Read­ing Time: 2 minutes

Introduction

After the Len­ten peri­od, fol­lows the Palm Sunday (also called Pas­sion Sunday) that marks the begin­ning of the Holy Week. The Palm/Passion Sunday is the first day of the Holy Week. Fol­low­ing the Gos­pel account accord­ing to Luke, the fol­low­ing were act­ively and con­vin­cingly involved in the betray­al of Jesus:

a) The pion­eer betray­ers: the chief priests (Greek: archiere­is), the scribes/teachers of the law (Greek: gram­mateis), the cap­tains or officers of the temple, and the eld­ers (Greek: pres­b­uteroi), cf. Luke 22:2.4.52. They are betray­ers because they betrayed that which they rep­res­en­ted – cus­todi­ans of justice and upright­ness. The fire of betray­al was ignited by them (cf. Luke 22:1–2).…

The betrayers of justice

Luke 22:1–2 reads “now the fest­iv­al of Unleavened Bread, which is called the Pas­sov­er, was near. The chief priests and the scribes were look­ing for a way to put Jesus to death, for they were afraid of the people” (cf. Mark 14:1). Mark 14:43 spe­cifies that the chief priests, the scribes and the eld­ers sent the crowd with swords and clubs who arrived with Judas Iscari­ot (cf. Luke 22:52). In Mat­thew 16:21, we read “from that time on, Jesus began to show his dis­ciples that he must go to Jer­u­s­alem and under­go great suf­fer­ing at the hands of the eld­ers, the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised” (cf. Mark 8:31; Luke 9:22). The expres­sionfrom that time marks the con­clu­sion of Jesus’ Galilean mis­sion and the begin­ning of his jour­ney to Jer­u­s­alem for the pas­sion. Jesus says he will suf­fer greatly. Sur­pris­ingly, the agents of such great suf­fer­ing were the eld­ers (Greek: pres­b­uteroi), the chief priests (Greek: archiere­is), and the Scribes (Greek: gram­mateis), the teach­ers of the law and cus­tom, who accord­ing to Mark, have been look­ing for a way to arrest and kill him.

Conclusion – The Judas Iscariot in us

There are likes of Judas Iscari­ot every­where. You have them among broth­ers and sis­ters, hus­bands and wives, rela­tions, friends; politi­cians; among the ordained class and the reli­gious insti­tu­tions, and in the churches. Like the algorithms of the anti­vir­us, they keep col­lect­ing inform­a­tion (wrong and fals­i­fied inform­a­tion) about oth­ers, send­ing them to those who have paid them, those who have giv­en them some­thing or those who have prom­ised them one thing or the oth­er, or even those from whom they hope to obtain some­thing. Greedy and god­less indi­vidu­als! Judas Iscari­ot was prom­ised money by the chief priests, the scribes and the eld­ers. You, who betray your broth­er, sis­ter, friend, neigh­bour, how much have you been paid to do that? What have you been giv­en or prom­ised? Who paid you? And who has made such irres­ist­ible gift or prom­ise to you? Due to greed, neg­at­ive jeal­ousy, insec­ur­ity, inferi­or­ity com­plex, the quest to impress oth­ers, arrog­ance, pride, you betray someone cre­ated in the image and like­ness of God. You des­troy someone with gos­sips. Why?

FOR DETAILS, GET YOUR OWN COPIES OF THE BOOK “THE WORD OF LIFE:
SUNDAY REFLECTIONS” (vols. I‑II-III)!! The reflec­tion for the Palm Sunday
© is found in vol. III pages 210–214. See also vol.
I, pages 132–149. Happy reading!

For details on how to get it, con­tact the author on this link: https://m.me/uchennabiblia?fbclid=IwAR2yeg4a6sDGBp9QGkIvKj6FSADumMokN6lshdE0zuo-JHs6qOmlhA7jyHo
or email me at: postmaster@uchennabiblia.com
or simply send an SMS on 08116100926, and I will get back to you.

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