand and sensed it wasn’t going to happen. Maybe he really did understand that Jesus was going to die and that life was going to get very hard for him. In John’s account of Mary’s anointing, he says that Judas didn’t want Mary to waste the ointment because Judas was in charge of the money bag and he was a thief. 

 

I don’t know for sure, but based on John’s account, I do think we can say that Judas had been on a bad path for some time. This anointing seemed to be the last straw. Things got tough for Judas and he doesn’t just go into denial, he certainly doesn’t worship Jesus, he betrays him. He becomes the spy who will lead the religious leaders to Jesus when no one is around. Judas is the way Jesus will be handed over. 

 

It’s one thing to be cheated in a business deal or lose a relationship in a big disagreement, but to betray someone who has been nothing but faithful to you is a whole other thing. Some of you know what that feels like. Some of you have committed that act. But, to betray Jesus, the perfect God-man, is a whole other level yet. Hitler, Stalin, Musollini, and Mao may have been terrible people who killed millions, but none of them ever directly killed God incarnate. 

 

Jesus wasn’t exactly what Judas expected and he walked away from him and betrayed him. He traded his loyalty for just 30 pieces of silver. He didn’t believe Jesus was who he was and he decided to take whatever small worldly comforts instead. Two weeks ago I talked about the bumper sticker I saw that said ‘He who dies with the most toys wins.’ That’s a perfectly logical worldview if you don’t worship Jesus. Just like Judas, let’s get whatever material comforts we can because we don’t ultimately understand who Jesus is and what he is doing in our lives. Religious people who leave the church actually stay religious, they just switch the objects of their worship and more often than not, they worship some sort of comfort. 

 

Those are the three responses and I want to make one observation. All these people were in close proximity to Jesus. They all had the same data points. Mary didn’t have more information than Judas. Each of them were equally close in geographic proximity to Jesus, but they weren’t equally close in relational proximity. And the same thing is true of all of us here today. Just by being in this building this morning, you have, historically speaking, close proximity to Jesus. If you are a member of this church, you have extremely close proximity to Jesus. You are a part of his body and you have heard the gospel message in more clarity and fullness than the disciples even had at this point. 

 

Yet, the reality is that some of you are as far from Jesus as Judas. You know about Jesus, but you don’t really know Jesus. At the end of the day, that bag of money is more valuable to you than worshiping the Savior. Some of you are as confused as the disciples. You have an expectation of Jesus that hasn’t aligned with what you have experienced because you have created a god in your own image. You may go to church and have the right intellectual knowledge, but that hasn’t produced the right response. And some of you are as close as Mary. Which of these three you are…only you know. 

 

So, what distinguishes the three? How can we be like Mary? When things get confusing and even painful, we turn to Jesus in worship. Well, I could say a lot of things, but I’ll finish with this. Even though we didn’t hand Jesus over like Judas did, we all had a hand in killing him. It was our sin that put Jesus on that cross. But, what was Jesus’ posture toward the Romans nailing him to the cross? “Forgive them Father for they know not what they do.” That’s Jesus’ posture toward his people. He is loyal to us even to the point of giving his life for us while we were still enemies to him. He is willing to lavish us with his love and righteousness. He is able to make our sick hearts well. He has the ability to turn our shame into honor. And he will never remind us of our sin, our shame, or our sickness again. He will love us and sustain us for the rest of our lives and for all eternity. If we believe that, we will worship like Mary. Nothing on this earth will be more valuable to us than having Jesus. And even when we mess up…and we will…he will call us back to himself through this grace like a loving mother to a wandering toddler. 

 

Let’s not be like the disciples and make Jesus into what our shortsighted, sinful hearts want him to be. Let’s see Jesus for who he is. Let’s not be like Judas who was physicallyproximately close to Jesus, but relationally far. Let’s not just be associated with him. Let’s not lower our expectations to what we can see, but expand them to trust him for what we cannot see. And if we do, we will truly worship him like Mary. 

Response question: Where are you today?

 

More in Matthew

February 9, 2025

Jesus Foretells Peter's Denial

February 2, 2025

The Lord’s Supper

January 12, 2025

The Greatest Commandment