Mark 14:10-11 – Grace should motivate responsible choices

One of the saddest passages of the Bible is found in these two verses. We are told that, “Judas Iscariot, who was one of the twelve, went off to the chief priests in order to betray Him to them. They were glad when they heard this, and promised to give him money. And he began seeking how to betray Him at an opportune time.” 

This was a shadowy moment. One who had walked so closely with Jesus, and whom the Lord had loved so dearly, should do such a mean thing. Some had argued and tried to make a case that Judas was misled. They said that he was probably expecting Christ to usher in the Messianic Kingdom by driving away the Romans. Though he had walked with Jesus coming to three years, yet nothing that he expected had happened. So they said that Judas was disappointed so he thought he might as well make some quick cash out of his disappointment with the Lord.    

Mark underscored the fact that Judas Iscariot was one of the twelve. The Scripture quite pointedly said that Judas Iscariot was the one who initiated the wicked plan. It was he who went to the chief priests deliberately with his ill-intentioned proposal to betray the Lord. How do we know that he was the one who initiated the betrayal? Verse 11 explicitly said that the chief priests were glad when they heard his proposal. It was then that they promised to give him money. This indicates to us that he was obviously driven by greed and covetousness. Although Luke 22:3 and John 13:2 and 27 tell us that Satan caused the betrayal of Jesus, but Mark put the moral failure squarely at Judas’ feet. Unfortunately we can see that his betrayal of the Lord was premeditated, and he did not give himself a chance to repent and be forgiven, by committing suicide.

Mark was very forthright when he said that “…he began seeking how to betray Him at an opportune time.”  He was not a victim of circumstance. As a person with free moral choice, he chose on his own accord to betray the Master. In these two verses, we find a good reason why we should seek to balance grace and human responsibility. While God’s grace is freely available to us, we are called to act responsibly in our choice to appropriate the benefits of His grace.   

Evil will always lurk around us, but God’s grace will also always be available. But the choice remains ours. We either take the route to follow God and move in tandem with Him or choose to pamper the “self” life and violate God’s best for us.